Edna St. Vincent Millay Quotes

Your heart is greater than your wounds.

There is nothing noble about suffering except the love and forgiveness with which we meet it. Many believe that if they are suffering they are closer to God, but I have met very few who could keep their heart open to their suffering enough for that to be true. (124)

A man ought to live in this world like a lotus leaf, which grows in water but is never moistened by water; so a man ought to live in the world - his heart to God and his hands to work.

Only the soul that knows the mighty grief can know the mighty rapture. Sorrows come to stretch out spaces in the heart for joy.

What you lose in the world will not be a loss to your soul.

Let us make our hearts as big as an ocean, to go beyond all the trifles of the world and see it only as a picture. We can then enjoy the world without being in any way affected by it.

God be thanked that there are some in the world to whose hearts the barnacles will not cling.

Prayer is essentially about making the heart strong so that fear cannot penetrate there.

The mind creates the abyss. The heart crosses over it. Love is the bridge.

Everyone is so afraid of death, but the real sufis just laugh: nothing tyrannizes their hearts. What strikes the oyster shell does not damage the pearl

Great spiritual traditions are used as a means to ripen us, to bring us face to face with our life, and to help us to see in a new way by developing a stillness of mind and a strength of heart.

Whatever your difficulties - a devastated heart, financial loss, feeling assaulted by the conflicts around you, or a seemingly hopeless illness - you can always remember that you are free in every moment to set the compass of your heart to your highest intentions. In fact, the two things that you are always free to do - despite your circumstances - are to be present and to be willing to love.

The mind may be exhausted, but the language of the heart is inexhaustible.

Sometimes I think the human heart is just a simple shelf. There is only so much you can pile onto it before something falls off an edge and you are left to pick up the pieces.

I have pondered long, and I know now that only the pure of heart forgive the thirst that leads to dead waters. And only the sure of foot can give a hand to him who stumbles.

Whether joy or sorrow, pain or pleasure; whatsoever may befall thee, accept it serenely with an unvanquished heart.

A Warrior of the Light has no regrets, because regrets can kill.

You don't have to place your hand on Mary's heart to get strength and consolation and rescue, and all the other things we need to get through life. You can place it right here on your own heart. Your own heart.

Let not therefore thy heart be troubled, neither let it fear. Trust in me, and put thy confidence in my mercy. When thou thinkest thyself farthest off from me, oftentimes I am nearest unto thee. When thou countest almost all to be lost, then oftentimes the greatest gain of reward is close at hand. All is not lost, when any thing falleth out contrary. Thou oughtest not to judge according to present feeling; nor so to take any grief, or give thyself over to it.

I will greet this day with love in my heart. For this is the greatest secret of success in all ventures. Muscles can split a shield and even destroy life itself but only the unseen power of love can open the hearts of man.

I have a heart with room for every joy .

Whoever wishes to make progress in perfection should use particular diligence in not allowing himself to be led away by his passions, which destroy with one hand the spiritual edifice which is rising by the labors of the other. But to succeed well in this, resistance should be begun while the passions are yet weak; for after they are thoroughly rooted and grown up, there is scarcely any remedy.

Yes, you who must leave everything that you cannot control, It begins with your family, and soon it comes round to your soul. Well I've been where you're hanging, I think I can see how you're pinned: When you're not feeling holy your loneliness says that you've sinned.

Silence fertilizes the deep place where personality grows. A life with a peaceful center can weather all storms.