77 Motivational Heart Quotes to Awaken Your Passion and Purpose
Life beats to the rhythm of our hearts. This little organ has become so much more than just a body part. It means love, compassion, and being alive. In this collection, we will explore the heart quotes and sayings that represent these meanings. So open your hearts and get ready to connect with these words.
Quick links to our selection of heart quotes:
Best Heart Quotes About Kindness
When we say "heart," we usually think of kindness, compassion, and love. These good vibes toward others and ourselves are good for our well-being and for our heart health.
Research shows that acts of kindness can trigger oxytocin2, which then triggers nitric oxide. This compound dilates our blood vessels and lowers blood pressure.
As you read our favorite quotes about the heart, turn your heart's kindness into action.
"I want to touch the heart of the world and make it smile."
- Charles de Lint
"There is no charm equal to tenderness of heart."
- Jane Austen
"Among the things you can give and still keep are your word, a smile, and a grateful heart."
- Zig Ziglar
"When you speak from the heart, you are not giving a speech, you are communicating."
- Michael Bassey Johnson
"Beauty is not in the face; beauty is a light in the heart."
- Kahlil Gibran
"It is better in prayer to have a heart without words than words without a heart."
- Mahatma Gandhi
"Beauty is in the heart of the beholder."
- H. G. Wells
"Sometimes the heart sees what is invisible to the eye."
- H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
Sayings About The Heart And Mind
The heart and the mind are often at war in our lives. The heart symbolizes emotion, and the mind is logic - it’s an old debate.
But harmony is key. The heart triggers emotions, but the mind provides balance through logic and reason. In the union of both, we find true wisdom and sound judgment.
Reflect on this message through the following nuggets of wisdom from activists to philosophers as you read our next selection of quotes.
"Together, people with good hearts and fine minds can move the world."
- William J. Clinton
"A good head and a good heart are always a formidable combination."
- Nelson Mandela
"When the heart speaks, the mind finds it indecent to object."
- Milan Kundera
"One ought to hold on to one’s heart; for if one lets it go, one soon loses control of the head too."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
"The human heart feels things the eyes cannot see, and knows what the mind cannot understand."
- Robert Valett
"You can only trust your emotions as you can lie to yourself with your brain but not your heart."
- Carl White
A kind heart is a fountain of gladness.
~ Washington Irving
Follow Your Heart Quotes
The phrase “follow your heart” means following your heart’s desires. That’s a big part of the Japanese concept of Ikigai.
Ikigai is a lifestyle that balances practical needs with life’s passions. One of its key components is loving what you do daily. After reading these heart quotes, dive deeper into this idea through our article Ikigai - Finding Purpose And Happiness In Life.
"If you follow your dreams, it means you follow your heart. If you do follow your heart, I don’t think you can go wrong."
- Celine Dion
"Only do what your heart tells you."
- Princess Diana
"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma--which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition."
- Steve Jobs
"The heart is a muscle, and you strengthen muscles by using them. The more I lead with my heart, the stronger it gets."
- Mark Miller
"You do have to follow your heart, otherwise you’re living a false life."
- Eric Mabius
"Listen to advice, but follow your heart."
- Conway Twitty
"There are many things in life that will catch your eye, but only a few will catch your heart. Pursue these."
- Michael Nolan
Motivational Heart Quotes To Pick Your Spirits Up
When your heart feels heavy, happiness can be a lifeline. Take a break and find things that lift you up: a walk in nature, your favorite meal, time with a good friend.
Words can also bring joy to your heart. Here are some heart quotes to read whenever you need a boost.
"Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together."
- Marilyn Monro
"Be brave enough to break your own heart."
- Cheryl Strayed
Inspirational Heart Quotes Embodying Success
The path to success is tough and full of obstacles that test your will. In this section, the quotes are about the heart of this journey.
Putting your heart into your passion makes the journey more rewarding. It also fuels your motivation, which is often up and down. But always discipline yourself and learn to take breaks. For more inspiration, go to our progress and effort quote collection.
"Put your heart, mind, intellect, and soul even to your smallest acts. This is the secret of success."
- Swami Sivananda
"Don’t be pushed around by the fears in your mind. Be led by the dreams in your heart."
- Roy T. Bennett
"Wherever you go, go with all your heart."
- Confucius
"It's the spirit here that counts. The time may be long, the vehicle may be strange or unexpected. But if the dream is held close to the heart, and imagination is applied to what there is close at hand, everything is still possible."
- Robert Fulghum
"Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakens."
- Carl Jung
The Importance Of Leading With A Heart
Leadership isn’t just about logic or strategy. It must also involve compassion. Leading with the heart means putting empathy at the core of decision-making. It’s about understanding others’ feelings and experiences and using that to guide actions.
When leaders embody these qualities, they humanize workplaces, societies, and nations. The heart in leadership is not a weakness but a strength.
"Great leadership usually starts with a willing heart, a positive attitude, and a desire to make a difference."
- Mac Anderson
"Leadership is fragile. It is more a matter of mind and heart than resources, and it seemed that we no longer had the heart for those things that demanded discipline, commitment, and risk."
- Gene Kranz
"To handle yourself, use your head; to handle others, use your heart."
- Eleanor Roosevelt
Heartwarming Quotes To Make You Fall In Love
The link between the heart and love is no accident1. It goes beyond symbolism. When we connect emotionally, oxytocin is released, often linked to positive emotions.
It makes us feel love and protection, especially in parent-child and romantic relationships. It also increases empathy and trust, so it’s linked to love.
Related read: Valentines Quotes.
"Let choice whisper in your ear and love murmur in your heart. Be ready. Here comes life."
- Maya Angelou
"Being listened to and heard is one of the greatest desires of the human heart. And those who learn to listen are the most loved and respected."
- Richard Carlson
"There are friendships imprinted in our hearts that will never be diminished by time and distance."
- Dodinsky
"In all the world, there is no heart for me like yours. In all the world, there is no love for you like mine."
- Maya Angelou
"A joyful heart is the normal result of a heart burning with love. She gives most who gives with joy."
- Mother Teresa
Bittersweet Heart Quotes About Love
Love isn’t always a bed of roses. It can bring joy, but it can also bring pain, from heartbreak to unrequited love. This mix of sweet and bitter makes for a rich experience that shapes us.
See how the highs and lows contribute to the beauty of love through the heart quotes below.
"I would rather have eyes that cannot see; ears that cannot hear; lips that cannot speak, than a heart that cannot love."
- Robert Tizon
"Tis better to have loved and lost. Than never to have loved at all."
- Alfred Lord Tennyson, In Memoriam
"It's amazing how someone can break your heart and you can still love them with all the little pieces."
- Ella Harper
"In spite of your heart, I think; alas, poor heart! If you spite it for my sake, I will spite it for yours; for I will never love that which my friend hates."
- William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing
"Pleasure of love lasts but a moment, Pain of love lasts a lifetime."
- Bette Davis
"You can love someone so much, but you can never love people as much as you can miss them."
- John Green
"I'd rather love a million times and have my heart broken every time than hold a permanently empty heart forever."
- H.C. Paye
I think… if it is true that there are as many minds as there are heads, then there are as many kinds of love as there are hearts.
~ Leo Tolstoy
Quotes About Broken Hearts
The negative side of love can break your heart. But retreating into the abyss of heartbreak has a purpose. This deep pain sears in and teaches us about loss and love.
Take your time and don’t press next too fast. Be patient - we need to feel these emotions, acceptance builds resilience.
"A broken heart hurts as badly in wartime as in peace."
- Kristin Hannah
"The shattering of a heart when being broken is the loudest quiet ever."
- Carroll Bryant
"I'd rather have a broken arm than a broken heart."
- Christie Brinkley
"The most terrible thing about it is not that it breaks one’s heart—hearts are made to be broken—but that it turns one’s heart to stone."
- Oscar Wilde
"And they can’t understand, what hurts more— Missing the other person, or pretending not to."
- Khadija Rupa
Lessons On Having Your Heart Broken
Why do we fall and get back up again? Heartbreak feels like a fall too hard. After you’ve felt the negative emotions, it’s time to let the pain teach you.
Each piece of our broken hearts contains a lesson, a revelation about ourselves, and an opportunity to grow. It’s like the heart needs to break to make room for better and stronger things. After all, a phoenix only rises from the ashes.
Aside from the pains of love, the following heart quotes can be turned into lessons from failures if we view them with the proper perspective.
"It is strange how often a heart must be broken before the years can make it wise."
- Sara Teasdale
"A broken heart is just the growing pains necessary so that you can love more completely when the real thing comes along."
- J.S.B. Morse
"Suffering has been stronger than all other teaching, and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be. I have been bent and broken, but - I hope - into a better shape."
- Charles Dickens, Great Expectations
"Every time your heart is broken, a doorway cracks open to a world full of new beginnings, new opportunities."
- Patti Roberts
"The emotion that can break your heart is sometimes the very one that heals it."
- Nicholas Sparks, At First Sight
"Don't be reckless with other people's hearts. Don't put up with people who are reckless with yours."
- Jimi Hendrix
"I think heartbreak is something you learn to live with as opposed to learn to forget."
- Kate Winslet
Profound Heart Quotes To Let Your Heart Move On
As I mentioned above, heartache has lessons and experiences. Going through loss and grief asks you to get to know your heart’s strength.
Moving on gives you a new chance to find joy, revisit dormant passions, or invest in new ones. Once you feel lighter after reading the quotes below, check out our self-care ideas to help you on your healing journey.
"Nothing helps a broken heart like having someone wonderful give you theirs."
- Rita Stradling
"The broken heart. You think you will die, but you keep living, day after day after terrible day."
- Charles Dickens, Great Expectations
"The cure for a broken heart is simple, my lady. A hot bath and a good night's sleep."
- Margaret George
"Only time can heal your broken heart. Just as only time can heal his broken arms and legs."
- Miss Piggy
"Cry. Forgive. Learn. Move on. Let your tears water the seeds of your future happiness."
- Steve Maraboli
"Some people are going to leave, but that's not the end of your story. That's the end of their part in your story."
- Faraaz Kazi
The sorrow we feel when we lose a loved one is the price we pay to have had them in our lives.
~ Rob Liano
Noteworthy Heart Quotes In Literature
For centuries, literature has given us heartfelt conversations about love and the human heart as a wellspring of deep emotions and passions.
Helen Keller said only our hearts can feel the most beautiful things. Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe also said our hearts and the emotions they carry are ours alone, a declaration of their worth.
Read on the rest of the heart quotes below.
"All the knowledge I possess everyone else can acquire, but my heart is all my own."
- Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
"By innocence I swear, and by my youth, I have one heart, one bosom and one truth, And that no woman has, nor never none Shall mistress be of it, save I alone."
- William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
"My heart stopped. It just stopped beating. And for the first time in my life, I had that feeling. You know, like the world is moving all around you, all beneath you, all inside you, and you're floating. Floating in midair. And the only thing keeping you from drifting away is the other person's eyes. They're connected to yours by some invisible physical force, and they hold you fast while the rest of the world swirls and twirls and falls completely away."
- Wendelin Van Draanen, Flipped
"The best and most beautiful things in this world cannot be seen or even heard, but must be felt with the heart."
- Helen Keller
"So I turned the radio on, I turned the radio up, and this woman was singing my song:the lover's in love, and the other's run away, lover is crying 'cause the other won't stay."
- Lisa Loeb,
Powerful Heart Captions To Post Online
In this last part, we will get to the heart of the matter in just a few words. Social media can inspire and connect us through messages of love and purpose. So add the heart quotes from this article to your posts and feed your timelines with good vibes.
"One love, one heart, one destiny."
- Bob Marley
"The heart is an arrow. It demands aim to land true."
- Leigh Bardugo
"One day with life and heart Is more than time enough to find a world."
- James Russell Lowell.
"Smile, it is the key that fits the lock of everybody's heart."
- Anthony J. D'Angelo
"One of the hardest things in life is having words in your heart that you can't utter."
- James Earl Jones
"Beauty is not in the face; beauty is a light in the heart."
- Kahlil Gibran
"The seat of knowledge is in the head, of wisdom, in the heart."
- William Hazlitt
"When your heart speaks, take good notes."
- Judith Campbell
Glossary Terms:
| 1 | Wudarczyk, O. A., Earp, B. D., Guastella, A. J., & Savulescu, J. (2013). Could intranasal oxytocin be used to enhance relationships? Research imperatives, clinical policy, and ethical considerations. Current Opinion in Psychiatry, 26(5), 474–484. |
| 2 | Hamilton, D. R. (2021). The five side effects of kindness: This book will make you feel better, be happier & live longer. Hay House, Inc. |
Isabela is a determined millennial passionate about continuously seeking out ways to make an impact. With a bachelor of science degree in civil engineering with honors, Isabela’s research expertise and interest in artistic works, coupled with a creative mindset, offers readers a fresh take on different environmental, social, and personal development topics.
