A Quote by George Steiner

The most important tribute any human being can pay to a poem or a piece of prose he or she really loves is to learn it by heart. Not by brain, by heart; the expression is vital.

George Steiner

Quote Topics

Any Being Brain Expression He Or She Heart Human Human Being Important Learn Loves Most Pay Piece Poem Prose Really She The Most Important Tribute Vital

Quote Author

George Steiner
American - Novelist
Born: April 23, 1929

Of all the human values, three are most important. The foremost is love of God. Where there is love there is sacrifice. There arises purity of heart. There should be a fusion of love, sacrifice and purity. They are not mere human qualities. They constitute vital organs of a human being. They are as essential for a human being as the head, hands and legs for the body. Without these attributes, no one is a complete human being.

Sathya Sai Baba

We speak of memorizing as getting something 'by heart,' which really means 'by head.' But getting a poem or prose passage truly 'by heart' implies getting it by mind and memory and understanding and delight.

John Hollander

This business of really knowing people, deep down, including your own self, it is not something you can learn in school or from a book. It takes your whole being to do it—your eyes and your ears, your brain and your heart. Maybe your heart most of all. —Bobby Goodspeed

James Howe

In that sweet mood when pleasure loves to pay Tribute to ease; and, of its joy secure, The heart luxuriates with indifferent things, Wasting its kindliness on stocks and stones, And on the vacant air.

William Wordsworth

Our Sages refer to Prayer as "Service of the Heart". But the heart cannot work properly unless the brain functions to stimulate and control its operation. In the physiology of Prayer, too, the mind plays as vital a role as the heart.

Immanuel Jakobovits, Baron Jakobovits

There are three things, after all, that a poem must reach: the eye, the ear, and what we may call the heart or the mind. It is the most important of all to reach the heart of the reader.

Robert Frost

The line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

I think that music, being an expression of the human heart, or of the human being itself, does express just what is happening - the whole of human experience at the particular time that it is being expressed.

John Coltrane

At every stage, addiction is driven by one of the most powerful, mysterious, and vital forces of human existence. What drives addiction is longing--a longing not just of brain, belly, or loins but finally of the heart.

Cornelius Plantinga

My brain has no heart, and my heart has no brain. That's why when I speak my mind, I appear heartless and when I do what's in my heart I seem thoughtless.

Clarissa Pinkola Estes

When did "sentimental" become a pejorative barb? I do not at all share the notion that a piece of music, or a poem, or a film that bypasses the brain and aims straight for the heart . . . should automatically be heaped with scorn. I think it is symptomatic of a sad and dangerous impoverishment of spirit.

Bill Richardson

The heart is God's most magnificent creation, and the prize over which he fights the kingdom of darkness. Now consider this - marriage is the sanctuary of the heart. You have been entrusted with the heart of another human being. Whatever else your life's great mission will entail, loving and defending this heart next to you is part of your great quest.

John Eldredge

And she [Eleanor Roosevelt]loves being a star. And she loves being a teacher and a leader and a mentor and a big friend. Also, she's tall. She's one of the tallest girls in the school. And she's an athlete. And she writes many years later, at the end of her life, she writes that the happiest day, the happiest single day of her life was the day that she made the first team at field hockey. And I have to say, as a biographer, that's the most important fact. I

Blanche Wiesen Cook

Neuroscience is by far the most exciting branch of science because the brain is the most fascinating object in the universe. Every human brain is different - the brain makes each human unique and defines who he or she is.

Stanley B. Prusiner

The private reader of listener can become an executant of felt meaning when he learns the poem or the musical passage by heart. To learn by heart is to afford the text or music an indwelling clarity and life-force.

George Steiner

Learn poetry by heart. If you know a poem by heart, no one can take it away from you, and you can take advantage of it anytime.