inflammation of a cardiac valve, usually caused by syphilis or rheumatic fever.
- Hard hearts, and cold, like weights of icy stone —Percy Bysshe Shelley
- The heart errs like the head —Anatole France
- The heart (especially the Jewish heart) is a fiddle: you pull the strings, and out come songs, mostly plaintive —Sholom Aleichem
- The heart is like the sky, a part of heaven, but changes night and day too, like the sky —Lord Byron
- The heart is like a creeping plant, which withers unless it has something around which it can entwine —Charles James Apperley
- The heart is like an instrument whose strings steal nobler music from Life’s many frets —Gerald Massey
- Heart like a child —Mary Hood
- The heart of the wise, like a mirror, should reflect all objects, without being sullied by any —Confucius
- Hearts isolated behind the bars of ribs and jumping around like monkeys —Yehuda Amichai
- Hearts … mellow as well-tilled soil in which good seed flourishes —Valdimir G. Korolenko
- Hearts opening like jaws —Sharon Olds
- Heart trembling a little like the door for Elijah the Prophet —Yehuda Amichai
- A heart without affection is like a purse without money —Benjamin Mandelstamm
- Her heart divided like two wings —Carson McCullers
- Her heart sank like a wounded bird —Ellen Glasgow
- His heart ached like Niagara Falls —Frank O’Hara
- His heart is like a viper, hissing and spitting poison at God —Jonathan Edwards
- His heart … like the sea, ever open, brave and free —F. E. Weatherly
- His heart sagged in its net of veins like a rock in a sling —George Garrett
- His heart swelled up in his throat like a toad —Oakley Hall
- His heart was open as the day —Anon ballad, “Old Grimes”
- The human heart is like a ship on a stormy sea driven
about by winds blowing from all four corners of heaven —Martin Luther
- The human heart is like a millstone in a mill: when you put wheat under it, it turns and grinds and bruises the wheat to flour; if you put no wheat, it still grinds on, but then ‘tis itself it grinds and wears away —Martin Luther
- A man’s heart is like a sponge, just soaked with emotion and sentiment of which he can squeeze a little bit out for every pretty woman —Helen Rowland
- A man’s heart, like an automobile, is always apt to skid and ditch him just at the psychological moment when he thinks he has it under perfect control —Helen Rowland
- My heart clenched like a fist —Charles Johnson
The fist comparison is also effective for describing a grim, pinched facial expression.
The first stanza of A Birthday. from which this is taken, contains yet another heart comparison: “My heart is like a rainbow shell that paddles in a halcyon sea.”
This simile is the title of a poem which begins with yet another simile: “A little spirit in me that’s wound up like a clock.”
- As the seat of feeling and intellect, heart has been used since around 825.
See also related terms for intellect .