# Why is the heart considered the center of love and affection? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [July 11, 2000, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-heart-considered-the-center-of-love-and-affection/25218 "2000-07-11T14:49:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Lazarus\_Long](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8edcca/32.png) [@Lazarus\_Long](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lazarus_Long)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2000, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-heart-considered-the-center-of-love-and-affection/25218/1 "2000-07-11T14:49:12Z")
Strangely (to modern ears) the Bible and subsequently written Hebrew prayers often refer to the _Kidneys_ as the seat of thought. God is even referred to in one prayer as “Diviner of kidneys and heart”! ---
**Author:** ![Arnold\_Winkelried](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2000, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-heart-considered-the-center-of-love-and-affection/25218/2 "2000-07-11T18:03:32Z")
Thank you for posting your comment. Please include a link to Cecil’s column if it’s on the straight dope web site. To include a link, it can be as simple as including the web page location in your post (make sure there is a space before and after the text of the URL). Cecil’s column can be found on-line at this link: [Why is the heart considered the center of love and affection? (16-Feb-1996)](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a5_271.html) ---
**Author:** ![Arnold\_Winkelried](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2000, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-heart-considered-the-center-of-love-and-affection/25218/3 "2000-07-11T18:27:00Z")
By the way, in ancient times, the liver was also considered to be the seat of emotions. [Encyclopædia Britannica](http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/article/9/0,5716,114999+7,00.html) says the following: > [@](#): > > In Mesopotamia, augury was associated with sacrifice and perhaps developed from it. As the priests watched the rising smoke to divine the answer to a ritual query, they observed the movement of birds as auspicious or inauspicious. As a further augury the viscera of the sacrificial victim were examined, particularly the liver, which (rather than the heart) was conceived as the vital centre. That belief gives rise to the expression “pigeon-livered” for cowardly in Shakespeare’s Hamlet (~1600): Hamlet, Act II, Scene II Ha? Why I should take it: for it cannot be, But I am Pigeon-Liuer’d, and lacke Gall To make Oppression bitter, or ere this, I should haue fatted all the Region Kites With this Slaues Offall, bloudy: a Bawdy villaine, Remorselesse, Treacherous, Letcherous, kindles villaine! ---
**Author:** ![dubikan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7feea3/32.png) [@dubikan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dubikan)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2000, 6:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-heart-considered-the-center-of-love-and-affection/25218/4 "2000-07-12T06:58:10Z")
I wouldn’t count on “klayot”, the Hebrew term refering to kidneys, meant the same thing back then as it does today (or when the bible was translated to European languages). From the feable memory of the old testament that I have, me being an atheist forced to study bible by the Israeli schooling system, I can’t for the life of me remember any usage of the word “kravayim”, which means “entrails”, or “all that gunk in the vicinity of the stomache”. It may very well bethat “klayot” simply meant “entrails”. After all - when our heart isn’t yearning for our love or pounding with expectation for battle, we sometimes have a “gut feeling” that something is wrong. That’s probably what god is supposed to be inspecting. ---
**Author:** ![mipsman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mipsman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mipsman)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2000, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-heart-considered-the-center-of-love-and-affection/25218/5 "2000-07-12T19:20:01Z")
I see a clear conflict of interest here. It is the brain that is saying that the brain is the center of intellect and personality. Shouldn’t we be looking for a second opinion. ---
**Author:** ![Arnold\_Winkelried](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2000, 6:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-heart-considered-the-center-of-love-and-affection/25218/6 "2000-07-13T06:34:11Z")
The column ( **including** Slug Signorino’s illustration) can also be found on pages 271-272 of Cecil Adams’ book “[_Triumph of the Straight Dope_](http://www.straightdope.com/otheroutlets/books.html)”.