The heart is a small thing, but desireth great matters. It is not sufficient for a kite's dinner, yet the whole world is not sufficient for it.

Quarles contrasts the physical smallness of the human heart with the vastness of its appetites. The image of a “kite’s dinner” (a scavenging bird’s meal) underscores how little flesh there is in a heart as mere matter, yet the second clause insists that human longing—whether for wealth, honor, pleasure, or even spiritual fulfillment—can be boundless. The aphorism critiques worldly acquisitiveness: no amount of external possession can finally “fill” desire. In a devotional frame typical of Quarles, the implication is that the heart’s disproportionate hunger points beyond finite goods toward something infinite, and that misdirected desire becomes a source of restlessness and dissatisfaction.