quotations about passion
The philosopher who would fain extinguish his passions resembles the chemist who would like to let his furnace go out.
CHAMFORT
The Cynic's Breviary
There is not, in philosophy, a subject of more nice speculation than this of the different causes and effects of the calm and violent passions. It is evident passions influence not the will in proportion to their violence, or the disorder they occasion in the temper; but on the contrary, that when a passion has once become a settled principle of action, and is the predominant inclination of the soul, it commonly produces no longer any sensible agitation. As repeated custom and its own force have made every thing yield to it, it directs the actions and conduct without that opposition and emotion, which so naturally attend every momentary gust of passion. We must, therefore, distinguish betwixt a calm and a weak passion; betwixt a violent and a strong one. But notwithstanding this, it is certain, that when we would govern a man, and push him to any action, it will commonly be better policy to work upon the violent than the calm passions, and rather take him by his inclination, than what is vulgarly called his reason. We ought to place the object in such particular situations as are proper to encrease the violence of the passion. For we may observe, that all depends upon the situation of the object, and that a variation in this particular will be able to change the calm and the violent passions into each other. Both these kinds of passions pursue good, and avoid evil; and both of them are encreased or diminished by the encrease or diminution of the good or evil. But herein lies the difference betwixt them: The same good, when near, will cause a violent passion, which, when remote, produces only a calm one. As this subject belongs very properly to the present question concerning the will, we shall here examine it to the bottom, and shall consider some of those circumstances and situations of objects, which render a passion either calm or violent.
DAVID HUME
"Of the Causes of the Violent Passions", A Treatise of Human Nature
A single spark of occasion discharges the child of passions into a thousand crackers of desire.
JOHANN CASPAR LAVATER
Aphorisms on Man
If you can't figure out your purpose, figure out your passion. For your passion will lead you directly to your purpose.
ANONYMOUS
When passion is dead, or absent, then the magnificent throb of beauty is incomprehensible and even a little despicable.
D. H. LAWRENCE
Lady Chatterley's Lover
Passion is never bad. It just needs to be channeled correctly.
ROB MORRISON
"Has your passion for your brand become a distraction?", Marketing Mag, November 23, 2016
You know that when I hate you, it is because I love you to a point of passion that unhinges my soul.
JULIE-JEANNE-ELIONORE DE LESPINASSE
letter, 1774
Passion has little to do with euphoria and everything to do with patience. It is not about feeling good. It is about endurance. Like patience, passion comes from the same Latin root: pati. It does not mean to flow with exuberance. It means to suffer.
MARK Z. DANIELEWSKI
House of Leaves
Somewhere between fear and sex passion is. The way there is sudden. The way out is worse.
JEANETTE WINTERSON
The Passion
For passion, be it observed, brings insight with it; it can give a sort of intelligence to simpletons, fools, and idiots, especially during youth.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Les Célibataires
Only I discern
Infinite passion, and the pain
Of finite hearts that yearn.
ROBERT BROWNING
"Two in Campagna"
Passion maketh man a beast.
L. E. DUPIN
attributed, Day's Collacon
Only passions can raise a man above the level of the animal.
ANDRÉ MAUROIS
The Art of Writing