Quotes on Passion

In music the passions enjoy themselves.

Music, of all the liberal arts, has the greatest influence over the passions, and it is that to which the legislator ought to give the greatest encouragement.

Democracy is no easy form of government. Few nations have been able to sustain it. For it requires that we take the chances of freedom; that the liberating play of reason be brought to bear on events filled with passion; that dissent be allowed to make its appeal for acceptance; that men chance error in their search for the truth.

We fear passion and laugh at too much love and those who love too much. And still we long to feel.

To avoid pain we must know the conditions of health. For the accomplishment of this end we must rely upon investigation instead of faith, upon labor in place of prayer. Most misery is produced by ignorance. Passions sow the seeds of pain.

Why should we desire the destruction of human passions? Take passions from human beings and what is left? The great object should be not to destroy passions, but to make them obedient to the intellect. To indulge passion to the utmost is one form of intemperance - to destroy passion is another. The reasonable gratification of passion under the domination of the intellect is true wisdom and perfect virtue.

Is not the history of real civilization the slow and gradual emancipation of the intellect, of the judgment, from the mastery of passion? Is not that man civilized whose reason sits the crowned monarch of his brain - whose passions are his servants?

When passions and appetites are stronger than the intellect, men are savages; when the intellect governs the passions, when the passions are servants, men are civilized. The people need education - facts - philosophy.

War forgets peace. Peace forgives war. War is the death of the life human. Peace is the birth of the Life Divine. Our vital passions want war. Our psychic emotions desire peace.

Among all the many kinds of first love, that which begins in childish companionship is the strongest and most enduring: when passion comes to unite its force to long affection, love is at its spring-tide.

It is difficult to lay aside a confirmed passion.

As countless as grains of sand by the sea are human passions, and they all differ; all of them, vile or lofty, begin by being under a man's control and then become his terrible masters. Blessed is he who has chosen the most lofty of passions: his immeasurable bliss grows and multiplies tenfold with every hour and minute, and he penetrates deeper and deeper into the infinite paradise of his soul.

Passions are vices or virtues to their highest powers.

Love and desire are the spirit's wings to great deeds.

Men who are addicted to the passions are like the torch-carrier running against the wind; his hands are sure to be burned.

An unreflective mind is a poor roof. Passion, like the rain, floods the house. But if the roof is strong, there is shelter. Whoever follows impure thoughts Suffers in this world and the next. In both worlds he suffers And how greatly.

The hunger of passions is the greatest disease.

The profoundest thought or passion sleeps as in a mine, until an equal mind and heart finds and publishes it.

Bear in mind that you should conduct yourself in life as at a feast.

I respect people who feel things passionately. I do. But when someone is a judge, that is not what they should bring to the bench. It is not really passion, except in rare instances, that serves the bench well. It is, rather, an ability to understand the law and follow it.

Keeping passion at bay or surrendering blindly to it - which of these two attitudes is the least destructive?