“ the genius with the inborn passion seems not to feel them at all; he is free of all that inner friction and nervous waste. ”
William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902). copy citation
| Author | William James |
|---|---|
| Source | The Varieties of Religious Experience |
| Topic | passion genius |
| Date | 1902 |
| Language | English |
| Reference | |
| Note | |
| Weblink | http://www.gutenberg.org/files/621/621-h/621-h.html |
Context
“Your mere aspirant to a type of character, on the contrary, only shows, when your natural lover, fighter, or reformer, with whom the passion is a gift of nature, comes along, the hopeless inferiority of voluntary to instinctive action. He has deliberately to overcome his inhibitions; the genius with the inborn passion seems not to feel them at all; he is free of all that inner friction and nervous waste. To a Fox, a Garibaldi, a General Booth, a John Brown, a Louise Michel, a Bradlaugh, the obstacles omnipotent over those around them are as if non-existent. Could the rest of us so disregard them, there might be many such heroes, for many have the wish to live for similar ideals, and only the adequate degree of inhibition-quenching fury is lacking.145”
source
