Affection (psychology)

“ Touch sensations constitute a vast gamut for the expression of affection, with at one end the note of minimum personal affection in the brief and limited touch involved by the conventional hand-shake and the conventional kiss, and at the other end the final and intimate contact in which passion finds the supreme satisfaction of its most profound desire. ”

“ As we see in nature, when the heart is engaged by one object of affection, any demonstration of affection from another, which involves the relinquishment of it, not only does not give pleasure, but positive pain, though you know its reality, purity, and intensity; the fact is, the affections are occupied, and there is no place. ”

“ Of course this can only be understood of sympathetic affections, or those felt as a secondary effect after their first impression; for commonly direct and personal affections immediately call into life in us the instinct of our own happiness, they take up all our thoughts, and seize hold of us too powerfully to allow any room for the feeling of pleasure that accompanies them, when the affection is freed from all personal relation. ”

“ On earth, very probably, that deep affection would have become subject to the natural influences of weakening and decay; and, in the instance of a man and woman, the soul-possessing passion might have passed, to be replaced by a more moderate, custom-worn affection. ”

“ The same object which on one occasion arouses in us one emotion may arouse another emotion on another occasion, so that eventually, whenever we see that object, we respond by a blend of the two emotions. Your chief may terrify you on some occasions, at other times amaze you by his masterly grasp on affairs, and again win your affection by his care for your own welfare; so that your attitude toward "the boss" comes to be a blend of fear, admiration and gratitude. Religion and patriotism furnish good examples of compound emotions. ”

“ Imagine the effect of these arts upon a sensitive and romantic girl, a lonely and orphaned creature who was yearning for the voice of affection, and weaving many a beautiful fancy of future happiness, to be found only in reciprocal affection, and you will anticipate the result. ”

“ That is, in the sweetness of our love; not only in that sweetness of ordinary union, but also in that which flows from active and affective love, whether in the will by an act of affection, or outwardly in good works which tend to the service of the Beloved. For love, as I have said, where it is firmly rooted, ever runs after those joys and delights which are the acts of exterior and interior love. All this the soul does that it may be made like to the Beloved. ”

“ Love, so far as it means passion and desire, or exclusive attachment to one person, was considered as of this world, and everything belonging to this world was perishable, and therefore not worthy of our highest affection. ”

“ No doubt the illusions of love would be little known, and passion would see a diminution of its transports. But is it passion that in general ennobles human affairs? We need honest attachments and delicate delights, and all these we may obtain while still preserving our common-sense.... ”

“ While instances of complete devotion of one nature to another are comparatively rare, in any walk of life, and while most individuals are lacking in the bigness of heart and depth of feeling to be capable of it, under any circumstances, the importance of affection comes home to nearly everybody, to greater or less extent, and is treasured up as one of the essentials of life. ”

“ INGREDIENTS OF LOVE No one who has ever been truly in love will deny that this description, however romantic it may seem in its apparent exaggeration, is a realistic reflection of his feelings and impulses. As this brief review shows, Individual Preference, Monopolism, Coyness, Jealousy, Mixed Moods of Hope and Despair, Hyperbole, Adoration, Purity, Pride, Admiration of Personal Beauty, Gallantry, Self-sacrifice, Sympathy, and Affection, are the essential ingredients in that very composite mental state, which we call romantic love. ”

“ He had once been somewhat shaken by the dicta of the modern philosophers who relegate human love to the plane of an illness or an appetite. But where was the physical difference between the woman he so passionately loved and the one for whom he had never felt more than affection and pity? If from the strange adventure of his marriage he had lost some certainties concerning the human soul, he had gained the certainty that Love at least appertains to it. ”

“ From a purely sentimental point of view, we start by laying down, as an absolute axiom, that the human heart can only embrace one object of love, and that man can only fall truly in love once in his life. Yet if we abstract from love the distinct element which our senses contribute to it, it is seen to consist of nothing but a form of affection—an expansion of the soul analogous to friendship and to paternal or filial love, sentiments equally powerful, but which we recognize the duty of distributing between several objects. ”

“ Let these questions be answered by common sense and observation, and I ask no more. Let these questions be honestly answered, and the knot before us is untied. How does affection show itself among ourselves? ”

“ Experience teaches us that painful affections are those which have the most attraction for us, and thus that the pleasure we take in an affection is precisely in an inverse ratio to its nature. It is a phenomenon common to all men, that sad, frightful things, even the horrible, exercise over us an irresistible seduction, and that in presence of a scene of desolation and of terror we feel at once repelled and attracted by two equal forces. ”

“ Frankness and candour were among the virtues of my beloved: she listened to protestations of affection, and, rising above the little arts of her sex, avowed a reciprocal attachment. The measure of my bliss seemed now to be full: the purity of my passion was such, that the thoughts of the grosser animal desires never once occurred; and happy in loving, and in being beloved, we passed our time in all the innocent blandishments which truly virtuous Love inspires, without our imagination roaming even for an instant into the wilds of sensuality. ”

“ He is everywhere most welcomely greeted, caressed and influential, who is most magnetic, or female,—not in the effeminate sense, but in the glowing, radiant heartfulness of his nature,—is one who has not the most intellect, but most gentleness, love, affection, combined with it. ”

“ One by one the objects of our affection depart from us. But our affections remain, and like vines stretch forth their broken, wounded tendrils for support. The bleeding heart needs a balm to heal it; and there is none but the love of its kind,--none but the affection of a human heart! ”

“ How we glow over these novels of passion, when the story is told with any spark of truth and nature! And what fastens attention, in the intercourse of life, like any passage betraying affection between two parties? Perhaps we never saw them before, and never shall meet them again. But we see them exchange a glance, or betray a deep emotion, and we are no longer strangers. We understand them, and take the warmest interest in the development of the romance. All mankind love a lover. ”

“ Whenever he indulged the idea of her affection, he felt like one uplifted above the world—its base sorrows and still baser joys;—earth had for him but one sound of comfort—it was the name of her he loved! ”

“ From these simple facts is evolved the intimate relationship which exists between sexual love and other sentiments of sympathy, that is to say affection, or love in the more vague and more extended sense of the term. ”

“ Though distinct aptitudes, these two classes of emotions are most intimately connected: affection is strengthened by sympathy, and sympathy is strengthened by affection.... If love is excited by contrast, it is so only within certain limits. ”

“ We may know that the sun is shining somewhere and still shiver for lack of its glow and warmth. Love should be constantly made evident in little acts of thoughtfulness, words of sweetness and appreciation, smiles and handclasps of esteem. It should be shown to be a loving reality instead of a memory by patience, forbearance, courtesy, and kindness.
This theory of presumed confidence in the persistence of affection is one of the sad phases of married life. ”

“ No affectional emotion can have an existence in the normally developed human mind in the absence of an object of affection capable of reciprocal feeling.
Therefore, when a normally developed human being experiences the emotion of love or affection, there is necessarily existent an object of love or affection normally capable of reciprocal emotion. ”

“ Sexual instinct remains the centre round which everything revolves; nothing exists but through it. Character, imagination, vanity, imitation, fashion, time, place, and many other individual circumstances or social influences give to love—as emotion or passion—an unlimited plasticity. ”

“ Under these conditions the lovers will be aiming towards an ideal which recognizes that in wedded life all that is lasting in affection, in tender courtesy, in most intimate companionship, in sweetest demonstration, is possible without the physical union, which in itself is the most transitory of pleasures, but which in unlimited indulgence becomes the most domineering of passions, exhaustive of physical power and of mental vigor, and absolutely annihilating all true love. ”

“ Their attachment had been but physical; their affection only make-believe—to colour fact, and suffuse reality with romance. Only that insatiable appetite for life had really led her wrong; that passion for physical vitality ”

“ Thus, holding your affections free at this most important age, when the mind is first looking out intelligently upon the world, you will acquire a clearness of mental vision, a power of discrimination, and an insight into character, otherwise unattainable. But, if you permit yourself to fall in love, the balance of your mind is gone; you see nothing, you hear nothing, you feel nothing, that does not in some way connect itself with the object of your affections. ”

“ They are so well known, and rightly so admired, that it would be pedantry to analyze their composition; but you will note that the first is the pathos of passion, the second that of affection; and yet even in the first, you seem to perceive that the lovers have sacrificed their passion to the cherishing of a deep and rememberable impression. ”

“ This is the second half of the activity of upper or self-less or spiritual love. There is a tremendous great joy in exploring and discovering the beloved. For what is the beloved? She is that which I myself am not. ”

“ This instinctive and deep-seated differential feeling we may regard as the outcome of complementary features, mental, moral, or physical, in the two persons concerned; and experience shows us that, in nine cases out of ten, it is a reciprocal affection, that is to say, in other words, an affection roused in unison by varying qualities in the respective individuals. ”

“ If I were able to give girls only one sentence of advice as to how to keep their husbands in love with them, I should choose this one—Never revolt the man’s senses. For, remember, this particular aspect of affection called being in love is caused by the senses of both participants being exalted. ”

“ If love exists between couples, it ought to show itself in something better than mere empty words. If it does not, whole troops of discontentments come crowding at our fireside; for neglected duties, broken promises, lip affection, magnetic, or passional attraction, will not fill the bill of an anxious heart! ”

“ CIX. The test of all Love is its self-sacrificing unselfishness; and all amative love is false, unclean, abnormal, unless it be based upon the non-physical; it must be builded of respect, affection, that which is mental and spiritual ”

“ Attachment, preference, liking, fondness, affection, are expressions of somewhat the same meaning, but they do not present the idea of vigor, warmth, depth or intensity which seems to attach to the term love. ”

“ The sight of a beautiful youth awakens astonishment in the lover, and opens the door of his heart to the delight which the contemplation of this loveliness affords. Love takes possession of him so completely that all his thought and feeling goes out in it. If he finds himself in the presence of the beloved, he rests absorbed in gazing on him. Absent, he thinks of nought but him. If the beloved unexpectedly appears, he falls into confusion, changes color, turns alternately pale and red. ”

“ From the propelling power in affection, or from its collected and concentrated activity, the heart beats. Affection, or love, flows into the will, where, by the human organism, its endeavor is turned into the power of heart-throbs by Correspondence, just as the endeavor of affection is turned into the light of the understanding, and thence into the act of the hand. ”

“ The furnishings of our home, our tools, weapons, curiosities, collections, books, pictures—all contract a glow of associated feeling, that helps to palliate the dullness of life. The essence of affection, as distinguished from emotion, is understood to be the confirming and strengthening of some primary object of our regards. As our knowledge extends, we contract numerous associations with things purely ideal, as with historic places, persons, and incidents. ”

“ The mind when looked at in its simplest nature consists of its perceptions and its affections: that is, its knowledge, if you please, and its love; but in the order of unfolding, perception, as a conscious principle, precedes affection. That is, an individual as a finite [Pg 77] being can not love till he perceives an object to call forth that love or affection. Whether it pertain to unconscious or to conscious nature, he must perceive the object before the affection is known to exist in his consciousness. ”