Passion

“ Whenever any one sighs towards me with love in meditating on my Passion, it is as though he gently touched my Wounds with a fresh-budding rose, and I wound his heart in return with the arrow of my love. ”

“ Passion, which he flattered himself he had so mastered, almost as though it had been shocked out of him on that terrible night of waiting for its fruit to come and rend the mother's life away from her—would passion have lived? ”

“ Love, when founded in the heart, will show itself in a thousand unpremeditated sallies of fondness; but every cool deliberate exhibition of the passion only argues little understanding or great insincerity. ”

“ From exchanging glances, they advance to acts of courtesy, of gallantry, then to fiery passion, to plighting troth, and marriage. Passion beholds its object as a perfect unit. The soul is wholly embodied, and the body is wholly ensouled. ”

“ I must love with passion or not at all.' And there had risen up before his mind the dreary spectacle of a degraded beauty that he once had worshipped, and which had power to charm him to the very last. ”

“ This sentiment, this need of the infinite, is at the foundation of the greatest passions, and the most trifling desires. A sigh of the soul in the presence of the starry heavens, the melancholy attached to the passion of glory, to ambition, to all the great emotions of the soul, express it better without doubt, but they do not express it more than the caprice and mobility of those vulgar loves, wandering from object to object in a perpetual circle of ardent desires, of poignant disquietudes, and mournful disenchantments. ”

“ Yet vague, dreamy, half soft, half stormy thoughts swept over him of some love that this world might hold, with all the delight of passion, whilst loftier, richer, holier, than mere passion alone, which wakes and desires, pursues, possesses,—and dies. ”

“ Passion has myriad senses
Love has not voice, eyes, nor ears,
Space, Time, Life, Moods, and Tenses
Chain not her Soul to the years.
Love is a sail, mid-ocean
Losing itself in the Whole,
Passion the wavelets commotion
Blurring the shores of the Soul.
He ceased suddenly, and his whole face changed. The grave was filled up, the diggers were already passing stolidly back to the city. ”

“ Therefore let your soul exalt your reason to the height of passion, that it may sing; And let it direct your passion with reason, that your passion may live through its own daily resurrection, and like the phoenix rise above its own ashes. ”

“ Passion, the so-called great passion, which, according to an old legend recounted in one of the Greek tragedies, comes like the whirlwind, and leaves nothing behind but death and dried bones—passion such as that is unknown to Duse. ”

“ It is now taught, not only that physical passion stands for, or rather is, the Love of which it forms only a part; but that the fire of sudden desire is the only true, or natural, expression of love itself. ”

“ How many an unhappy wretch has awakened from a dream of passion, to find that after all it was only his enthusiasm which dignified the object which dignified his passion, and threw around it the lustre of immortal youth! ”

“ Be charitable, then; have ruth on one with passion worn, A lover parted from his love, that may not come her nigh.
Drowned in the sea of tears and burnt with longing, knowing not Slumber nor peace, the whole night long unresting doth he lie.
Cut thou not off my heart’s desire; for ’tis afflicted sore, Wasted and palpitating aye, for passion like to die. ”

“ There was passion and power of love under my stiff-muscled fingers and hard calculating brain, such as these people with their hot blood knew nothing of. It was passion, a weak fever of the flesh. I drew the sheet over me, and lay down again. ”

“ Plunge into human life's full sea of passion!
Each lives it, few its meaning ever guessed,
Touch where you will, 'tis full of interest.
Bright shadows fleeting o'er a mirror,
A spark of truth and clouds of error,
By means like these a drink is brewed
To cheer and edify the multitude.
The fairest flower of the youth sit listening
Before your play, and wait the revelation;
Each melancholy heart, with soft eyes glistening,
Draws sad, sweet nourishment from your creation;
This passion now, now that is stirred, by turns,
And each one sees what in his bosom burns. ”

“ Who is there but yourselves doth loveliness comprise? Who else could e’er stir up my soul to love anew?
How should I be consoled for passion, I, indeed, Who’ve wasted all my life and all my breath for you? ”

“ Whatever is placed beyond the reach of sense and knowledge, whatever is imperfectly discerned, the fancy pieces out at its leisure; and all but the present moment, but the present spot, passion claims for its own, and brooding over it with wings outspread, stamps it with an image of itself. Passion is lord of infinite space, and distant objects please because they border on its confines and are moulded by its touch. ”

“ The fires of passion in me are dead. I have made my life—did I not tell you so once?—an exquisite mosaic of gentle little habits, dovetailing into each other, each a guarantee for the happiness of the entire day. ”

“ Say doth love live within thy hidden heart
(Love born of dream but nurtured wakingly)
Ev'n as that Once when thy soul's eyes did see
Love's visible self, and worshipt? Or hast thou
Fall'n from thy faith in Her and Love ere now,
And is thy passion as a robe outworn?
Nay, love forbid! Yet wherefore art thou lorn
Of hope and peace if Love be still thine own? ”

“ Never did she look with gentle eye on the golden-haired god whose face was as the face of all the exquisite things that the sunlight shows, remembered in a dream. Her only passion was a passion for the chase. ”

“ If but the Lord of passion were just, indeed, to me, Sure slumber from mine eyelids he had not bidden flee.
Have ruth upon a lover, who languishes for thee, The great one of a people, cast down by Love’s decree,
⁠The rich, whom love hath beggared and brought him to decay. ”

“ For our one chance lies in expanding that interval, in getting as many pulsations as possible into the given time. Great passions may give us this quickened sense of life, ecstasy and sorrow of love, the various forms of enthusiastic activity, disinterested or otherwise, which come naturally to many of us. Only be sure it is passion—that it does yield you this fruit of a quickened, multiplied consciousness. Of such wisdom, the poetic passion, the desire of beauty, the love of art for its own sake, has most. ”

“ Oh, my dear pupil, be warned in time; know love for what it really is, in the dark and complicated history of actual life,—a brief enchantment, not to be disdained, but not to be considered the all-in all. Look round the world; contemplate all those who have married from passion: ten years afterwards, whither has the passion flown? ”

“ Every hour that I gazed upon the divine form strengthened my passion,—a passion that was always overshadowed by the maddening conviction, that, although I could gaze on her at will, she never, never could behold me! ”

“ My strongest passion has always been the desire to be loved—as the French call it, 'le besoin d'être aimé.' It is the great wish, want, desire, necessity, desideratum of my life, the source through which I expect happiness to flow to me, the ultimate aim and object which has led me on in all the little I have done, and the much that I have tried to do. ”

“ When all has been said, indeed—when the whole heart has been poured forth—when the first intense feelings of a new passion have worn away, or, having grown familiar to our bosoms, surprise us no longer, we can better bear the presence of others; for a look, an occasional word, even a tone, will convey to the mind of those we love, all that we could wish to say. ”

“ A love, whose root is in passion, and only in passion, cannot be supposed to survive the first ardour of that passion. It is only when above and beyond that passion, giving it force and perpetually renewing it as from a central fire, there exists what I should call a moral passion,—an intense moral desire,—that the love can be durable. ”

“ "Something the heart must have to cherish,
Must love, and joy, and sorrow learn;
Something with passion clasp, or perish,
And in itself to ashes burn." ”

“ There, even amidst books and study, lively observation and petulant ambition broke forth from the lush foliage of romance,—that fruitless leafiness of poetic youth! And there passion, which is a revolution in all the elements of individual man, had called anew state of being, turbulent and eager, out of the old habits and conventional forms it had buried,—ashes that speak where the fire has been. ”

“ Or, if thou fain wouldst look upon the ruin passion’s hands Can wreak on lovers, let thy gaze upon my body light.
And his eyes ran over with tears and he repeated these verses also:
Who loves not the necks and the eyes of the fair and pretends, forsooth, To know the delight of the world, God wot, he speaks not the truth
For in love is a secret meaning that none may win to know Save he who has loved indeed and known its wrath and ruth.
May God not lighten my heart of passion for her I love Nor ease my eyelids, for love, of wakefulness in my youth! ”

“ It is this exacting, tyrannic, and exclusive principle which forms the generic character of a true and unmixed passion: it is this feeling by which we seek and expect to master and possess the whole existence of the object beloved, which distinguishes a strong, ardent, and overwhelming sentiment, from those faint modifications of the vital feeling, which serve rather to amuse than to occupy life; to interest rather than absorb existence. ”

“ I yield to a passion a thousand times stronger than my reason. Since I can no longer attempt to conceal sentiments which chance has revealed to you, come, Prince, come, and learn the determination to which I am driven by the love you have inspired me with. ”

“ Thy heart is big; get thee apart and weep. Passion, I see, is catching, for mine eyes, Seeing those beads of sorrow stand in thine, Began to water. ”

“ Passion is like the lightning, it is beautiful, and it links the earth to heaven, but alas it blinds! ”

“ Is it love? Yes; but not as men call love. Ours is heavenly love, ardent, but yet spiritual; intense, but without passion; a burning love like that of the cherubim; all-consuming, all-engrossing, and enduring for evermore. ”

“ Love, the common passion, in which chance and sensation take place of choice and reason, is in some degree, felt by the mass of mankind; for it is not necessary to speak, at present, of the emotions that rise above or sink below love. This passion, naturally increased by suspense and difficulties, draws the mind out of its accustomed state, and exalts the affections; ”

“ Love why do we one passion call, When 'tis a compound of them all? Where hot and cold, where sharp and sweet, In all their equipages meet; Where pleasures mix'd with pains appear, Sorrow with joy, and hope with fear; ”

“ As if to illustrate an observation which applies equally to misers, ambitious men, and others whose lives are controlled by any dominant idea, his affections had fastened upon one special symbol of his passion. ”

“ Passion is of the nature of seed, and finds nourishment within, tending to a predominance which determines all currents towards itself, and makes the whole life its tributary. ”

“ In loving thou dost well, in passion not, Wherein true love consists not: Love refines The thoughts, and heart enlarges; hath his seat In reason, and is judicious; ”

“ When I see the effects of passion in the voice and gesture of any person, my mind immediately passes from these effects to their causes, and forms such a lively idea of the passion, as is presently converted into the passion itself. ”

“ The fact is that love is of two kinds—one which commands, and one which obeys. The two are quite distinct, and the passion to which the one gives rise is not the passion of the other. ”

“ Our corresponding feelings confounded our very souls; and in many conversations we almost intuitively discerned each other's sentiments; the heart opened itself, not chilled by reserve, nor afraid of misconstruction. But, if virtue inspired love, love gave new energy to virtue, and absorbed every selfish passion. ”

“ Mind you, I don't mean that easy romantic passion which seems everything and means nothing. But real love, true love, staunch love, the sort which will hold to its object in the face of all detraction. ”

“ The impetuous transports of my passion are now settled and mellowed into endearing fondness and tranquillity of love, rooted by that intimate connection and interchange of hearts which nought but virtuous wedlock can produce. ”

“ The passion called love has so general and powerful an influence, it makes so much of the entertainment, and indeed so much the occupation, of that part of life which decides the character forever, that the mode and the principles on which it engages the sympathy and strikes the imagination become of the utmost importance to the morals and manners of every society. ”