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Passion quotes

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“What our age lacks, however, is not reflection but passion.” Søren Kierkegaard, “Fear and Trembling” - 1843

“Love is a smoke raised with the fume of sighs; Being purged, a fire sparkling in lovers' eyes; Being vexed, a sea nourished with loving tears. What is it else? A madness most discreet, A choking gall, and a preserving sweet.” William Shakespeare, “Romeo and Juliet” - 1597

“There's beggary in the love that can be reckon'd.” William Shakespeare, “Antony and Cleopatra” - 1623

“Between men and women there is no friendship possible. There is passion, enmity, worship, love, but no friendship.” Oscar Wilde, “Lady Windermere's Fan” - 1892

“As he read, I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once.” John Green, “The Fault in Our Stars” - 2012

“Every building is like a person. Single and unrepeatable.” Ayn Rand, “The Fountainhead” - 1943

“In reality, there is, perhaps, no one of our natural passions so hard to subdue as pride.” Benjamin Franklin, “The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin” - 1791

“Whereas the law is passionless, passion must ever sway the heart of man.” Aristotle, “Politics”

“However, our impulses are too strong for our judgement sometimes.” Thomas Hardy, “Tess of the d'Urbervilles” - 1891

“My eyes were dazed by you for a little, and that was all.” Thomas Hardy, “Tess of the d'Urbervilles” - 1891

“If one's strong one loves only the more strongly.” Henry James, “The Portrait of a Lady” - 1881

“Therefore it has always been said that music is the language of feeling and of passion, as words are the language of reason.” Arthur Schopenhauer, “The World as Will and Representation” - 1819

“As long as that spark of passion is missing there is no human significance in the performance.” Henry Miller, “Tropic of Cancer” - 1934

“But an infinity of passions may be contained in a minute, like a crowd in a small space.” Gustave Flaubert, “Madame Bovary” - 1856

“She now knew the smallness of the passions that art exaggerated.” Gustave Flaubert, “Madame Bovary” - 1856

“The only difference between a caprice and a lifelong passion is that the caprice lasts a little longer.” Oscar Wilde, “The Picture of Dorian Gray” - 1890

“Love, she thought, must come suddenly, with great outbursts and lightnings—a hurricane of the skies, which falls upon life, revolutionises it, roots up the will like a leaf, and sweeps the whole heart into the abyss.” Gustave Flaubert, “Madame Bovary” - 1856

“Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them.” David Hume, “A Treatise of Human Nature” - 1738

“Love is the most selfish of all the passions.” Alexandre Dumas, “The Three Musketeers” - 1844

“The source of every crime, is some defect of the understanding; or some errour in reasoning, or some sudden force of the passions.” Thomas Hobbes, “Leviathan” - 1651

“Didst thou but know the inly touch of love, Thou wouldst as soon go kindle fire with snow As seek to quench the fire of love with words.” William Shakespeare, “The Two Gentlemen of Verona” - 1623

“For never was a story of more woe than this of Juliet and her Romeo.” William Shakespeare, “Romeo and Juliet” - 1597

“Forty thousand brothers could not, with all their quantity of love, make up my sum.” William Shakespeare, “Hamlet” - 1623

“We have reason to cool our raging motions, our carnal stings, our unbitted lusts; whereof I take this, that you call love, to be a sect or scion.” William Shakespeare, “Othello” - 1623

“Of all base passions fear is most accurs'd.” William Shakespeare, “Henry VI, Part 1” - 1623

“Men hate passion, any great passion. Henry Cameron made a mistake: he loved his work. That was why he fought. That was why he lost.” Ayn Rand, “The Fountainhead” - 1943

“Of so little weight are the greatest services to princes, when put into the balance with a refusal to gratify their passions.” Jonathan Swift, “Gulliver's Travels” - 1726

“Like all other music, it breathed passion and pathos, and emotions high or tender, in a tongue native to the human heart, wherever educated.” Nathaniel Hawthorne, “The Scarlet Letter” - 1850

“Calm, gentle, passionless, as he appeared, there was yet, we fear, a quiet depth of malice, hitherto latent, but active now, in this unfortunate old man, which led him to imagine a more intimate revenge than any mortal had ever wreaked upon an enemy.” Nathaniel Hawthorne, “The Scarlet Letter” - 1850

“As yet hath his knowledge not learned to smile, and to be without jealousy; as yet hath his gushing passion not become calm in beauty.” Friedrich Nietzsche, “Thus Spoke Zarathustra” - 1891

“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.” Honoré de Balzac, “Letters of Two Brides” - 1841

“He did not care upon what terms he satisfied his passion. He had even had a mad, melodramatic idea to drug her.” W. Somerset Maugham, “Of Human Bondage” - 1915

“All men are liable to error, and most men are in many points, by passion or interest, under temptation to it.” John Locke, “An Essay Concerning Human Understanding” - 1689

“Possibly this is woman's nature. When her passion is roused she loses her sensibility for all that is outside it. When, like the river, we women keep to our banks, we give nourishment with all that we have: when we overflow them we destroy with...” Rabindranath Tagore, “The Home and the World” - 1916

“Faith is a miracle, and yet no man is excluded from it; for that in which all human life is unified is passion, and faith is a passion.” Søren Kierkegaard, “Fear and Trembling” - 1843

“Faith is the highest passion in a man. There are perhaps many in every generation who do not even reach it, but no one gets further.” Søren Kierkegaard, “Fear and Trembling” - 1843

“Every movement of infinity comes about by passion, and no reflection can bring a movement about.” Søren Kierkegaard, “Fear and Trembling” - 1843

“Bodily passion, which has been so unjustly decried, compels its victims to display every vestige that is in them of unselfishness and generosity, and so effectively that they shine resplendent in the eyes of all beholders.” Marcel Proust, “Swann's Way” - 1913

“To such an extent does passion manifest itself in us as a temporary and distinct character, which not only takes the place of our normal character but actually obliterates the signs by which that character has hitherto been discernible.” Marcel Proust, “Swann's Way” - 1913

“A human being in perfection ought always to preserve a calm and peaceful mind and never to allow passion or a transitory desire to disturb his tranquillity.” Mary Shelley, “Frankenstein” - 1818

“Emma was like all his mistresses; and the charm of novelty, gradually falling away like a garment, laid bare the eternal monotony of passion, that has always the same forms and the same language.” Gustave Flaubert, “Madame Bovary” - 1856

“It is not every one . . . who has your passion for dead leaves.” Jane Austen, “Sense and Sensibility” - 1811

“My life—my whole life. Take it, and do with it what you will. . . . I love you—love you as I have never loved any living thing. From the moment I met you I loved you, loved you blindly, adoringly, madly! You did not know it then—you know...” Oscar Wilde, “Lady Windermere's Fan” - 1893

“But how little of permanent happiness could belong to a couple who were only brought together because their passions were stronger than their virtue, she could easily conjecture.” Jane Austen, “Pride and Prejudice” - 28 January 1813

“Once you've felt what it means to love as you and I know it— the total passion for the total height—you're incapable of anything less.” Ayn Rand, “The Fountainhead” - 1943

“I think you good, gifted, lovely: a fervent, a solemn passion is conceived in my heart; it leans to you, draws you to my centre and spring of life, wraps my existence about you, and, kindling in pure, powerful flame, fuses you and me in one.” Charlotte Brontë, “Jane Eyre” - 16 October 1847

“Better pass boldly into that other world, in the full glory of some passion, than fade and wither dismally with age.” James Joyce, “Dubliners” - 1914

“You have never loved me as I love you—never—never! Yours is not a passionate heart—your heart does not burn in a flame! You are, upon the whole, a sort of fay, or sprite—not a woman!” Thomas Hardy, “Jude the Obscure” - 1895

“Let men tremble to win the hand of woman, unless they win along with it the utmost passion of her heart!” Nathaniel Hawthorne, “The Scarlet Letter” - 1850

“The opinions that are held with passion are always those for which no good ground exists; indeed the passion is the measure of the holder’s lack of rational conviction. Opinions in politics and religion are almost always held passionately.” Bertrand Russell, “Sceptical Essays” - 1928

Related topics

love reason heart music madness work faith calm interest infinity sweetness strength women discourage marriage fear knowledge emotions friendship happiness

Related authors

William Shakespeare (7)
Thomas Hardy (6)
Søren Kierkegaard (4)
Gustave Flaubert (4)
Oscar Wilde (3)
Ayn Rand (3)
Nathaniel Hawthorne (3)
Jane Austen (2)
Friedrich Nietzsche (2)
Marcel Proust (2)
James Joyce (1)
Charlotte Brontë (1)
John Green (1)
Jack London (1)
David Hume (1)
Bertrand Russell (1)
Benjamin Franklin (1)
Jonathan Swift (1)
Aristotle (1)
Henry James (1)

Related sources

Fear and Trembling (4)
Madame Bovary (4)
The Fountainhead (3)
The Scarlet Letter (3)
The Return of the Native (3)
Romeo and Juliet (2)
Lady Windermere's Fan (2)
Tess of the d'Urbervilles (2)
Swann's Way (2)
Hamlet (1)
The Two Gentlemen of Verona (1)
Othello (1)
Sense and Sensibility (1)
Pride and Prejudice (1)
The Picture of Dorian Gray (1)
Antony and Cleopatra (1)
Henry VI, Part 1 (1)
Jane Eyre (1)
The Fault in Our Stars (1)
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (1)