Passion

The happiness of a man in this life does not consist in the absence but in the mastery of his passions. Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809 - 1892)

Without passion man is a mere latent force and possibility, like the flint which awaits the shock of the iron before it can give forth its spark. Amiel, Journal, 17 December 1856

Follow your passion, and success will follow you. Arthur Buddhold

My passions were all gathered together like fingers that made a fist. Drive is considered aggression today; I knew it then as purpose. Bette Davis (1908 - 1989), The Lonely Life, 1962

If passion drives you, let reason hold the reins. Benjamin Franklin

He only employs his passion who can make no use of his reason. Cicero (106 BC - 43 BC)

Be still when you have nothing to say; when genuine passion moves you, say what you've got to say, and say it hot. D. H. Lawrence (1885 - 1930)

Saying that men talk about baseball in order to avoid talking about their feelings is the same as saying that women talk about their feelings in order to avoid talking about baseball. Deborah Tannen, You Just Don't Understand

Only passions, great passions, can elevate the soul to great things. Denis Diderot (1713 - 1784)

The worst sin - perhaps the only sin - passion can commit, is to be joyless. Dorothy L. Sayers (1893 - 1957), Gaudy Night

In a great romance, each person plays a part the other really likes. Elizabeth Ashley

Judgement, not passion should prevail. Epicharmus

In music the passions enjoy themselves. Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, 1886

In endowing us with memory, nature has revealed to us a truth utterly unimaginable to the unreflective creation, the truth of immortality....The most ideal human passion is love, which is also the most absolute and animal and one of the most ephemeral. George Santayana, Reason in Religion

Nothing great in the world has been accomplished without passion. Georg Wilhelm, O Magazine, September 2003

We've grown to be one soul - two parts; our lives so intertwined that when some passion stirs your heart, I feel the quake in mine. Gloria Gaither

In things pertaining to enthusiasm, no man is sane who does not know how to be insane on proper occasions. Henry Ward Beecher

Passion is universal humanity. Without it religion, history, romance and art would be useless. Honoré de Balzac

Passion makes the world go round. Love just makes it a safer place. Ice T, The Ice Opinion - Quotation from The Reader's Digest, "Quotable Quotes," February 2002

Blaze with the fire that is never extinguished. Luisa Sigea, O Magazine, September 2003

Fill your life with as many moments and experiences of joy and passion as you humanly can. Marcia Wieder

Waste no more time talking about great souls and how they should be. Become one yourself! Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121 AD - 180 AD)

When the habitually even-tempered suddenly fly into a passion, that explosion is apt to be more impressive than the outburst of the most violent amongst us. Margery Allingham, Death of a Ghost, 1934

We welcome passion, for the mind is briefly let off duty. Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960

I had learnt to seek intensity…more of life, a concentrated sense of life. Nina Berberova, O Magazine, September 2003

Do the one thing you think you cannot do. Fail at it. Try again. Do better the second time. The only people who never tumble are those who never mount the high wire. This is your moment. Own it. Oprah Winfrey, O Magazine, September 2003

I believe that one of life's greatest risks is never daring to risk. Oprah Winfrey, O Magazine, September 2003

Passion, though a bad regulator, is a powerful spring. Ralph Waldo Emerson

It's the soul's duty to be loyal to its own desires. It must abandon itself to its master passion. Rebecca West (1892 - 1983)

Passion is the quickest to develop, and the quickest to fade. Intimacy develops more slowly, and commitment more gradually still. Robert Sternberg

Anyone can be passionate, but it takes real lovers to be silly. Rose Franken

There was a disturbance in my heart, a voice that spoke there and said, I want, I want, I want! It happened every afternoon, and when I tried to suppress it it got even stronger. Saul Bellow (1915 - ), O Magazine, September 2003

It is easier to exclude harmful passions than to rule them, and to deny them admittance than to control them after they have been admitted. Seneca (5 BC - 65 AD)

What makes the engine go? Desire, desire, desire. Stanley Kunitz, O Magazine, September 2003

Passion kept one fully in the present, so that time became a series of mutually exclusive 'nows.' Sue Halpern, O Magazine, September 2003

The most beautiful make-up of a woman is passion. But cosmetics are easier to buy. Yves Saint Laurent

Passion

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