quotations about emotion
We have lost confidence in reason because we have learned that man is chiefly a creature of habit and emotion.
JOHN DEWEY
"What I Believe"
Funny about feelings, they seem to come and go in a flash yet outlast metal.
JOHN UPDIKE
Rabbit is Rich
If we deny emotion, we lose all touch with our internal universe.
FRANK HERBERT
God Emperor of Dune
The heart is a strange beast and not ruled by logic.
MARIA V. SNYDER
Touch of Power
One ought to hold on to one's heart; for if one lets it go, one soon loses control of the head too.
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
Thus Spoke Zarathustra
You don't just embrace your emotions, you make love to them hard-core.
GENA SHOWALTER
Catch a Mate
If as children our inner emotions had been repeatedly heard and validated in a loving way, then as adults we wouldn't get stuck in negative emotions. But most of us weren't supported this way as children, so we have to do it for ourselves.
JOHN GRAY
Men Are from Mars
Calm feeling is like a lake without ripples; emotion is like ripples appearing on the surface of the lake, that change the appearance of whatever is reflected there.
SWAMI KRIYANANDA
"Intuition and Insight", Economic Times, January 27, 2019
We become our own enemy when we are thrown out of balance by anger, hatred, grief or any other intense emotion. We are for the time being obsessed by something alien.
PARAMANANDA
Message of the East, vol. 12
An emotion is like a colored sticky note that you unconsciously put on your experience. You don't respond to the experience, you respond to the sticky note.
NICOLE GRAVAGNA
"How Emotions Shape The Way We Experience The World", Forbes, January 4, 2018
The emotion that can break your heart is sometimes the very one that heals it.
NICHOLAS SPARKS
At First Sight
The emotions I feel are no more meant to be shown in their unadulterated state than the inner organs by which we live.
HANNAH ARENDT
The Life of the Mind
The taste for emotion may, however, become a dangerous taste ; and we should be very cautious how we attempt to squeeze out of human life, more ecstasy and paroxysm than it can well afford. It throws an air of insipidity over the greater part of our being, and lavishes on a few favoured moments the joy which was given to season our whole existence. It is to act like school boys--to pick the plums and sweet-meats out of the cake, and quarrel with the insipidity of the batter: whereas the business is, to infuse a certain share of flavour throughout the whole of the mass; and not so to habituate ourselves to strong impulse and extraordinary feeling, that the common tenor of human affairs should appear to us incapable of amusement, and devoid of interest.
SYDNEY SMITH
Elementary Sketches of Moral Philosophy
Emotions, in my experience, aren't covered by single words. I don't believe in "sadness," "joy," or "regret." Maybe the best proof that the language is patriarchal is that it oversimplifies feeling. I'd like to have at my disposal complicated hybrid emotions, Germanic train-car constructions like, say, "the happiness that attends disaster." Or: "the disappointment of sleeping with one's fantasy." I'd like to show how "intimations of mortality brought on by aging family members" connects with "the hatred of mirrors that begins in middle age." I'd like to have a word for "the sadness inspired by failing restaurants" as well as for "the excitement of getting a room with a minibar." I've never had the right words to describe my life.
JEFFREY EUGENIDES
Middlesex