quotations about passion
Give me to drink the poison of thy breast--
Dark cruel wine from grapes of passion pressed--
Till I am drunk beyond delirium's dream
In that dim utter deep where men may rest.
ELSA BARKER
"The Garden of Rose and Rue", The Book of Love
My fault, my failure, is not in the passions I have, but in my lack of control of them.
ALLEN GINSBERG
journal, July 30, 1947
The man who will not give up his passions, who clings to anger, unkindness, sensuality, pride, vanity self-indulgence, for the momentary pleasure which their gratification affords him is a spiritual miser; he cannot have any spiritual comforts.
JAMES ALLEN
Byways of Blessedness
The worst of slaves are those that are constantly serving their passions.
DIOGENES
attributed, Day's Collacon
A great tragedy passes from crest to hollow of passion, rises and sinks again, as rhythmically as sea-waves.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought
Men utter a vast amount of slander against their physical nature, and attempt to repair deficient virtue by maiming their animal passions. These are to be trained, guided, restrained, but never crucified or exterminated, for they are the soil in which we were planted.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Life Thoughts
Everyone's got to be passionate about something, or they're not worth shit.
JOSEPH FINDER
Paranoia
As a storm conceals the glories of the sun and defaces the beauty of the landscape, even so do maddening passions deform the soul, bearing along with their impetuous waves both pestilence and death.
WILLIAM SCOTT DOWNEY
Proverbs
What makes you mad? What makes you sad? What makes you glad? There lies your passion.
ANONYMOUS
The most stormy ebullitions of passion, from blasphemy to murder, are less terrific than one single act of cool villainy.
JOHANN KASPAR LAVATER
Aphorisms on Man
There is no human being who having both passions and thoughts does not think in consequences of his passions--does not find images rising in his mind which soothe the passion with hope or sting it with dread.
GEORGE ELIOT
Middlemarch
What is passion? It is surely the becoming of a person. Are we not, for most of our lives, marking time? Most of our being is at rest, unlived. In passion, the body and the spirit seek expression outside of self. Passion is all that is other from self. Sex is only interesting when it releases passion. The more extreme and the more expressed that passion is, the more unbearable does life seem without it. It reminds us that if passion dies or is denied, we are partly dead and that soon, come what may, we will be wholly so.
JOHN BOORMAN
Projections
While the happiest retirees have a passion, they leave enough room in their lives for the other spokes of the wheel.
LARRY JACOBSON
"The happiest retirees have learned this lesson", Market Watch, November 23, 2016
However we may conceal our passions under the veil ... there is always some place where they peep out.
FRANÇOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD
Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims
In the composition of the human frame there is a good deal of inflammable matter, however dormant it may lie for a time.
GEORGE WASHINGTON
letter to Eleanor Parke Custis, January 16, 1795
We may refute errors, but never passions.
ALEXANDRE RUDOLPHE VINET
Outlines of Theology
Most marriages recognize this paradox: Passion destroys passion; we want what puts an end to wanting what we want.
JOHN FOWLES
The Aristos: A Self-Portrait in Ideas
The intensity of passion often defies logic. Gripped by its urgency, you feel the heat in your bones. It's an intoxicating drive that can only be appeased with action.
SAMUEL MPAMUGO
"Raw passion can harm go-getters", The Kenya Star, November 19, 2016
Passion is oxygen of the soul.
BILL BUTLER
attributed, Gauraw, August 29, 2013
Passion is the drunkenness of the mind.
ROBERT SOUTH
Twelve Sermons