Passion

Passion (from the Latin verb patior, meaning to suffer or to endure, also related to compatible) is an emotion applied to a very strong feeling about a person or thing. Passion is an intense emotion compelling feeling, enthusiasm, or desire for something.

Sourced

• 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.
  • Henri-Frédéric Amiel, Journal Intime, entry for December 17, 1856 (1882)

• Most marriages recognize this paradox: Passion destroys passion; we want what puts an end to wanting what we want.
  • The Aristos (1964)

• For passion, be it observed, brings insight with it; it can give a sort of intelligence to simpletons, fools, and idiots, especially during youth.
  • Honoré de Balzac, ''Les Célibataires (A Bachelor's Establishment), first part was published as Les Deux Frères in La Presse (1841)

• Fountain-heads and pathless groves,
  Places which pale passion loves!
  • Beaumont and Fletcher, The Nice Valour (c. 1615–25; published 1647), Song, Act III, scene 3.

• 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, entry for May 16, 1991, eds. John Boorman and Walter Donohue (1992)

• Filled with fury, rapt, inspir'd.
  • William Collins, The Passions, an Ode for Music (1747), line 10.

• Our headstrong passions shut the door of our souls against God.
  • Confucius, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 442.

• We are ne'er like angels till our passion dies.
  • Thomas Dekker, The Honest Whore (1604), Part II, Act I, scene 2.

• Connect with all the passions people have - for themselves, their families and their wider world - and they'll follow you to the ends of the earth. They will spread goodwill about your business, work hard for you, and buy your products, services and stock with pride. You will attract the best people, form highly motivated teams, collect loyal customers, sell the strongest brands with the greatest purpose and highest values, promising a better future.
  • Patrick Dixon - Building a Better Business, p. 1 (2005)

• A toothache, or a violent passion, is not necessarily diminished by our knowledge of its causes, its character, its importance or insignificance.
  • T. S. Eliot, Doctoral dissertation in philosophy; submitted to Harvard in 1916. Knowledge and Experience in the Philosophy of F.H. Bradley, ch. 1, Columbia University Press (1964)

• It is obvious that we can no more explain a passion to a person who has never experienced it than we can explain light to the blind.
  • T. S. Eliot, Doctoral dissertation in philosophy; submitted to Harvard in 1916. Knowledge and Experience in the Philosophy of F.H. Bradley, ch. 1, Columbia University Press (1964)

• The passion rebuilds the world for the youth. It makes all things alive and significant.
  • Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Love," Essays, First Series (1841)

• Passion, though a bad regulator, is a powerful spring.
  • Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Considerations by the Way," The Conduct of Life (1860)

• We may affirm absolutely that nothing great in the world has been accomplished without passion.
  • Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of History (1832)

• Take heed lest passion sway
  Thy judgment to do aught, which else free will
  Would not admit.
  • John Milton, Paradise Lost (1667; 1674), Book VIII, line 634.

• Discover your divine assignment and you have no reason to retreat. Discover your passion and you laugh in the face of defeat.
  • Kirk Nugent, Pursue Your Passion, Public Speech http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4wDVrfLIq0, 5:10/6:17 (2007)

• Passion persuades me one way, reason another. I see the better and approve it, but I follow the worse.
  • Ovid, Metamorphoses, 7. 19-21.

• If you have a great passion it seems that the logical thing is to see the fruit of it, and the fruit are children.
  • Roman Polanski, Independent on Sunday (London, May 12, 1991)

• Search then the ruling passion; there alone,
  The wild are constant, and the cunning known;
  The fool consistent, and the false sincere;
  Priests, princes, women, no dissemblers here.
  • Alexander Pope, Moral Essays (1731-35), Epistle I, line 174.

• And you, brave Cobham! to the latest breath
  Shall feel your ruling passion strong in death.
  • Alexander Pope, Moral Essays (1731-35), Epistle I, line 262.

• In men, we various ruling passions find;
  In women two almost divide the kind;
  Those only fix'd, they first or last obey.
  The love of pleasure, and the love of sway.
  • Alexander Pope, Moral Essays (1731-35), Epistle II, line 207.

• The ruling passion, be it what it will,
  The ruling passion conquers reason still.
  • Alexander Pope, Moral Essays (1731-35), Epistle III, line 153.

• Passion very often makes the wisest men fools, and very often too inspires the greatest fools with wit.
  • François de La Rochefoucauld, Moral Maxims and Reflections, no. 7 (1665-1678)

• Give me that man
  That is not passion's slave.
  • William Shakespeare, Hamlet (1600-02), Act III, scene 2, line 75.

• What to ourselves in passion we propose,
  The passion ending, doth the purpose lose.
  • William Shakespeare, Hamlet (1600-02), Act III, scene 2, line 204.

• O, that my tongue were in the thunder's mouth!
  Then with a passion would I shake the world.
  • William Shakespeare, King John (1598), Act III, scene 4, line 38.

• Alas, why gnaw you so your nether lip?
  Some bloody passion shakes your very frame;
  These are portents; but yet I hope, I hope,
  They do not point on me.
  • William Shakespeare, Othello (c. 1603), Act V, scene 2, line 43.

• We should employ our passions in the service of life, not spend life in the service of our passions.
  • Richard Steele, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 442.

Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations

Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 580-81.

• Only I discern
  Infinite passion, and the pain
  Of finite hearts that yearn.
  • Robert Browning, Two in the Campagna, Stanza 12.

• For one heat, all know, doth drive out another,
  One passion doth expel another still.
  • George Chapman, Monsieur D'Olive, Act V, scene 1, line 8.

• Bee to the blossom, moth to the flame;
  Each to his passion; what's in a name?
  • Helen Hunt Jackson, Vanity of Vanities.

• If we resist our passions it is more from their weakness than from our strength.
  • François de La Rochefoucauld, Maxims. No. 125.

• Toutes les passions ne sont autre chose que les divers degrés de la chaleur et de la froideur du sang.
  • All the passions are nothing else than different degrees of heat and cold of the blood.
  • François de La Rochefoucauld, Premier Supplement, VIII.

• Where passion leads or prudence points the way.
  • Robert Lowth, Choice of Hercules.

• May I govern my passions with absolute sway,
  And grow wiser and better as my strength wears away.
  • Walter Pope, The Old Man's Wish.

• Passions are likened best to floods and streams,
  The shallow murmur, but the deep are dumb.
  • Sir Walter Raleigh, The Silent Lover. See Cayley's Life of Raleigh, Volume I, Chapter III.

• He will hold thee, when his passion shall have spent its novel force,
  Something better than his dog, a little dearer than his horse.
  • Alfred Tennyson, Locksley Hall (1835, published 1842), Stanza 25.

• The seas are quiet when the winds give o'er;
  So calm are we when passions are no more!
  • Edmund Waller, On Divine Poems, line 7.

• But, children, you should never let
  Such angry passions rise;
  Your little hands were never made
  To tear each other's eyes.
  • Isaac Watts, Divine Songs, Song XVI.

• And beauty, for confiding youth,
  Those shocks of passion can prepare
  That kill the bloom before its time,
  And blanch, without the owner's crime,
  The most resplendent hair.
  • William Wordsworth, Lament of Mary, Queen of Scots.

Unsourced

• God loves with a great love the man whose heart is bursting with a passion for the impossible.
  • William Booth