#passions

Great passions may give us a quickened sense of life, ecstasy and sorrow of love, the various forms of enthusiastic activity, disinterested or otherwise, which comes naturally to many of us. ↗

— Walter Pater

#comes #disinterested #ecstasy #enthusiastic #forms

Our passions are like convulsion fits, which, though they make us stronger for a time, leave us the weaker ever after. ↗

— Alexander Pope

#convulsion #ever #ever after #fits #leave

Absence diminishes mediocre passions and increases great ones, as the wind extinguishes candles and fans fires. ↗

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

#absence #candles #diminishes #extinguishes #fans

Probably the happiest period in life most frequently is in middle age, when the eager passions of youth are cooled, and the infirmities of age not yet begun; as we see that the shadows, which are at morning and evening so large, almost entirely disappear at midday. ↗

— Eleanor Roosevelt

#almost #begun #cooled #disappear #eager

Anger is the most impotent of passions. It effects nothing it goes about, and hurts the one who is possessed by it more than the one against whom it is directed. ↗

— Carl Sandburg

#against #anger #directed #effects #goes

Many things are unknown to the wisest, and the best men can never wholly divest themselves of passions and affections... nothing can or ought to be permanent but that which is perfect. ↗

— Algernon Sidney

#best #divest #many #men #never

Good habits, which bring our lower passions and appetites under automatic control, leave our natures free to explore the larger experiences of life. Too many of us divide and dissipate our energies in debating actions which should be taken for granted. ↗

— Ralph W. Sockman

#appetites #automatic #bring #control #debating

The love of the famous, like all strong passions, is quite abstract. Its intensity can be measured mathematically, and it is independent of persons. ↗

— Susan Sontag

#famous #independent #intensity #like #love

They sin who tell us Love can die: with Life all other passions fly, all others are but vanity. ↗

— Robert Southey

#fly #life #love #other #others

The more a race is governed by its passions, the less it has acquired the habit of cautious and reasoned argument, the more intense will be its love of music. ↗

— Stendhal

#argument #cautious #governed #habit #intense