quotations about passion
Our passions are the chief means of self-preservation; to try to destroy them is therefore as absurd as it is useless; this would be to overcome nature, to reshape God's handiwork. If God bade man annihilate the passions he has given him, God would bid him be and not be; He would contradict himself. He has never given such a foolish commandment, there is nothing like it written on the heart of man, and what God will have a man do, He does not leave to the words of another man. He speaks Himself; His words are written in the secret heart.
JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU
Emile
I flush with heaving passion's strange delight,
Yet find contentment lost in appetite.
EDWIN LEIBFREED
"The Quest for God"
Passion is a good place to start.
BRAD SPURGEON
"At Mercedes, Racing is Business on Steroids", New York Times, November 26, 2016
Her life flows clean, with passion, like fresh water.
ROMAN PAYNE
The Wanderess
I want to know what passion is. I want to feel something strongly.
ALDOUS HUXLEY
Brave New World
The saddest people I've ever met in life are the ones who don't care deeply about anything at all. Passion and satisfaction go hand in hand, and without them, any happiness is only temporary, because there's nothing to make it last.
NICHOLAS SPARKS
Dear John
It is the ultimate luxury to combine passion and contribution. It's also a very clear path to happiness.
SHERYL SANDBERG
Barnard College commencement speech, May 17, 2011
Passion is great. But passion means you talk a lot and you don't listen a lot.
MICHAEL MONDAVI
"Winemaker Michael Mondavi Tells Entrepreneurs to Stop Talking and Start Listening", Fortune, December 15, 2016
A great passion has no partner.
JOHANN KASPAR LAVATER
Aphorisms on Man
He is a Governor that governs his Passions, and he a Servant that serves them.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
Poor Richard's Almanack, 1750
He only employs his passion who can make no use of his reason.
CICERO
attributed, Day's Collacon
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
Passion persuades me one way, reason another. I see the better and approve it, but I follow the worse.
OVID
Metamorphoses
By privileges, immunities, or prerogatives to give unlimited swing to the passions of individuals, and then to hope that they will restrain them, is about as reasonable as to expect that the tiger will spare the hart to browse upon the herbage.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon
By the time you swear you're his,
Shivering and sighing.
And he vows his passion is,
Infinite, undying.
Lady make note of this --
One of you is lying.
DOROTHY PARKER
"Unfortunate Coincidence", Not So Deep as a Well
The only difference between a caprice and a life-long passion is that the caprice lasts a little longer.
OSCAR WILDE
The Picture of Dorian Gray
If you have vanquished your passion, and not been vanquished by it, you have reason to rejoice.
PLAUTUS
attributed, Day's Collacon
Great passions are hopeless diseases. That which could cure them is the first thing to make them really dangerous.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe
Passion is absolutely necessary to achieve any kind of long-lasting success. I know this from experience. If you don't have passion, everything you do will ultimately fizzle out or, at best, be mediocre. Is that how you want to live your life?
DONALD TRUMP
Trump 101
Understanding is by the flame of the passions never enlightened, but dazzled.
THOMAS HOBBES
Leviathan