The happiness of a man in this life does not consist in the absence but
in the mastery of his passions.
Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809 - 1892)
My passions were all gathered together like fingers that made a fist.
Drive is considered aggression today; I knew it then as purpose.
Bette Davis (1908 - 1989), The Lonely Life, 1962
He only employs his passion who can make no use of his reason.
Cicero (106 BC - 43 BC)
Be still when you have nothing to say; when genuine passion moves
you, say what you've got to say, and say it hot.
D. H. Lawrence (1885 - 1930)
Only passions, great passions, can elevate the soul to great things.
Denis Diderot (1713 - 1784)
The worst sin - perhaps the only sin - passion can commit, is to be
joyless.
Dorothy L. Sayers (1893 - 1957), Gaudy Night
Judgement, not passion should prevail.
Epicharmus
Nothing great in the world has been accomplished without passion.
Georg Wilhelm, O Magazine, September 2003
Passion makes the world go round. Love just makes it a safer place.
Ice T, The Ice Opinion
Blaze with the fire that is never extinguished.
Luisa Sigea, O Magazine, September 2003
Waste no more time talking about great souls and how they should be.
Become one yourself!
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121 AD - 180 AD)
When the habitually even-tempered suddenly fly into a passion, that
explosion is apt to be more impressive than the outburst of the most
violent amongst us.
Margery Allingham, Death of a Ghost, 1934
I had learnt to seek intensity…more of life, a concentrated sense of
life.
Nina Berberova, O Magazine, September 2003
Do the one thing you think you cannot do. Fail at it. Try again. Do
better the second time. The only people who never tumble are those who
never mount the high wire. This is your moment. Own it.
Oprah Winfrey (1954 - ), O Magazine, September 2003
I believe that one of life's greatest risks is never daring to risk.
Oprah Winfrey (1954 - ), O Magazine, September 2003
It's the soul's duty to be loyal to its own desires. It must abandon
itself to its master passion.
Rebecca West (1892 - 1983)
Passion is the quickest to develop, and the quickest to fade.
Intimacy develops more slowly, and commitment more gradually still.
Robert Sternberg
The biggest thing [Frida] brought into my life was this peacefulness.
I still get passionate about things, but my passion is not so scattered
and it's not needy. It's a lot more powerful because it comes with this
groundedness and peacefulness. That it's about the process, not about
the results.
Salma Hayek, Conversation with Salma Hayek, 2002
There was a disturbance in my heart, a voice that spoke there and
said, I want, I want, I want! It happened every afternoon, and when I
tried to suppress it it got even stronger.
Saul Bellow (1915 - 2005), O Magazine, September 2003
It is easier to exclude harmful passions than to rule them, and to
deny them admittance than to control them after they have been admitted.
Seneca (5 BC - 65 AD)
What makes the engine go? Desire, desire, desire.
Stanley Kunitz, O Magazine, September 2003
Passion kept one fully in the present, so that time became a series
of mutually exclusive 'nows.'
Sue Halpern, O Magazine, September 2003
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