Passion Quotes

400+ Sourced quotes

Denis Diderot

Søren Kierkegaard

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Edgar Allan Poe

Virginia Woolf

Peter Abelard

John Adams

Only passions, great passions, can elevate the soul to great things.

The passions, whether violent or not, should never be so expressed as to reach the point of causing disgust; and music, even in situations of the greatest horror, should never be painful to the ear but should flatter and charm it, and thereby always remain music.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

My own brain is to me the most unaccountable of machinery - always buzzing, humming, soaring roaring diving, and then buried in mud. And why? What's this passion for?

Faith is the highest passion in a human being. Many in every generation may not come that far, but none comes further.

Variant translation: But the highest passion in a human being is faith

Søren Kierkegaard

With me poetry has been not a purpose, but a passion; and the passions should be held in reverence: they must not — they cannot at will be excited, with an eye to the paltry compensations, or the more paltry commendations, of mankind.

Edgar Allan Poe

Fortunately, there is a sane equilibrium in the character of nations, as there is in that of men. The force of passion is balanced by the force of interest. An insatiable appetite for glory leads to sacrifice and death, but innate instinct leads to self-preservation and life. A nation that neglects either of these forces perishes. They must be steered together, like a pair of carriage horses.

To the United States, the Third World often takes the form of a black woman who has been made pregnant in a moment of passion and who shows up one day in the reception room on the forty-ninth floor threatening to make a scene. The lawyers pay the woman off; sometimes uniformed guards accompany her to the elevators.

Lewis H. Lapham

Because Impudence is a Vice, it does not follow that Modesty is a Virtue; it is built upon Shame, a Passion in our Nature, and may be either Good or Bad according to the Actions perform'd from that Motive.

Bernard Mandeville

Happiness or satisfaction consists only in the enjoyment of those objects which are by nature suited to our several particular appetites, passions, and affections.

Terrible and sublime thought, that every moment is supreme for some man and woman, every hour the apotheosis of some passion!

And then, of course, so many of our little lot seem to be running love-affairs. And a continual atmosphere of hectic passion is very trying if you haven't got any of your own.

Dorothy L. Sayers

The men who abandon themselves to the passions of this miserable life, are compared in Scripture to beasts.

Should it be proved that woman is naturally weaker than man, from whence does it follow that it is natural for her to labour to become still weaker than nature intended her to be? Arguments of this cast are an insult to common sense, and savour of passion. The divine right of husbands, like the divine right of kings, may, it is to be hoped, in this enlightened age, be contested without danger, and though conviction may not silence many boisterous disputants, yet, when any prevailing prejudice is attacked, the wise will consider, and leave the narrow-minded to rail with thoughtless vehemence at innovation.

Mary Wollstonecraft

The human animal differs from the lesser primates in his passion for lists.

I feel an intense intimacy with those who have this loathing interest in me. Further than this, I know what they mean, I sympathize with them, I understand them. There should be a name (as poetic as love) for this relationship between loather and loathed; it is of the closest and more full of passion than incest.

The seas are quiet when the winds give o'er; So calm are we when passions are no more!

Hitherto I have courted Truth with a kind of Romantick Passion, in spite of all Difficulties and Discouragements: for knowledge is thought so unnecessary an Accomplishment for a Woman, that few will give themselves the Trouble to assist us in the Attainment of it.

The mind's passion is all for singling out.
Obscurity has another tale to tell.

Courage and perseverance have a magical talisman, before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish into air. These qualities have ever been displayed in their mightiest perfection, as attendants in the retinue of strong passions.

John Quincy Adams

It was about being wanted, it was about winning, and it was about my passion for the game. I just loved it. I absolutely loved to compete and to step out onto that football field with my teammates.

If you love your work, you'll be out there every day trying to do it the best you possibly can, and pretty soon everybody around will catch the passion from you - like a fever.

Whoever will cultivate their own mind will find full employment. Every virtue does not only require great care in the planting, but as much daily solicitude in cherishing as exotic fruits and flowers; the vices and passions (which I am afraid are the natural product of the soil) demand perpetual weeding. Add to this the search after knowledge... and the longest life is too short.

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu

It is the passion that is in a kiss that gives to it its sweetness; it is the affection in a kiss that sanctifies it.

Christian Nestell Bovee

Passion is universal humanity. Without it religion, history, romance and art would be useless.

Honoré de Balzac

A man that is ashamed of passions that are natural and reasonable, is generally proud of those that are shameful and silly.

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu