One ought to hold on to one’s heart; for if one lets it go, one soon loses control of the head too.
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German Philosopher, Scholar, Writer
Are you not justified in feeling inferior, when you seek to cover it up with arrogance and insolence?
—Malcolm S. Forbes (1919–1990) American Publisher, Businessperson
The first and simplest emotion which we discover in the human mind, is curiosity.
—Edmund Burke (1729–97) British Philosopher, Statesman
Sadness is almost never anything but a form of fatigue.
—Andre Gide (1869–1951) French Novelist
There are strings in the human heart that had better not be vibrated.
—Charles Dickens (1812–70) English Novelist
The degree of one’s emotions varies inversely with one’s knowledge of the facts.
—Bertrand A. Russell (1872–1970) British Philosopher, Mathematician, Social Critic
It is not our exalted feelings, it is our sentiments that build the necessary home.
—Elizabeth Bowen (1899–1973) Irish Novelist, Short-story Writer
Sentiment is the poetry of the imagination.
—Alphonse de Lamartine (1790–1869) French Poet, Politician, Historian
The barrenest of all mortals is the sentimentalist.
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish Historian, Essayist
Sentiment is intellectualized emotion; emotion precipitated, as it were, in pretty crystals by the fancy.
—James Russell Lowell (1819–91) American Poet, Critic
An emotion is both a mental and a physical event.
—Nathaniel Branden (1930–2014) American Psychotherapist
All humanity is passion; without passion, religion, history, novels, art would be ineffectual.
—Honore de Balzac (1799–1850) French Novelist
The heart is half a prophet.
—Yiddish Proverb
Music is the shorthand of emotion.
—Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) Russian Novelist
The degree of one’s emotion varies inversely with one’s knowledge of the facts—the less you know the hotter you get.
—Bertrand A. Russell (1872–1970) British Philosopher, Mathematician, Social Critic
There is no fire like passion, there is no shark like hatred, there is no snare like folly, there is no torrent like greed.
—The Dhammapada Buddhist Anthology of Verses
Our emotions are only incidents in the effort to keep day and night together.
—T. S. Eliot (1888–1965) American-born British Poet, Dramatist, Literary Critic
How much has to be explored and discarded before reaching the naked flesh of feeling.
—Claude Debussy (1862–1918) French Composer
Nothing vivifies, and nothing kills, like the emotions.
—Philibert Joseph Roux (1780–1854) French Surgeon
The walls we build around us to keep sadness out also keep out the joy.
—Jim Rohn (1930–2009) American Entrepreneur, Author, Motivational Speaker
Regret is an odd emotion because it comes only upon reflection. Regret lacks immediacy, and so its power seldom influences events when it could do some good.
—Edward William O’Rourke (1917–99) American Roman Catholic Bishop
Sentimentality—that’s what we call the sentiment we don’t share.
—Graham Greene (1904–91) British Novelist, Playwright, Short Story Writer
Our ideas are here today and gone tomorrow, whereas our feelings are always with us, and we recognize those who feel like us, and at once, by a sort of instinct.
—George Moore (1852–1933) Irish Writer
But are not this struggle and even the mistakes one may make better, and do they not develop us more, than if we kept systematically away from emotions?
—Vincent van Gogh (1853–90) Dutch Painter
Emotion always has its roots in the unconscious and manifests itself in the body.
—Irene Claremont de Castillejo (1885–1967) British Psychoanalyst
A clear understanding of a negative emotion dismisses it .
—Vernon Howard (1918–92) American Spiritual Teacher, Philosopher
The finest emotion of which we are capable is the mystic emotion.
—Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born Physicist
The evidence of the emotions, save in cases where it has strong objective support, is really no evidence at all, for every recognizable emotion has its opposite, and if one points one way then another points the other way. Thus the familiar argument that there is an instinctive desire for immortality, and that this desire proves it to be a fact, becomes puerile when it is recalled that there is also a powerful and widespread fear of annihilation, and that this fear, on the same principle proves that there is nothing beyond the grave. Such childish proofs are typically theological, and they remain theological even when they are adduced by men who like to flatter themselves by believing that they are scientific gents…
—H. L. Mencken (1880–1956) American Journalist, Literary Critic
The heart errs like the head; its errors are not any the less fatal, and we have more trouble getting free of them because of their sweetness.
—Anatole France (1844–1924) French Novelist
People hate those who make them feel their own inferiority.
—Earl of Chesterfield (1694–1773) English Statesman, Man of Letters