All humanity is passion; without passion, religion, history, novels, art would be ineffectual.
—Honore de Balzac (1799–1850) French Novelist
All emotions are pure which gather you and lift you up; that emotion is impure which seizes only one side of your being and so distorts you.
—Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926) Austrian Poet
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
In this and like communities public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment nothing can fail; without it nothing can succeed; consequently he who moulds public sentiment goes deeper than he who enacts statutes and decisions. He makes statutes and decisions possible or impossible to be executed.
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–65) American Head of State
To increase your effectiveness, make your emotions subordinate to your commitments.
—Brian Koslow
Sensitiveness is closely allied to egotism. Indeed, excessive sensitiveness is only another name for morbid self-consciousness. The cure for it is to make more of our objects, and less of ourselves.
—Christian Nestell Bovee (1820–1904) American Writer, Aphorist
How much has to be explored and discarded before reaching the naked flesh of feeling.
—Claude Debussy (1862–1918) French Composer
The advantage of the emotions is that they lead us astray.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
Nothing vivifies, and nothing kills, like the emotions.
—Philibert Joseph Roux (1780–1854) French Surgeon
To give vent now and then to his feelings, whether of pleasure or discontent, is a great ease to a man’s heart.
—Francesco Guicciardini (1483–1540) Italian Historian, Political leader
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
How do I change?
If I feel depressed I will sing.
If I feel sad I will laugh.
If I feel ill I will double my labour.
If I feel fear I will plunge ahead.
If I feel inferior I will wear new garments.
If I feel uncertain I will raise my voice.
If I feel poverty I will think of wealth to come.
If I feel incompetent I will think of past success.
If I feel insignificant I will remember my goals.
Today I will be the master of my emotions.
—Og Mandino (1923–96) American Self-Help Author
An emotion is an automatic response, an automatic effect of man’s value premises. An effect, not a cause. There is no necessary clash, no dichotomy between man’s reason and his emotions
—Ayn Rand (1905–82) Russian-born American Novelist, Philosopher
Acting deals with very delicate emotions. It is not putting up a mask. Each time an actor acts, he does not hide; he exposes himself.
—Jeanne Moreau (1928–2017) French Stage, Screen Actor, Singer
Music is the shorthand of emotion.
—Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) Russian Novelist
It may be true of all relationships, not only between fathers and sons, but between men and women. Nothing seems fixed. Everything is always changing. We seem to have very little control over our emotional life.
—Sherwood Anderson (1876–1941) American Novelist, Short Story Writer
One’s suffering disappears when one lets oneself go, when one yields – even to sadness.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery (1900–44) French Novelist, Aviator
The tragedy of life is in what dies inside a man while he lives-the death of genuine feeling, the death of inspired response, the death of the awareness that makes it possible to feel the pain or the glory of other men in yourself.
—Norman Cousins (1912–1990) American Political Journalist
As none can see the wind but in its effects on the trees, neither can we see the emotions but in their effects on the face and body.
—Nathaniel LeTonnerre
The finest emotion of which we are capable is the mystic emotion.
—Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born Physicist
Where we have strong emotions, we’re liable to fool ourselves.
—Carl Sagan (1934–96) American Astronomer
The barrenest of all mortals is the sentimentalist.
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish Historian, Essayist
Swift instinct leaps; slow reason feebly climbs.
—Edward Young (1683–1765) English Poet
The appearance of things change according to the emotions, and thus we see magic and beauty in them, while the magic and beauty are really in ourselves.
—Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931) Lebanese-born American Philosopher, Poet, Painter, Theologian, Sculptor
Emotion always has its roots in the unconscious and manifests itself in the body.
—Irene Claremont de Castillejo (1885–1967) British Psychoanalyst
When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but creatures of emotion.
—Dale Carnegie (1888–1955) American Self-Help Author
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
An emotion is both a mental and a physical event.
—Nathaniel Branden (1930–2014) American Psychotherapist
It is not our exalted feelings, it is our sentiments that build the necessary home.
—Elizabeth Bowen (1899–1973) Irish Novelist, Short-story Writer
A clear understanding of a negative emotion dismisses it .
—Vernon Howard (1918–92) American Spiritual Teacher, Philosopher