“Life is complex in its expression, involving more than percipience, namely desire, emotion, will, and feeling.”

— Alfred North Whitehead

1910s, The Principles of Natural Knowledge (1919)

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Alfred North Whitehead 112

English mathematician and philosopher 1861–1947

Henry Kuttner (1915–1958) American author

Source: The Time Axis (1949), Ch. 3 : The Vision Of Time
Context: I closed my eyes again, thinking of the Face. I had to force my mind to turn around in its tracks and look, for it didn't want to confront that infinite complexity again. The Face was painful to see. It was too intricate, too involved with emotions complex beyond our grasp. It was painful for the mind to think of it, straining to understand the inscrutable things that experience had etched upon those mountain-high features.
"Is it a portrait?" I asked suddenly. "Or a composite? What is the Face?"
"A city," De Kalb said. "A nation. The ultimate in human destiny — and a call for help. And much more that we'll never understand."

“Could anything be more inimical to art than a fear of emotion, or a fear of "excessive" emotion, or a reluctance to express emotion around others?”

Caitlín R. Kiernan (1964) writer

"Would you like to see a little of it?" said the Mock Turtle. (3 April 2010)
Unfit for Mass Consumption (blog entries), 2010
Context: Could anything be more inimical to art than a fear of emotion, or a fear of "excessive" emotion, or a reluctance to express emotion around others? No, of course not. Art can even best the weights of utter fucking ignorance and totalitarian repression, but it cannot survive emotional constipation.
I want a T-shirt that says, "Art is Emo." We live in an age where people are more apt to believe a thing if they read it on a T-shirt.

“An emotional response to a situation is the single greatest barrier to power, a mistake that will cost you a lot more than any temporary satisfaction you might gain by expressing your feelings.”

Robert Greene book The 48 Laws of Power

Source: The 48 Laws of Power

““For the ultimate and real meaning of the argument is, that a soul or mind or person, purely as such, is itself the fountain of its percipient experience, and so possesses what has been happily named "life in itself." Proof of the presence in us of a priori or spontaneous cognition, then, is proof of just this self-causative life.”

George Holmes Howison (1834–1916) American philosopher

The Limits of Evolution, and Other Essays, Illustrating the Metaphysical Theory of Personal Ideaalism (1905), Human Immortality: its Positive Argument

“There are many points both of doctrine and feeling in which the world is not likely to be wrong. But in all cases it is desirable that men should not pretend to believe opinions which they really reject, or express emotions they do not feel.”

George Henry Lewes (1817–1878) British philosopher

The Principles of Success in Literature (1865)
Context: I would not have the reader conclude that because I advocate plain-speaking even of unpopular views, I mean to imply that originality and sincerity are always in opposition to public opinion. There are many points both of doctrine and feeling in which the world is not likely to be wrong. But in all cases it is desirable that men should not pretend to believe opinions which they really reject, or express emotions they do not feel. And this rule is universal. Even truthful and modest men will sometimes violate the rule under the mistaken idea of being eloquent by means of the diction of eloquence. This is a source of bad Literature.