Quotes about passion
A collection of quotes on the topic of passion, love, life, doing.
Best quotes about passion
“I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious.”
Ich habe keine besondere Begabung, sondern bin nur leidenschaftlich neugierig.
Letter to Carl Seelig http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Seelig (11 March 1952), Einstein Archives 39-013
1950s
“Patience and time do more than strength or passion.”
Patience et longueur de temps
Font plus que force ni que rage.
Book II (1668), fable 11.
Fables (1668–1679)
“I would rather die of passion than of boredom”
Not by van Gogh, but from Emile Zola's novel The Ladies' Paradise (1883)
Misattributed
“To play without passion is inexcusable!”
Not found in Beethoven's known works. It may be a summary of the following description of Beethoven from his piano pupil Ferdinand Ries: "When I left out something in a passage, a note or a skip, which in many cases he wished to have specially emphasized, or struck a wrong key, he seldom said anything; yet when I was at fault with regard to the expression, the crescendo or matters of that kind, or in the character of the piece, he would grow angry. Mistakes of the other kind, he said were due to chance; but these last resulted from want of knowledge, feeling or attention. He himself often made mistakes of the first kind, even playing in public."
Disputed
Variant: To play a wrong note is insignificant; to play without passion is inexcusable
“Maybe my passion is nothing special, but at least it's mine.”
Source: Travelling Light
Yanni in Words. Miramax Books. Co-author David Rensin
“Passion is the genesis of genius.”
“Nothing great in the world was accomplished without passion.”
Often abbreviated to: Nothing great in the World has been accomplished without passion.
Variant translation: We may affirm absolutely that nothing great in the world has ever been accomplished without enthusiasm.
Lectures on the Philosophy of History (1832), Volume 1
Variant: We may affirm absolutely that nothing great in the world has been accomplished without passion.
Context: We assert then that nothing has been accomplished without interest on the part of the actors; and — if interest be called passion, inasmuch as the whole individuality, to the neglect of all other actual or possible interests and claims, is devoted to an object with every fibre of volition, concentrating all its desires and powers upon it — we may affirm absolutely that nothing great in the World has been accomplished without passion.
Quotes about passion
Interpretation of a Japanese interview, as quoted in the same The New York Times-article linked above, published 4 January 2018.
Other quotes, 2018
“To play a wrong note is insignificant; to play without passion is inexcusable”
Not found in Beethoven's known works. It may be a summary of the following description of Beethoven from his piano pupil Ferdinand Ries: "When I left out something in a passage, a note or a skip, which in many cases he wished to have specially emphasized, or struck a wrong key, he seldom said anything; yet when I was at fault with regard to the expression, the crescendo or matters of that kind, or in the character of the piece, he would grow angry. Mistakes of the other kind, he said were due to chance; but these last resulted from want of knowledge, feeling or attention. He himself often made mistakes of the first kind, even playing in public."
Disputed
Source: "When Beethoven gave me a lesson" https://books.google.com/books?id=j8RIq67v51cC&pg=PA294&dq=%22when+beethoven+gave+me+a+lesson%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CBwQ6AEwAGoVChMI7Yyz0PiNyQIViDuICh1YIAzR#v=onepage&q=%22when%20beethoven%20gave%20me%20a%20lesson%22&f=false
Shared on her Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/MayaAngelou/posts/10150251846629796, July 4, 2011
“There is a difference between a passion and a fucking meltdown.”
Source: Queen Radio Episode 8, September 10th, 2018
“There is no end. There is no beginning. There is only the infinite passion of life.”
Fellini on Fellini (1976) edited by Anna Keel and Christian Strich; translated by Isabel Quigly.
Variant: There is no end. There is no beginning. There is only the passion of life.
Lord Darlington, Act II
Lady Windermere's Fan (1892)
Mīrābāī, in For love of the Dark One: songs of Mirabai http://books.google.co.in/books?id=oLFjAAAAMAAJ, p. 55
As quoted in Social Networking for Authors: Untapped Possibilities for Wealth (2009) by Michael Volkin, p. 60
2000s, 2009
Letters on Polish Affairs (1922)
Source: https://archive.org/stream/lettersonpolisha00sarouoft/lettersonpolisha00sarouoft_djvu.txt
“In Aberdeen, I hated my best friends with a passion, because they were idiots.”
As quoted in The Daily Of The University Of Washington (1989-05-05).
Interviews (1989-1994), Print
Source: La Dolce Vita: Federico Fellini's Masterpiece
Source: The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barret Barrett 1845-1846 Vol I
“Great dancers are not great because of their technique, they are great because of their passion.”
As quoted in The Runner's Book of Daily Inspiration : A Year of Motivation, Revelation, and Instruction (1999) by Kevin Nelson, p. 11.
Source: Reborn: Journals and Notebooks, 1947-1963
“Those who control their passions do so because their passions are weak enough to be controlled.”
Attributed in Talent Development for English Language Learners: Identifying and Developing Potential (2013) by Michael S. Matthews, Ph.D. SBN-13:9781618211057
2000s
Variant: Never ever depend on governments or institutions to solve any major problems. All social change comes from the passion of individuals.
“Your true passion should feel like breathing; it’s that natural.”
“To sing a wrong note is insignificant, but to sing without passion is unforgivable.”
Speech (21 June 1921), Ion Smeaton Munro, Through Fascism to World Power: A History of the Revolution in Italy, 27 January 2008 http://books.google.com/books?id=DML39RmvsmYC&pg=PA120&dq=%E2%80%9CWe+deny+your+internationalism%22+mussolini&lr=&sig=gTHVLgfaIKPCn_jW8f0phjDKrAI,
1920s
John Guinn (December 22, 1982) "Rubinstein Was His Music", Detroit Free Press, p. 8D.
Attributed
"On the Life of Man" (1612)
Attributed
Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1845/mar/17/agricultural-interest in the House of Commons (17 March 1845).
1840s
“It is important to do everything with passion, it embellishes life enormously.”
Главное, делайте всё с увлечением, это страшно украшает жизнь.
in a letter to his niece Maya Bessarab, as quoted by her in [Lev Landau, biography, Moscovskiy Rabochiy (Moscow Worker), 1971]
Letter by Mozart, as quoted in a journal entry (12 December 1856) The Journal of Eugene Delacroix as translated by Walter Pach (1937), p. 521. The quote is not found in any authentic letter by Mozart.
“A poet is, before anything else, a person who is passionately in love with language.”
Squares and Oblongs, in Poets at Work (1948), p. 170
Source: Reflections and Maxims (1746), p. 172.
The Race of My Life: An Autobiography Milkha Singh (2013)
Die neuesten Arbeiten des Spartacus und Philo in dem Illuminaten-Orden (1794) pp. 20-21.
Source: Jack: Straight from the Gut (2001), Ch. 3.
Source: Parable of the Talents (1998), Chapter 20 (p. 392)
Quoted by Masiela Lusha in a 2009 press conference http://www.masielalusha.com/board.php
Letter http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/anarchist_archives/bakunin/letters/toherzenandogareff.html to Aleksandr Ivanovich Herzen and Ogareff from San Francisco (3 October 1861); published in Correspondance de Michel Bakounine (1896) edited by Michel Dragmanov
Source: 1960s, Strength to Love (1963), Ch. 2 : Transformed nonconformist
"The Reaction in Germany" (1842)
Often paraphrased as, "The urge to destroy is also a creative urge"
Context: We exhort the compromisers to open their hearts to truth, to free themselves of their wretched and blind circumspection, of their intellectual arrogance, and of the servile fear which dries up their souls and paralyzes their movements.
Let us therefore trust the eternal Spirit which destroys and annihilates only because it is the unfathomable and eternal source of all life. The passion for destruction is a creative passion, too!
A Hero of Our Time (1840; rev. 1841)
Source: Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems (1632), p. 322
Context: In the long run my observations have convinced me that some men, reasoning preposterously, first establish some conclusion in their minds which, either because of its being their own or because of their having received it from some person who has their entire confidence, impresses them so deeply that one finds it impossible ever to get it out of their heads. Such arguments in support of their fixed idea as they hit upon themselves or hear set forth by others, no matter how simple and stupid these may be, gain their instant acceptance and applause. On the other hand whatever is brought forward against it, however ingenious and conclusive, they receive with disdain or with hot rage — if indeed it does not make them ill. Beside themselves with passion, some of them would not be backward even about scheming to suppress and silence their adversaries.
“Passion and prejudice govern the world; only under the name of reason.”
Letter to John Benson (5 October 1770); published in Wesley's Select Letters (1837), p. 207
General sources
Context: Passion and prejudice govern the world; only under the name of reason. It is our part, by religion and reason joined, to counteract them all we can.
Interview with Einstein (1930)
Context: Our passions and desires are unruly, but our character subdues these elements into a harmonious whole. Does something similar to this happen in the physical world? Are the elements rebellious, dynamic with individual impulse? And is there a principle in the physical world which dominates them and puts them into an orderly organization? … It is the constant harmony of chance and determination which makes it eternally new and living.
Cassandra (1860)
Context: Why have women passion, intellect, moral activity — these three — and a place in society where no one of the three can be exercised? Men say that God punishes for complaining. No, but men are angry with misery. They are irritated with women for not being happy. They take it as a personal offence. To God alone may women complain without insulting Him!
As quoted in Modern Dancing and Dancers (1912) by John Ernest Crawford Flitch, p. 105.
Context: To seek in nature the fairest forms and to find the movement which expresses the soul of these forms — this is the art of the dancer. It is from nature alone that the dancer must draw his inspirations, in the same manner as the sculptor, with whom he has so many affinities. Rodin has said: "To produce good sculpture it is not necessary to copy the works of antiquity; it is necessary first of all to regard the works of nature, and to see in those of the classics only the method by which they have interpreted nature." Rodin is right; and in my art I have by no means copied, as has been supposed, the figures of Greek vases, friezes and paintings. From them I have learned to regard nature, and when certain of my movements recall the gestures that are seen in works of art, it is only because, like them, they are drawn from the grand natural source.
My inspiration has been drawn from trees, from waves, from clouds, from the sympathies that exist between passion and the storm, between gentleness and the soft breeze, and the like, and I always endeavour to put into my movements a little of that divine continuity which gives to the whole of nature its beauty and its life.
Quoted in The Life of St. Gemma Galgani by her spiritual director Ven. Germanus, trans. A. M. O'Sullivan, 1999, p. 258.
Source: "How ‘Stranger Things’ Star Millie Bobby Brown Made Eleven ‘Iconic’ and Catapulted Into Pop Culture" https://variety.com/2017/tv/features/millie-bobby-brown-stranger-things-season-2-eleven-1202602487/. Variety. (October 31, 2017).
“Curiosity is, in great and generous minds, the first passion and the last.”
Source: Works of Samuel Johnson
“Literature and butterflies are the two sweetest passions known to man.”
Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray
Source: The Return of the Native
"Susan Sontag Finds Romance" http://www.nytimes.com/1992/08/02/books/booksspecial/sontag-romance.html?ex=1168146000&en=d224e29f399a3317&ei=5070, interview with by Leslie Garis, The New York Times (2 August 1992)
“A passion for pleasure is the secret of remaining young.”
Source: My Uncle Oswald (1979)
Source: The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath
1960s, The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell (1967-1969)
Context: Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a deep ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair.
“She had a passion for secrecy, but she herself was merely a Sphinx without a secret.”
Source: Howards End (1910), Ch. 22
Context: Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon. Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height. Live in fragments no longer. Only connect, and the beast and the monk, robbed of the isolation that is life to either, will die.
Letter to the Editor, Dublin Daily Express (27 February 1895)
“Passion cannot be beautiful without excess; one either loves too much or not enough.”
“No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear.”
Part II Section II
A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1757)
“One of the most powerful of all our passions is the desire to be admired and respected.”
Source: Sceptical Essays
1790s, Farewell Address (1796)
Source: The Papers Of George Washington
Context: Nothing is more essential, than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular Nations, and passionate attachments for others, should be excluded; and that, in place of them, just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated. The Nation, which indulges towards another an habitual hatred, or an habitual fondness, is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest. Antipathy in one nation against another disposes each more readily to offer insult and injury, to lay hold of slight causes of umbrage, and to be haughty and intractable, when accidental or trifling occasions of dispute occur. Hence frequent collisions, obstinate, envenomed, and bloody contests.
