Quotes about passion

„In Aberdeen, I hated my best friends with a passion, because they were idiots.“

—  Kurt Cobain American musician and artist 1967 - 1994

As quoted in The Daily Of The University Of Washington (1989-05-05).
Interviews (1989-1994), Print

„Life isn't nearly as sacred as the appreciation of passion.“

—  Kurt Cobain, book Journals

Source: Journals

„I mean I like to be passionate and sincere but I also like to have fun and act like a dork. Geeks unite.“

—  Kurt Cobain American musician and artist 1967 - 1994

„Punk rock should mean freedom, liking and excepting anything that you like. Playing whatever you want. As sloppy as you want. As long as it's good and it has passion.“

—  Kurt Cobain American musician and artist 1967 - 1994

„Getting lost was not a matter of geography so much as identity, a passionate desire, even an urgent need, to become no one and anyone, to shake off the shackles that remind you who you are, who others think you are.“

—  Rebecca Solnit Author and essayist from United States 1961

Source: A Field Guide to Getting Lost

„For a long while I have lived with the notion that I was the most normal being that ever existed. This notion gave me the taste, even the passion for being unproductive: what was the use of being prized in a world inhabited by madmen, a world mired in mania and stupidity? For whom was one to bother, and to what end? It remains to be seen if I have quite freed myself from this certitude, salvation in the absolute, ruin in the immediate.“

—  Emil M. Cioran, book The Trouble With Being Born

The Trouble With Being Born (1973)

„Death makes no sense except to people who have passionately loved life. How can one die without having something to part from? Detachment is a negation of both life and death. Whoever has overcome his fear of death has also triumphed over life. For life is nothing but another word for this fear.“

—  Emil M. Cioran Romanian philosopher and essayist 1911 - 1995

Tears and Saints (1937)

„Ideas should be neutral. But man animates them with his passions and folly. Impure and turned into beliefs, they take on the appearance of reality. The passage from logic is consummated. Thus are born ideologies, doctrines, and bloody farce.“

—  Emil M. Cioran, book A Short History of Decay

A Short History of Decay (1949)

„Great dancers are not great because of their technique, they are great because of their passion.“

—  Martha Graham American dancer and choreographer 1894 - 1991

As quoted in The Runner's Book of Daily Inspiration : A Year of Motivation, Revelation, and Instruction (1999) by Kevin Nelson, p. 11.

„Nobody cares if you can't dance well. Just get up and dance. Great dancers are great because of their passion.“

—  Martha Graham American dancer and choreographer 1894 - 1991

„A poet is, before anything else, a person who is passionately in love with language.“

—  W. H. Auden Anglo-American poet 1907 - 1973

Squares and Oblongs, in Poets at Work (1948), p. 170

„There is a difference between a passion and a fucking meltdown.“

—  Nicki Minaj Trinidadian-born American singer, rapper and actress 1982

Source: Queen Radio Episode 8, September 10th, 2018

„It is a great good fortune, as Stendhal said, for one “to have his passion as a profession.”“

—  Maurice Merleau-Ponty French phenomenological philosopher 1908 - 1961

Source: In Praise of Philosophy (1963), p. 4

„Curiosity is, in great and generous minds, the first passion and the last.“

—  Samuel Johnson English writer 1709 - 1784

Source: Works of Samuel Johnson

„Is it not want of reason in any one to suppose that when he has striven successfully to escape the dominion of one particular passion, he will find virtue in its opposite?“

—  Gregory of Nyssa bishop of Nyssa 335 - 395

On Virginity, Chapter 16

„Give me that man that is not passion's slave, and I will wear him in my heart's core, in my heart of heart, as I do thee.“

—  William Shakespeare, Hamlet

Source: Hamlet

„God calls all the passions out in their keenness and vigour, for the present safety of mankind.“

—  Sydney Smith English writer and clergyman 1771 - 1845

Lecture XXVIL: On Habit - Part II, in “Elementary Sketches of Moral Philosophy”, delivered at The Royal Institution in the years 1804, 1805, and 1806 by the late Rev. Sydney Smith, M.A. (Spottiswoodes and Shaw (London: 1849)) http://www.archive.org/stream/elementarysketc03smitgoog#page/n438/mode/2up, p. 423-424
Another Variant: The history of the world shows us that men are not to be counted by their numbers, but by the fire and vigour of their passions; by their deep sense of injury; by their memory of past glory; by their eagerness for fresh fame; by their clear and steady resolution of ceasing to live, or of achieving a particular object, which, when it is once formed, strikes off a load of manacles and chains, and gives free space to all heavenly and heroic feelings. All great and extraordinary actions come from the heart. There are seasons in human affairs when qualities, fit enough to conduct the common business of life, are feeble and useless, when men must trust to emotion for that safety which reason at such times can never give. These are the feelings which led the ten thousand over the Carduchian mountains; these are the feelings by which a handful of Greeks broke in pieces the power of Persia; and in the fens of the Dutch, and on the mountains of the Swiss, defended the happiness and revenged the oppressions of man! God calls all the passions out in their keenness and vigour for the present safety of mankind, anger and revenge, and the heroic mind, and a readiness to suffer—all the secret strength, all the invisible array of the feelings—all that nature has reserved for the great scenes of the world. When the usual hopes and the common aids of man are all gone, nothing remains under God but those passions which have often proved the best ministers of His purpose and the surest protectors of the world.
Quoted by Theodore Roosevelt in his " Brotherhood and the Heroic Virtues http://www.theodore-roosevelt.com/images/research/txtspeeches/668.pdf" Address at the Veterans' Reunion, Burlington, Vermont, September 5, 1901 and published in Theodore Roosevelt's "The Strenuous Life: Essays and Addresses" by Dover Publications (April 23, 2009) in its Dover Thrift Editions (ISBN: 978-0486472294), p. 126-127
Elementary Sketches of Moral Philosophy (1849)
Context: The history of the world shows us that men are not to be counted by their numbers, but by the fire and vigour of their passions; by their deep sense of injury; by their memory of past glory; by their eagerness for fresh fame; by their clear and steady resolution of ceasing to live, or of achieving a particular object, which, when it is once formed, strikes off a load of manacles and chains, and gives free space to all heavenly and heroic feelings. All great and extraordinary actions come from the heart. There are seasons in human affairs, when qualities fit enough to conduct the common business of life, are feeble and useless; and when men must trust to emotion, for that safety which reason at such times can never give. These are the feelings which led the ten thousand over the Carduchian mountans; these are the feelings by which a handful of Greeks broke in pieces the power of Persia: they have, by turns, humbled Austria, reduced Spain; and in the fens of the Dutch, and on the mountains of the Swiss, defended the happiness, and revenged the oppressions, of man! God calls all the passions out in their keenness and vigour, for the present safety of mankind. Anger, and revenge, and the heroic mind, and a readiness to suffer;— all the secret strength, all the invisible array, of the feelings,— all that nature has reserved for the great scenes of the world. For the usual hopes, and the common aids of man, are all gone! Kings have perished, armies are subdued, nations mouldered away! Nothing remains, under God, but those passions which have often proved the best ministers of His vengeance, and the surest protectors of the world.

„This first stage of the life of the whole race is savagery, raw nature:… a condition in which man enjoys the most exquisite goods, equality and freedom, in full abundance, and would also enjoy them forever, if he would follow the hint of nature and understand the art of not abusing his powers and preventing the outbreak of his excessive passions.“

—  Adam Weishaupt German philosopher and founder of the Order of Illuminati 1748 - 1830

Die neuesten Arbeiten des Spartacus und Philo in dem Illuminaten-Orden (1794) pp. 20-21.

„Your true passion should feel like breathing; it’s that natural.“

—  Oprah Winfrey American businesswoman, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist 1954