“There is only one true aristocracy… and that is the aristocracy of passionate souls!”

— Tennessee Williams

Last update Sept. 27, 2023. History

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Tennessee Williams 139

American playwright 1911–1983

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“If ignorance and passion are the foes of popular morality, it must be confessed that moral indifference is the malady of the cultivated classes. The modern separation of enlightenment and virtue, of thought and conscience, of the intellectual aristocracy from the honest and common crowd is the greatest danger that can threaten liberty.”

Henri-Frédéric Amiel (1821–1881) Swiss philosopher and poet

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919), Journal

“Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide. It is in vain to say that democracy is less vain, less proud, less selfish, less ambitious, or less avaricious than aristocracy or monarchy. It is not true, in fact, and nowhere appears in history. Those passions are the same in all men, under all forms of simple government, and when unchecked, produce the same effects of fraud, violence, and cruelty.”

John Adams (1735–1826) 2nd President of the United States

XVIII, p. 484
1810s, Letters to John Taylor (1814)

“Nothing is quite so wretchedly corrupt as an aristocracy which has lost its power but kept its wealth and which still has endless leisure to devote to nothing but banal enjoyments. All its great thoughts and passionate energy are things of the past, and nothing but a host of petty, gnawing vices now cling to it like worms to a corpse.”

Alexis De Tocqueville book Democracy in America

Book Three, Chapter XI.
Democracy in America, Volume II (1840), Book Three

“There is only one passion, the passion for happiness.”

Denis Diderot (1713–1784) French Enlightenment philosopher and encyclopædist

"Will, Freedom”
Elements of Physiology (1875)

“You were beautiful and heartless…in some ways rather a bore. But you have grown up into another over-refined soul of the sort our aristocracy is so good at producing and which produces so little itself save ways to spend unconscionable amounts on castles, clothes, and complex towers to keep comfortable impossible beasts.”

Samuel R. Delany book Tales of Nevèrÿon

Source: Tales of Nevèrÿon (1979), Chapter 5, “The Tale of Dragons and Dreamers” Section 1 (p. 214; ellipsis in the original)

“True love is not a potion one person can swallow and another refuse to drink. It happens only when the souls of two join together to form one”

P. C. Cast (1960) American writer

Source: Goddess of the Sea

“Only the person blinded by the passion of controversy could deny that woman in soul and body is formed for a particular purpose.”

Edith Stein (1891–1942) Jewish-German nun, theologian and philosopher

Essays on Woman (1996), The Ethos of Woman's Professions (1930)
Context: Only the person blinded by the passion of controversy could deny that woman in soul and body is formed for a particular purpose. The clear and irrevocable world of Scripture declares what daily experience teaches from the beginning of the world: woman is destined to be wife and mother.

“The distant souls, united by destiny, shorten distances, increase tension by merging into one and intense passion.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: (it) Le anime lontane ma unite dal destino accorciano le distanze, aumentano la tensione fondendosi in un'unica ed intensa passione.
Source: prevale.net

“True rebels after all, are as rare as true lovers, and in both cases, to mistake a fever for passion can destroy one's life”

James Baldwin (1924–1987) (1924-1987) writer from the United States

“Only one who devotes himself to a cause with his whole strength and soul can be a true master. For this reason mastery demands all of a person.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

“There is only one true aristocracy… and that is the aristocracy of passionate souls!”

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Tennessee Williams 139

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