
“Enthusiasm does not always speak for those who arouse it, but always for those who experience it.”
Source: Aphorisms (1880/1893), p. 76.
First attributed to Thoreau in A year of sunshine: cheerful extracts for every day in the year (Kate Sanborn, 1886) and American literature (Mildred Cabell Watkins, 1894), but there is no known citation to Thoreau's works.
Misattributed
“Enthusiasm does not always speak for those who arouse it, but always for those who experience it.”
Source: Aphorisms (1880/1893), p. 76.
Source: Twenty Years at Hull-House (1910), Ch. 9
Source: " The Unconscious Holocaust https://archive.org/details/theunconsciousholocaust-jhowardmoore", Good Health: A Journal of Hygiene, Vol 32, Iss. 2, 1 Feb. 1897, p. 75
Variant: The secret of genius is to carry the spirit of the child into old age, which means never losing your enthusiasm.
“The eye in his hand winked at him dourly. Eye was a tough old gump, not given to easy enthusiasms.”
Comments on Roadstrum speaking to the pickled eye he carries in his pocket, in Ch. 8
Space Chantey (1968)
Context: The eye in his hand winked at him dourly. Eye was a tough old gump, not given to easy enthusiasms. Roadstrum put it back in his pocket and once more contemplated his good fortune.
The Principles of Success in Literature (1865)
Context: A man must be himself convinced if he is to convince others. The prophet must be his own disciple, or he will make none. Enthusiasm is contagious: belief creates belief. There is no influence issuing from unbelief or from languid acquiescence. This is peculiarly noticeable in Art, because Art depends on sympathy for its influence, and unless the artist has felt the emotions he depicts we remain unmoved: in proportion to the depth of his feeling is our sympathetic response; in proportion to the shallowness or falsehood of his presentation is our coldness or indifference.
Quotations from Gurudev’s teachings, Chinmya Mission Chicago