Quotes about emotion
page 6

“Novels give you the matrix of emotions, give you the flavour of a time in a way formal history cannot.”

Doris Lessing (1919–2013) British novelist, poet, playwright, librettist, biographer and short story writer

Way, History, Time

“The emotions - love, mirth, the heroic, wonder, tranquility, fear, anger, sorrow, disgust - are in the audience.”

John Cage book Silence: Lectures and Writings

Source: Silence: Lectures and Writings

Love, Fear, Anger

“I was stunned to see that he looked stunned himself, which was an exorbitant display of emotion for Barrons.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Bloodfever

“Music is the shorthand of emotion”

Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) Russian writer

Music

“Empathy is the most radical of human emotions.”

Gloria Steinem (1934) American feminist and journalist

“Since I am not actually a real human being, my emotional responses are generally limited to what I have learned to fake.”

Jeff Lindsay book Dearly Devoted Dexter

Source: Dearly Devoted Dexter

Learning

“Write about the emotions you fear the most.”

Laurie Halse Anderson (1961) American children's writer

Fear

“You are, after all, what you think. Your emotions are the slaves to your thoughts, and you are the slave to your emotions.”

Elizabeth Gilbert book Eat, Pray, Love

Variant: Your emotions are the slaves to your thoughts, and you are the slave to your emotions.
Source: Eat, Pray, Love

Thinking

“emotions really exist at the bottom of the personality or at the top. in the middle they are acted. this is why all the world is a stage.”

Iris Murdoch book The Sea, the Sea

Source: The Sea, the Sea

World, Personality

“Wholeheartedness. There are many tenets of Wholeheartedness, but at its very core is vulnerability and worthiness; facing uncertainty, exposure, and emotional risks, and knowing that I am enough.”

Brené Brown (1965) US writer and professor

Source: Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead

“There comes a point where emotions must give way to objective facts.”

Max Brooks book World War Z

Source: World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War

Way

“Women are still in emotional bondage as long as we need to worry that we might have to make a choice between being heard and being loved.”

Marianne Williamson (1952) American writer

Source: A Woman's Worth

Love, Women

“Fear can’t be reasoned with. Neither can hate. They’re like love. They’re almost identical emotions. That’s why Ares and Aphrodite like each other. Their twin sons – Fear and Panic – were spawned from both war and love.”

Rick Riordan book The Blood of Olympus

Source: The Blood of Olympus

Love, Hate, War, Fear

“Do you know how much women loathe it when guys think every show of negative emotion is tied to our menstrual cycle, like we're sheep or something?”

Laurie Halse Anderson (1961) American children's writer

Source: The Impossible Knife of Memory

Women, Guy, Thinking

“Hope is not an emotion; it's a way of thinking or a cognitive process.”

Brené Brown (1965) US writer and professor

Source: The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are

Hope, Way, Thinking, Hope

“Piensa el sentimiento, siente el pensamiento."

(roughly translated, "Think about the emotional and feel the intellectual")”

Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936) 19th-20th century Spanish writer and philosopher

Feeling, Thinking

“I’d been raised to be practical and keep my
emotions in check, but I loved cars. That was one of the few
legacies I’d picked up from my mom. She was a mechanic,
and some of my best childhood memories were of working
in the garage with her.”

Richelle Mead Bloodlines

Source: Bloodlines

Love, Cars, Moms, Memory

“I never thought meeting you would be this boring. I thought we'd put our Italian emotion into gear and scream the place down. I never expected indifference.”

Melina Marchetta book Looking for Alibrandi

Source: Looking for Alibrandi

Indifference

“How rarely do our emotions meet the object they seem to deserve? How hopelessly we signal; how dark the sky; how big the waves. We are all lost at sea, washed between hope and despair, hailing something that may never come to rescue us.”

Julian Barnes (1946) English writer

Hope, Sea, Despair

“I would say that there is no art form that has so much in common with film as music. Both affect our emotions directly, not via the intellect.”

Ingmar Bergman (1918–2007) Swedish filmmaker

"Introduction" of Four Screenplays (1960). 
Context: When we experience a film, we consciously prime ourselves for illusion. Putting aside will and intellect, we make way for it in our imagination. The sequence of pictures plays directly on our feelings. Music works in the same fashion; I would say that there is no art form that has so much in common with film as music. Both affect our emotions directly, not via the intellect. And film is mainly rhythm; it is inhalation and exhalation in continuous sequence. Ever since childhood, music has been my great source of recreation and stimulation, and I often experience a film or play musically.

Art, Music

“Karma Repair Kit Items 1-4.

1. Get enough food to eat,
and eat it.

2. Find a place to sleep where it is quiet,
and sleep there.

3. Reduce intellectual and emotional noise
until you arrive at the silence of yourself,
and listen to it.

4.”

Richard Brautigan (1935–1984) American novelist, poet, and short story writer

Food, Sleep, Silence

“If I didn't think, I'd be much happier; if I didn't have any sex organs, I wouldn't waver on the brink of nervous emotion and tears all the time.”

Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer

1950 entry, quoted in Kate Moses, "The Real Sylvia Plath," Salon.com (2000-06-01) http://dir.salon.com/story/books/feature/2000/06/01/plath2/ The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath (2000) Variant: If I didn't think, I'd be much happier; if I didn't have any sex organs, I wouldn't waver on the brink of nervous emotion and tears all the time. Source: The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

Sex, Thinking, Tear, Time

“The message of "The Winner Takes It All" is straightforward: It argues that the concept of relationships ending on mutual terms is an emotional fallacy. One person is inevitably okay and the other is inevitably devastated.”

Chuck Klosterman Eating the Dinosaur

Source: Eating the Dinosaur

Personality

“Painful as it may be, a significant emotional event can be the catalyst for choosing a direction that serves us - and those around us - more effectively. Look for the learning.”

Louisa May Alcott (1832–1888) American novelist

Pain, Learning

“Emotions by their very nature are not reasonable things.”

Patrick Rothfuss book The Name of the Wind

Source: The Name of the Wind

Nature

“People think love is an emotion. Love is good sense.”

Ken Kesey (1935–2001) novelist

Love, People, Thinking, Sense

“Music is a language that doesn’t speak in particular words. It speaks in emotions, and if it’s in the bones, it’s in the bones.”

Keith Richards (1943) British rock musician, member of The Rolling Stones

Source: According to the Rolling Stones

Music

“Emotions are the curse of logic.”

Frank Herbert book The Green Brain

Source: The Green Brain

“I'm this superphilosophical kind of person. Stuck in a prison of abstract ideas and overpowering emotions, I have this personality that makes it really hard to survive.”

Natsuo Kirino book Real World

Source: Real World

Idea, Personality

“Nothing is more perplexing to a man than the mental process of a woman who reasons her emotions.”

Edith Wharton (1862–1937) American novelist, short story writer, designer

“Life, he realized, was much like a song.
In the beginning there is mystery, in the end there is confirmation, but it's in the middle where all the emotion resides to make the whole thing worthwhile.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Last Song

Steve Miller, Chapter 36, Steve, p. 376
Source: 2000s, The Last Song (2009)

Life

“Laughter is man's most distinctive emotional expression.”

Margaret Mead (1901–1978) American anthropologist

Man shares the capacity for love and hate, anger and fear, loyalty and grief, with other living creatures. But humour, which has an intellectual as well as an emotional element belongs to man.
Source: 1970s, Margaret Mead: Some Personal Views (1979), p. 121

Laughter

“people's emotions are rarely put into words, far more often they are expressed through other cues.
the key to intuiting another's feelings is in the ability to read nonverbal channels, tone of voice, gesture, facial expression and the like”

Daniel Goleman (1946) American psychologist & journalist

Source: Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ

People, Feeling, Reading

“Glamour cannot exist without personal social envy being a common and widespread emotion.”

John Berger book Ways of Seeing

Source: Ways of Seeing (1972), p. 148

Envy, Personality

“I write emotional algebra.”

Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica

“Memory warps time, as it does the sights and sounds and smells of reality; for what shapes it is emotion, which can twist what seems clear, just as the surface of a pond seems to bend the stick thrust into the water.”

Sherwood Smith book Crown Duel

Source: Crown Duel (Crown & Court #1 - 2, 1997)

Reality, Water, Memory, Time

“No emotion is the final one.”

Jeanette Winterson book Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit

Source: Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit

“Love is not an emotion. It is your very existence.”

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar (1956) spiritual leader

Love

“Don't let emotions paralyze you.”

DiAnn Mills

Firewall

“Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words? He thinks I don't know the ten-dollar words. I know them all right. But there are older and simpler and better words, and those are the ones I use.”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

On being informed that Faulkner had said that Hemingway "had never been known to use a word that might send the reader to the dictionary." Pt. 1, Ch. 4
Papa Hemingway (1966)

Thinking

“Just as your car runs more smoothly and requires less energy to go faster and
farther when the wheels are in perfect alignment, you perform better when your
thoughts, feelings, emotions, goals, and values are in balance.”

Brian Tracy (1944) American motivational speaker and writer

Source: Focal Point: A Proven System to Simplify Your Life, Double Your Productivity, and Achieve All Your Goals

Cars, Feeling, Perfection

“Like is an emotion. Emotions”—he raised a hand, made a fist, clenched it tightly—“are like holding water. You open your hand, there’s nothing there. Better to be a weapon than a woman.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Water

“But emotions when based on valued things can be a faithful and consistant sum of truths.”

Terry Goodkind book Confessor

Source: Confessor

Truth, Faith

“Youre a public menace. You shouldnt be allowed out on your own."said Simon.
"Jealousy is such an ugly emotion, Lewis."said Jace.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Fallen Angels

Source: City of Fallen Angels

Jealousy

“Emotional Channeling Technique #1: Ask Courageous Questions”

Jay A. Block

101 Best Ways to Land a Job in Troubled Times

Courage, Question

“Can you see the power emotion has to distort our outlook? Makes you wonder, did you have a bad day, or did you make it a bad day.”

Brandon Mull (1974) American fiction writer

Source: Rise of the Evening Star

“The important thing is not the object of love, but the emotion itself.”

Gore Vidal (1925–2012) American writer

Love

“A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, our perceptions of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which only in their most primitive forms are accessible to our minds: it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute true religiosity. In this sense, and only this sense, I am a deeply religious man.”

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

Variant translations: The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. He who knows it not and can no longer wonder, no longer feel amazement, is as good as dead, a snuffed-out candle. It was the experience of mystery — even if mixed with fear — that engendered religion. A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, of the manifestations of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which are only accessible to our reason in their most elementary forms — it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute the truly religious attitude; in this sense, and in this alone, I am a deeply religious man.
The finest emotion of which we are capable is the mystic emotion. Herein lies the germ of all art and all true science. Anyone to whom this feeling is alien, who is no longer capable of wonderment and lives in a state of fear is a dead man. To know that what is impenetrable for us really exists and manifests itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty, whose gross forms alone are intelligible to our poor faculties — this knowledge, this feeling … that is the core of the true religious sentiment. In this sense, and in this sense alone, I rank myself among profoundly religious men.
As quoted in After Einstein : Proceedings of the Einstein Centennial Celebration (1981) by Peter Barker and Cecil G. Shugart, p. 179
The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.
As quoted in Introduction to Philosophy (1935) by George Thomas White Patrick and Frank Miller Chapman, p. 44
The most beautiful emotion we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead, a snuffed-out candle. To sense that behind anything that can be experienced there is something that our minds cannot grasp, whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly: this is religiousness. In this sense, and in this sense only, I am a devoutly religious man."
He who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed.
1930s, Mein Weltbild (My World-view) (1931)
Context: The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science. Whoever does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed. It was the experience of mystery — even if mixed with fear — that engendered religion. A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, our perceptions of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which only in their most primitive forms are accessible to our minds: it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute true religiosity. In this sense, and only this sense, I am a deeply religious man.

Beauty, Knowledge, Sense

“The knowledge of the past stays with us. To let go is to
release the images and emotions, the grudges and fears, the
clingings and disappointments of the past that bind our
spirit.”

Jack Kornfield (1945) American writer

Fear, Disappointment, Knowledge, Past

“If you hold back on the emotions--if you don't allow yourself to go all the way through them--you can never get to being detached, you're too busy being afraid.”

Mitch Albom Tuesdays with Morrie

Source: Tuesdays with Morrie

Way, Business

“It was the first honest emotional connection I'd had in a while. So I immediately panicked and had to leave.”

Candace Bushnell (1958) American author

“She can't help it,' he said. 'She's got the soul of a poet and the emotional makeup of a junkyard dog.”

Stephen King book Under the Dome

Source: Under the Dome

Dogs, Soul, Help

“No, you've got it all wrong, John." Reading his emotions, she shook her head. "You're not half the male you could be because of what was done to you. You're twice what anyone else is because you survived.”

Jessica Bird (1969) U.S. novelist

Source: Lover Mine

Reading

“Rationalization is a process of not perceiving reality, but of attempting to make reality fit one’s emotions.”

Ayn Rand (1905–1982) Russian-American novelist and philosopher

Source: Philosophy: Who Needs It?

Reality

“I recognize terror as the finest emotion and so I will try to terrorize the reader. But if I find that I cannot terrify, I will try to horrify, and if I find that I cannot horrify, I'll go for the gross-out. I'm not proud.”

Stephen King (1947) American author

“Art without emotion its like chocolate cake without sugar. It makes you gag.”

Laurie Halse Anderson Speak

Source: Speak

Art

“There will never come a time when I will be able to resist my emotions.”

Louise Erdrich (1954) writer from the United States

Source: Tales of Burning Love

Time

“The anoretic operates under the astounding illusion that she can escape the flesh, and, by association, the realm of emotions.”

Marya Hornbacher book Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia

Source: Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia

“Jealousy is such an ugly emotion.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Fallen Angels

Source: City of Fallen Angels

Jealousy

“The emotion of love gives all of us a misleading illusion of knowing the other.”

Milan Kundera (1929–2023) Czech author of Czech and French literature

Love

“Personally, I am a hedonistic reader; I have never read a book merely because it was ancient. I read books for the aesthetic emotions they offer me, and I ignore the commentaries and criticism.”

Jorge Luis Borges book Seven Nights

Source: Seven Nights

Books, Reading, Personality

“she acquired the certainty of the expansion of time by depth of emotion, range and infinite multiplicity of experience.”

Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica

Time

“Pity is an emotion that can get you killed. The only thing more dangerous is blind hate, and maybe love.”

Laurell K. Hamilton book Guilty Pleasures

Source: Guilty Pleasures

Love, Hate

“When two people respect each other, the ability to be vulnerable and to reveal hurt feelings can create a powerful emotional connection that is the source of real intimacy and friendship.”

David D. Burns (1942) American psychiatrist

Friendship, People, Feeling, Hurt

“People around you, constantly under the pull of their emotions, change their ideas by the day or by the hour, depending on their mood. You must never assume that what people say or do in a particular moment is a statement of their permanent desires.”

Robert Greene book Mastery

Source: Mastery

People, Idea, Mood, Change

“The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science. Whoever does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed.”

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

Beauty, Art, Science, Dead

“Evelyn: There's nothing wrong with embracing one's emotions.
Brittany: Mom, You don't just embrace your emotions, you make love to them hard-core.”

Gena Showalter (1975) American writer

Source: Catch a Mate

Love, Making love, Moms

“Everything you do is triggered by an emotion of either desire or fear.”

Brian Tracy (1944) American motivational speaker and writer

Fear

“I am prone to envy. It is one of my three default emotions, the others being greed and rage. I have also experienced compassion and generosity, but only fleetingly and usually while drunk, so I have little memory.”

Augusten Burroughs (1965) American writer

Memory, Rage, Envy

“I have done, this year, what I said I would: overcome my fear of facing a blank page day after day, acknowledging myself, in my deepest emotions, a writer, come what may.”

Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer

Fear

“Anybody's true nature is bullshit. There is no human soul. Emotion is bullshit. Love is bullshit.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Choke

Source: Choke

Love, Soul, Nature

“Emotions are the sums created by details, whether those details are true or not.”

Terry Goodkind book Confessor

Source: Confessor

“Emotions were like wild horses and it required wisdom to be able to control them”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

Wisdom, Horse

“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

Feeling

“When you get older, it feels like happy memories and sad memories are pretty much the same thing. It is all just emotion in the end. And any of it can make you weep.”

Nick Hornby (1957) English novelist

Source: Not A Star

Happiness, Sadness, Feeling, Memory

“When we want mood experiences, we go to concerts or museums. When we want meaningful emotional experience, we go to the storyteller.”

Robert McKee (1941) American academic specialised in seminars for screenwriters

Source: Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting

Mood

“It's actually quite emotional, standing up here with these three guys after all these years, standing to be counted with the rest of you. Anyway, we're doing this for everyone who's not here, and particulary of course for Syd”

Roger Waters (1943) English songwriter, bassist, and lyricist of Pink Floyd

LIVE 8, Hyde Park, London, July 2005
Music

Guy

“The final product is a man-plant-animal symbiote that is admirably adapted for survival on this disaster world. No emotions to cause complications or desires that might interfere with pure survival. Complete ruthlessness—mankind has always been strong on this anyway, so it didn’t take much of a push.”

Harry Harrison book Planet of the Damned

Source: Planet of the Damned (1962), Chapter 15

World, Strong, Animals

“There are girls who do not like real life… Some of these girls are innocent enough to think that these unreal friendships [with homosexuals] will lead to true love — a kind of sexual intercourse that will happen to them without their having to take too horribly much notice. Even those who are sufficiently sophisticated to know that this will not be so persist in these relationships. They provide an opportunity to lavish emotion on a pseudo-man without paying the price that in heterosexual circumstances would be inevitable.”

Quentin Crisp book The Naked Civil Servant

Source: The Naked Civil Servant (1968), Ch. 19

Love, Life, Friendship, Girl

“No! No! Gentlemen, no emotion for me. But, those of congratulation. I am happy. To die is the irreversible decree of him who made us. Then what joy to be able to meet death without dismay. This, thank God, is my case. The happiness of man is my wish, that happiness I deem inconsistent with slavery, and to avert so great an evil from an innocent people, I will gladly meet the British tomorrow, at any odds whatever.”

Johann de Kalb (1721–1780) American general

In August 1780, as quoted in "Death of Baron De Kalb" https://books.google.com/books?id=k2QAAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA234&lpg=PA234&dq=%22I+thank+you+sir+for+your+generous+sympathy,+but+I+die+the+death+I+always+prayed+for:+the+death+of+a+soldier+fighting+for+the+rights+of+man%22&source=bl&ots=-93hJzoCYU&sig=tAag8ObQI-ZjiII56viczov02wM&hl=en&sa=X&ei=VlYVVcuJI4KmNsazgYgL&ved=0CCUQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=%22I%20thank%20you%20sir%20for%20your%20generous%20sympathy%2C%20but%20I%20die%20the%20death%20I%20always%20prayed%20for%3A%20the%20death%20of%20a%20soldier%20fighting%20for%20the%20rights%20of%20man%22&f=false (1849), by Benjamin Franklin Ells, The Western Miscellany, Volume 1, p. 233. 1780s

Death, God, Happiness, People

“Each form of the sacrosanct was regarded by members of the culture which gave rise to it as a revelation of the Truth; at Byzantium it was not a mere hypothesis that was sponsored by the majesty of the Byzantine style. To us, however, these forms make their appeal as forms alone — in other words, as they would be were they the work of a contemporary (and, since this actually is unthinkable, they affect us in a puzzling manner); or else as so many grandiose vestiges of a faith that has died out. We look at them from outside; they are still emotive, but they are no longer true. Thus we deprive them of what was their most vital element; for a religious civilization that regarded what it revered as a mere hypothesis is inconceivable.”

André Malraux (1901–1976) French novelist, art theorist and politician

Part IV, Chapter V
Les voix du silence [Voices of Silence] (1951)

Truth, Faith

“Who is there who has not felt a sudden startled pang at reliving an old experience or feeling an old emotion?”

Agatha Christie (1890–1976) English mystery and detective writer

First line
Curtain - Poirot's Last Case (1975)

Feeling

“The self-delusion that mysterious forces and persons unknown are conspiring against us is, surprisingly, a comforting belief, because it means we’re significant enough in this anarchic world to warrant someone’s enmity. That delusion saves us from the far more difficult to accept reality: that we’re not that important to anyone. That the universe just isn’t “into” us.
Paranoia is the emotive-psychestructure’s response to feeling ignored, unloved, or forgotten in an existence filled with random acts of destructive indifference emphasizing the inherent futility of life and struggle. If you’re ever to achieve serenity, ultimately you must accept that in such a vast cosmos, you simply don’t matter very much.”

Malcolm Azania book From the Notebooks of Dr. Brain

Source: From the Notebooks of Dr. Brain (2007), Chapter 6 “Up is Down: The Path Inside is Outside” (p. 185)

Life, World, Feeling, Reality

“If you think with your emotions, slight glandular changes are sufficient to revise your entire outlook.”

Brian W. Aldiss (1925–2017) British science fiction author

“Basis for Negotiations” p. 124
Short fiction, Who Can Replace a Man? (1965)

Thinking, Change

“Politics, as I never tire of saying, is for social and emotional misfits, handicapped folk, those with a grudge. The purpose of politics is to help them overcome these feelings of inferiority and compensate for their personal inadequacies in the pursuit of power.”

Auberon Waugh (1939–2001) Author

"The Power Urge," essay in The Spectator (15 December, 1982); reprinted in Another Voice (1986)

Feeling, Help, Personality

“I am mistaken if a single epigram included fails to preserve at least some faint thrill of the emotion through which it had to pass before the Muse's lips let it fall, with however exquisite deliberation.”

Arthur Quiller-Couch (1863–1944) British writer and literary critic

Oxford Book of English Verse, Introduction

“In its widest possible sense, however, a man's Self is the sum total of all that he can call his, not only his body and his psychic powers, but his clothes and his house, his wife and children, his ancestors and friends, his reputation and works, his lands and horses, and yacht and bank-account. All these things give him the same emotions. If they wax and prosper, he feels triumphant; if they dwindle and die away, he feels cast down.”

William James (1842–1910) American philosopher, psychologist, and pragmatist

Source: 1890s, The Principles of Psychology (1890), Ch. 10

Children, Feeling, Sense, Horse

“The reputation of a Don Juan gives to a man the most dangerous power. Wise virgins resist it, but foolish virgins frequently yield to the desire to take a celebrated lover from a rival - even from a friend. This emotion is a complex one, mad up of vanity, respect for another woman's taste, and the need to establish self-assurance by winning a difficult victory. Don Juan chose his first mistresses; later he was chosen. Byron said that he had been raped oftener than anyone since the Trojan War.”

André Maurois (1885–1967) French writer

Un Art de Vivre (The Art of Living) (1939), The Art of Loving

War, Lovers, Victory, Madness

“Neuro-rational Physicalism is premised on the neuro-biological foundation of human nature, which implies that thoughts, perceptions or emotions correspond to a physical reaction in the brain.”

Nayef Al-Rodhan (1959) philosopher, neuroscientist, geostrategist, and author

Knowledge and Global Order https://www.bbvaopenmind.com/en/article/knowledge-and-global-order/?fullscreen=true - OpenMind September 2013

Nature

“I have little interest in the "conscientious objector"; but I have the greatest regard for the individual thinker. The former opposes private conviction to public policy. His inflexibility is symptomatic of will and emotion, rather than enlightenment. The latter opposes freedom of thought to uniformity of opinion.”

Ralph Barton Perry (1876–1957) American philosopher

The Integrity of the Intellect (July 1920)

Freedom

“Consider some of the qualities of typical modernistic poetry: very interesting language, a great emphasis on connotation, "texture"; extreme intensity, forced emotion — violence; a good deal of obscurity; emphasis on sensation, perceptual nuances; emphasis on details, on the part rather than on the whole; experimental or novel qualities of some sort; a tendency toward external formlessness and internal disorganization — these are justified, generally, as the disorganization required to express a disorganized age, or, alternatively, as newly discovered and more complex types of organization; an extremely personal style — refine your singularities; lack of restraint — all tendencies are forced to their limits; there is a good deal of emphasis on the unconscious, dream structure, the thoroughly subjective; the poet's attitudes are usually anti-scientific, anti-common-sense, anti-public — he is, essentially, removed; poetry is primarily lyric, intensive — the few long poems are aggregations of lyric details; poems usually have, not a logical, but the more or less associational style of dramatic monologue; and so on and so on. This complex of qualities is essentially romantic; and the poetry that exhibits it represents the culminating point of romanticism.”

Randall Jarrell book Five Young American Poets

"A Note on Poetry," preface to The Rage for the Lost Penny: Five Young American Poets (New Directions, 1940) [p. 49]
Kipling, Auden & Co: Essays and Reviews 1935-1964 (1980)

Age, Dreams, Sense, Parting

“In one experience I remember vividly, there was a rich range of shades. It must have been late 1941 or early 1942. Jews were required to wear the Star of David and to obey a 6 p. m. curfew. I had gone to play with a Christian friend and had stayed too late. I turned my brown sweater inside out to walk the few blocks home. As I was walking down an empty street, I saw a German soldier approaching. He was wearing the black uniform that I had been told to fear more than others - the one worn by specially recruited SS soldiers. As I came closer to him, trying to walk fast, I noticed that he was looking at me intently. Then he beckoned me over, picked me up, and hugged me. I was terrified that he would notice the star inside my sweater. He was speaking to me with great emotion, in German. When he put me down, he opened his wallet, showed me a picture of a boy, and gave me some money. I went home more certain than ever that my mother was right: people were endlessly complicated and interesting.”

Daniel Kahneman (1934) Israeli-American psychologist

Nobel Prize Autobiographical Information http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economic-sciences/laureates/2002/kahneman-bio.html (2002).

Money, People, Fear, Home

“The editorial, very poorly written for a college full of smart students, shows how far this “hate speech” cancer has spread. Let me provide for you Coyne’s Glossary for the words at issue:
:“free speech”: Speech that you like because it comports with your ideology

:“hate speech”: Speech you don’t like because it challenges your ideology

:“Nazi”: Anyone uttering “hate speech” (see above)

:“White supremacist”: See “Nazi”

:“emotional labor”: Having to argue your case rationally—something to be avoided at all costs when you can simply call people names”

Jerry Coyne (1949) American biologist

see “Nazi” " Latest college shenanigans by the Regressive Left: censorship at Pomona and UCLA; Wellesley student paper publishes “we need free speech but...” editorial https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2017/04/21/latest-news-about-college-shenanigans-by-the-regressive-left-censorship-at-pomona-and-ucla-wellesley-student-paper-writes-we-need-free-speech-but-article/" April 21, 2017

Hate, People

“If we would stand up and be counted on the side of reason, we ought to drop terms like 'pseudoscience' and 'unscientific' from our vocabulary; they are just hollow phrases which do only emotive work for us.”

Larry Laudan (1941) American philosopher

"The Demise of the Demarcation Problem", in Cohen, R.S.; Laudan, L., Physics, Philosophy and Psychoanalysis: Essays in Honor of Adolf Grünbaum (1983)

“…when a society is reaching its end, in the last couple of centuries you have… a misplacement of satisfactions. You find your emotional satisfaction in making a lot of money… or in proving to the poor, half-naked people in Southeast Asia that you can kill them in large numbers.”

Carroll Quigley (1910–1977) American historian

Oscar Iden Lecture Series, Lecture 3: "The State of Individuals" (1976)

Money, People

“The English language was created by poets, a five-hundred year enterprise of emotion and metaphor, the richest dialogue in world literature. French rhetorical models are too narrow for the English tradition. Most pernicious of French imports is the notion that there is no person behind a text. Is there anything more affected, aggressive, and relentlessly concrete than a Parisian intellectual behind his/her turgid text? The Parisian is a provincial when he pretends to speak for the universe.”

Camille Paglia (1947) American writer

Source: Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson (1990), p. 34

World, Literature, Universe, Personality

“I don’t hate her personally, though if she were enough of a person to be worth such a strong emotion I think I easily could. What I hate is what she represents: the willingness of human beings to be reduced to a slick visual package, like a new television set—up-to-the-minute casing, same old works.”

John Brunner book Stand on Zanzibar

the happening world (8) “Be Kind To Your Forfeited Friends”
Stand on Zanzibar (1968)

Hate, Thinking, Strong, Personality

“The free creativeness of mind is possible because, […] the world ultimately exists, not of material stuff, but of patterns, of organization, the evolution of which involves no absolute creation of an alien world of material from nothing. The purely structural character of reality thus helps to render possible and intelligible the free creativeness of life and mind, … The energy which is being dissipated by the decay of physical structure is being partly taken up and organized into life structures … Life and mind thus appear as products of the cosmic decline, … Our origin is thus accidental, our position is exceptional and our fate is sealed, with the inevitable running down of the solar system. Life and mind, […] are thus reduced to a very casual and inferior status in the cosmic order […] – a transient and embarrassed phantom in an alien, if not hostile universe. […] The human spirit is not a pathetic, wandering phantom of the universe, […] but meets with spiritual hospitality and response everywhere. Our deepest thoughts and emotions are but responses to stimuli which come to us not from an alien, but from an essentially friendly and kindred universe.”

Jan Smuts (1870–1950) military leader, politician and statesman from South Africa

Smuts expounding a confrontation of opposites in his presidential address to the British Association in September 1931, as cited by W. K. Hancock in SMUTS 2: The Fields of Force 1919-1950, p. 232-234

Life, Hostility, Fate, World

“So, music does not attempt to imitate Nature's sounds, but it does interpet and embody emotions awakened by Nature through a convention of its own, in a way to be aesthetically pleasing. In some such way, we, taking our hint from Nature, construct decoratively pleasing harmonies and symphonies of color expression of our sentiments.”

Jean Metzinger (1883–1956) French painter

Quote of Metzinger in 'The Wild Men of Paris', by Gelett Burgess https://monoskop.org/images/f/f3/Burgess_Gelett_1910_The_Wild_Men_of_Paris.pdf, in 'The Architectural Record, Vol XXVII, May 1910, p. 414

Music, Color, Way, Nature

“The Minimalists were nonobjective. They just recorded beauty, I guess, without the emotions - or at least without personal emotions. My work is a little more emotional than that.”

Agnes Martin (1912–2004) American artist

1980 - 2000, Perfection Is in the Mind', 1995

Beauty, Personality

Quotes about emotion page 6

Quotes about emotion
page 6