From their experience or from the recorded experience of others (history), men learn only what their passions and their metaphysical read more

From their experience or from the recorded experience of others (history), men learn only what their passions and their metaphysical prejudices allow them to learn.

Act nothing in furious passion. It's putting to sea in a storm.

Act nothing in furious passion. It's putting to sea in a storm.

Only I discern
Infinite passion, and the pain
Of finite hearts that yearn.

Only I discern
Infinite passion, and the pain
Of finite hearts that yearn.

All the passions are nothing else than different degrees of heat
and cold of the blood.
[Fr., Toutes read more

All the passions are nothing else than different degrees of heat
and cold of the blood.
[Fr., Toutes les passions ne sout autre chose que les divers
degres de la chaleur et de la froideur du sang.]

Search then the ruling passion; there alone,
The wild are constant, and the cunning known;
The fool read more

Search then the ruling passion; there alone,
The wild are constant, and the cunning known;
The fool consistent, and the false sincere;
Priests, princes, women, no dissemblers here.

The passions are like fire, useful in a thousand ways and dangerous only in one, through their excess.

The passions are like fire, useful in a thousand ways and dangerous only in one, through their excess.

But, children, you should never let
Such angry passions rise;
Your little hands were never made
read more

But, children, you should never let
Such angry passions rise;
Your little hands were never made
To tear each other's eyes.
- Isaac Watts,

Difference of object does not alter singleness of passion. It
merely intensifies it. We can have but one great read more

Difference of object does not alter singleness of passion. It
merely intensifies it. We can have but one great experience at
best, and the secret of life is to reproduce that experience as
often as possible.

All humanity is passion; without passion, religion, history, novels, art would be ineffectual.

All humanity is passion; without passion, religion, history, novels, art would be ineffectual.