Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

S. Austin Allibone, comp. Prose Quotations from Socrates to Macaulay. 1880.

Passions

Let them extinguish their passions which embitter their lives, and deprive them of their share in the happiness of the community.

The advice given by a great moralist to his friend was, that he should compose his passions; and let that be the work of reason which would certainly be the work of time.

Since men mark all our steps, and watch our haltings, let a sense of their insidious vigilance excite us so to behave ourselves that they may find a conviction of the mighty power of Christianity towards regulating the passions.

I suppose [good men] to live in a state of mortification and self-denial, to be under a perpetual conflict with their bodily appetites and inclinations, and struggling to get the mastery over them.

As rivers, when they overflow, drown those grounds, and ruin those husbandmen, which, whilst they flowed calmly betwixt their banks, they fertilized and enriched; so our passions, when they grow exorbitant and unruly, destroy those virtues to which they may be very serviceable whilst they keep within their bounds.

Passion transforms us into a kind of savages, and makes us brutal and sanguinary.

Reason is never inconvenient, but when it comes to be applied. Mere general truths interfere very little with the passions. They can, until they are roused by a troublesome application, rest in great tranquillity, side by side with tempers and proceedings the most directly opposite to them. Men want to be reminded, who do not want to be taught; because those original ideas of rectitude, to which the mind is compelled to assent when they are proposed, are not always as present to us as they ought to be.

Strong passion under the direction of a feeble reason feeds a low fever, which serves only to destroy the body that entertains it. But vehement passion does not always indicate an infirm judgment. It often accompanies, and actuates, and is even auxiliary to, a powerful understanding; and when they both conspire and act harmoniously, their force is great to destroy disorder within and to repel injury from abroad.

Wherever we are formed by nature to any active purpose, the passion which animates us to it is attended with delight, or a pleasure of some kind.

Confounded by the complication of distempered passions, their reason is disturbed; their views become vast and perplexed; to others inexplicable, to themselves uncertain.

A consideration of the rationale of our passions seems to me very necessary to all who would affect them upon solid and pure principles.

Strong as our passions are, they may be starved into submission, and conquered, without being killed.

The importance and necessity of a ruling passion—i.e. some grand object, the view of which kindles all the ardour the soul is capable of, to attain or accomplish it. Possibility of creating a ruling passion asserted.

Disappointed love makes the misery of youth; disappointed ambition that of manhood; and successful avarice that of age. These three attack us through life; and it is our duty to stand upon our guard. To love we ought to oppose dissipation, and endeavour to change the object of the affections; to ambition, the happiness of indolence and obscurity; and to avarice, the fear of soon dying. These are the shields with which we should arm ourselves; and thus make every scene of life, if not pleasing, at least supportable.

The cool calculation of interest operates only at times: we are habitually borne forward in all parts of our career by specific affections and passions; some more simple and original, others complicated and acquired. In men of a vulgar cast, the grosser appetites,—in minds more elevated, the passions of sympathy, taste, ambition, the pleasures of imagination,—are the springs of motion. The world triumphs over its votaries by approaching them on the side of their passions; and it does not so much deceive their reason as captivate their heart.

If the passions of the mind be strong, they easily sophisticate the understanding; they make it apt to believe upon every slender warrant, and to imagine infallible truth when scarce any probable show appeareth.

The nature of the human mind can not be sufficiently understood without considering the affections and passions, or those modifications or actions of the mind consequent upon the apprehensions of certain objects or events in which the mind generally conceives good or evil.

We praise the things we hear with much more willingness than those we see; because we envy the present, and reverence the past; thinking ourselves instructed by the one and overlaid by the other.

Passions, as fire and water, are good servants but bad masters, and subminister to the best and worst purposes.

Matters recommended by our passions take possession of our minds, and will not be kept out.

Of the passions, and how they are moved, Aristotle, in his second book of rhetoric, bath admirably discoursed in a little compass.

The mind hath not reason to remember that passions ought to be her vassals, not her masters.

It may happen, that when appetite draws one way, it may be opposed, not by any appetite or passion, but by some cool principle of action, which has authority without any impulsive force.

The fumes of passion do as really intoxicate, and confound the judging and discerning faculty, as the fumes of drink discompose and stupefy the brain of a man overcharged with it.

During the commotion of the blood and spirits, in which passion consists, whatsoever is offered to the imagination in favour of it tends only to deceive the reason: it is indeed a real trepan upon it, feeding it with colours and appearances instead of arguments.

Take any passion of the soul of man while it is predominant and afloat; and, just in the critical height of it, nick it with some lucky or unlucky word; and you may as certainly overrule it to your own purpose, as a spark of fire falling upon gunpowder will infallibly blow it up.

Thus the vain man takes praise for honour; the proud man, ceremony for respect; the ambitious man, power for glory. These three characters are indeed of very near resemblance, but differently received by mankind. Vanity makes men ridiculous; pride, odious; and ambition, terrible. The foundation of all which is, that they are grounded upon falsehood: for if men, instead of studying to appear considerable, were in their own hearts possessors of the requisites for esteem, the acceptance they otherwise unfortunately aim at would be as inseparable from them, as approbation is from truth itself.

If we subdue our unruly and disorderly passions within ourselves we should live more easily and quietly with others.

It may serve for a great lesson of humiliation to mankind to behold the habits and passions of men trampling over interest, friendship, honour, and their own personal safety, as well as that of their country.

When the heart is full, it is angry at all words that cannot come up to it.

From inordinate love, and vain fear, comes all unquietness of spirit, and distraction of our senses.

Since we cannot escape the pursuit of passions, and perplexity of thoughts, there is no way left but to endeavour all we can either to subdue or divert them.

All the precepts of Christianity command us to moderate our passions, to temper our affections, towards all things below.

If we give way to our passions we do but gratify ourselves for the present in order to our future disquiet.

How many by the wild fury and extravagancy of their own passions have put their bodies into a combustion, and by stirring up their rage against others have armed that fierce humour against themselves.

The word passion signifies the receiving any action, in a large philosophical sense; in a more limited philosophical sense, it signifies any of the affections of human nature; as love, fear, joy, sorrow: but the common people confine it only to anger.

Dress up virtue in all the beauties of oratory, and you will find the wild passions of men too violent to be restrained by such mild and silken language.

Happy souls! who keep such a sacred dominion over their inferior and animal powers, that the sensitive tumults never rise to disturb the superior and better operations of the reasoning mind.

We cannot be too much on our guard against reactions, lest we rush from one fault into another contrary fault.