Three passions simple but overwhelmingly strong have governed my life: the longing for love the search for knowledge and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind.

The assumption is that the right kind of society is an organic being not merely analogous to an organic being but actually a living structure with appetites and digestions instincts and passions intelligence and reason.

That neither our thoughts nor passions nor ideas formed by the imagination exist without the mind is what every body will allow.

There is a boundary to men's passions when they act from feelings but none when they are under the influence of imagination.

If good history is dispassionate history it must naturally wait until the passions of the period subside.

Happiness or satisfaction consists only in the enjoyment of those objects which are by nature suited to our several particular appetites passions and affections.

Every man hath a general desire of his own happiness and likewise a variety of particular affections passions and appetites to particular external objects.

The happiness of a man in this life does not consist in the absence but in the mastery of his passions.

The creations of a great writer are little more than the moods and passions of his own heart given surnames and Christian names and sent to walk the earth.

Those that have had great passions esteem themselves for the rest of their lives fortunate and unfortunate in being cured of them.

Great souls are not those who have fewer passions and more virtues than others but only those who have greater designs.

Great passions my dear don't exist: they're liars fantasies. What do exist are little loves that may last for a short or a longer while.

The paradox is really the pathos of intellectual life and just as only great souls are exposed to passions it is only the great thinker who is exposed to what I call paradoxes which are nothing else than grandiose thoughts in embryo.

Only passions great passions can elevate the soul to great things.

Absence diminishes mediocre passions and increases great ones as the wind extinguishes candles and fans fires.

Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of man will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice without constraint.

Out of chaos God made a world and out of high passions comes a people.

One needs occasionally to stand aside from the hum and rush of human interests and passions to hear the voices of God.

In love unlike most other passions the recollection of what you have had and lost is always better than what you can hope for in the future.

Pity and friendship are two passions incompatible with each other.

When we through our educational culture through the media through the entertainment culture give our children the impression that human beings cannot control their passions we are telling them in effect that human beings cannot be trusted with freedom.

I think there's a lot of work to be done with our societies. My biggest passions are the environment and health. And when I say 'health' I mean the secrets behind health and our food system.

The love of the famous like all strong passions is quite abstract. Its intensity can be measured mathematically and it is independent of persons.

My fault my failure is not in the passions I have but in my lack of control of them.