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

Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809 - 1892)

My passions were all gathered together like fingers that made a fist. Drive is considered aggression¹ today; I knew it then as purpose.

Bette Davis (1908 - 1989), The Lonely Life, 1962

He only employs his passion who can make no use of his reason.

Cicero (106 BC - 43 BC)

Be still when you have nothing to say; when genuine passion moves you, say what you've got to say, and say it hot.

D. H. Lawrence (1885 - 1930)

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

Denis Diderot (1713 - 1784)

The worst sin - perhaps the only sin - passion can commit, is to be joyless.

Dorothy L. Sayers (1893 - 1957), Gaudy² Night

Judgement, not passion should prevail.

Epicharmus

Nothing great in the world has been accomplished³ without passion.

Georg Wilhelm, O Magazine, September 2003

Passion makes the world go round. Love just makes it a safer place.

Ice T, The Ice Opinion

Blaze with the fire that is never extinguished.

Luisa Sigea, O Magazine, September 2003

Waste no more time talking about great souls and how they should be. Become one yourself!

Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121 AD - 180 AD)

When the habitually⁴ even-tempered suddenly fly into a passion, that explosion is apt to be more impressive than the outburst of the most violent amongst us.

Margery Allingham, Death of a Ghost, 1934

I had learnt to seek intensity…more of life, a concentrated sense of life.

Nina Berberova, O Magazine, September 2003

Do the one thing you think you cannot do. Fail at it. Try again. Do better the second time. The only people who never tumble are those who never mount the high wire. This is your moment. Own it.

Oprah Winfrey (1954 - ), O Magazine, September 2003

I believe that one of life's greatest risks is never daring to risk.

Oprah Winfrey (1954 - ), O Magazine, September 2003

You will need to find your passion. Don't give up on finding it because then all you're doing is waiting for the Reaper⁵.

Randy Pausch, Carnegie Mellon Commencement Speech, 2008

You will not find your passion in things and you will not find your passion in money. The more things and the more money you have, the more you will look around and use that as the metric and there will be someone with more.

Randy Pausch, Carnegie Mellon Commencement Speech, 2008

Your pasion must come from the things that fuel you from the inside. Honors and awards are nice things, but only to the extent that they regard the real respect from your peers.

Randy Pausch, Carnegie Mellon Commencement Speech, 2008

It's the soul's duty to be loyal to its own desires. It must abandon itself to its master passion.

Rebecca West (1892 - 1983)

Passion is the quickest to develop, and the quickest to fade. Intimacy⁶ develops more slowly, and commitment more gradually still.

Robert Sternberg

The biggest thing [Frida] brought into my life was this peacefulness. I still get passionate⁷ about things, but my passion is not so scattered⁸ and it's not needy⁹. It's a lot more powerful because it comes with this groundedness and peacefulness. That it's about the process, not about the results.

Salma Hayek, Conversation with Salma Hayek, 2002

There was a disturbance¹⁰ in my heart, a voice that spoke¹¹ there and said, I want, I want, I want! It happened every afternoon, and when I tried to suppress it it got even stronger.

Saul Bellow¹² (1915 - 2005), O Magazine, September 2003

It is easier to exclude harmful passions than to rule them, and to deny them admittance than to control them after they have been admitted.

Seneca (5 BC - 65 AD)

What makes the engine go? Desire, desire, desire.

Stanley Kunitz, O Magazine, September 2003

Passion kept one fully¹³ in the present, so that time became a series of mutually exclusive 'nows.'

Sue Halpern, O Magazine, September 2003