

In the same degree in which a man’s mind is nearer to freedom from all passion, in the same degree also is it nearer to strength.

We must learn that competence is better than extravagance, that worth is better than wealth, that the golden calf we have worshipped has no more brains than that one of old which the Hebrews worshipped. So beware of money and money’s worth as the supreme passion of the mind. Beware of the craving for enormous acquisition.

There is no passion so distressing as fear, which gives us great pain and makes us appear contemptible in our own eyes to the last degree. Fear is in almost all cases a wretched instrument of government, and ought in particular never to be employed against any order of men who have the smallest pretensions to independency.

Passion looks not beyond the moment of its existence.

The worst of slaves is he whom passion rules.

The worst of slaves is he whom passion rules.

Nowhere are prejudices more mistaken for truth, passion for reason, and invective for documentation than in politics. That is a realm, peopled only by villains or heroes, in which everything is black or white and gray is a forbidden color.

Patience and time do more than strength or passion.

The strongest passion is fear.

The more discussion the better, if passion and personality be eschewed; and discussion, even if stormy, often winnows truth from error - a good never to be expected in an uninquiring age.

Anger is the most impotent passion that accompanies the mind of man; it effects nothing it goes about; and hurts the man who is possessed by it more directly than any other against whom it is directed.

The astonishing thing about him [man] is his range of vision; his gaze into the infinite distance; his lonely passion for ideas and ideals, far removed from his material surroundings and animal activities, and in no way suggested by them, yet for which, such is his affection, he is willing to endure toils and privations, to sacrifice pleasures, to disdain griefs and frustrations. The inner truth is that every man is himself a creator, by birth and nature, an artist, an architect and fashioner of worlds.

The first impulse of conscience is apt to be right; the first impulse of appetite or passion is generally wrong. We should be faithful to the former, but suspicious of the latter.

Passion overcometh sober thought; and this is cause of direst ills to men.

It often falls out, that the end of passion is the beginning of repentance.

The passion of acquiring riches in order to support a vain expense corrupts the purest souls.

If Passion drives, let Reason hold the Reins.

Shun fear, it is the ague of the soul! a passion man created for himself - for sure that cramp of nature could not dwell in the warm realms of glory.

Nirvana is interpreted by Western nations as the actual annihilation of human desire or passion; but this is a mistake. Nirvana is nothing else than universal reason.