This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Napoleon Bonaparte, Napoleon I
Great ambition is the passion of a great character. Those endowed with it may perform very good or very bad acts. All depends on the principles which direct them.
Ambition | Good | Passion | Principles | Ambition |
Napoleon Bonaparte, Napoleon I
Many a one commits a reprehensible action, who is at bottom an honourable man, because man seldom acts upon natural impulse, but from some secret passion of the moment which lies hidden and concealed within the narrowest folds of his heart.
Nelson Mandela, fully Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela
There is no passion to be found playing small - in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.
Nicolas Chamfort,fully Sébastien-Roch Nicolas De Chamfort, also spelled Nicholas
My whole life is woven of threads which are in blatant contrast to my principles. … I love self-chosen poverty, and live among rich people; I avoid all honors, and yet some have come to me. … I believe that illusions are necessary to man, yet live without illusion; I believe that the passions are more profitable than reason, and yet no longer know what passion is.
Nicolas Chamfort,fully Sébastien-Roch Nicolas De Chamfort, also spelled Nicholas
Men of reason have endured; men of passion have lived.
Nikolai Gogol, fully Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol or Nikolay Vasilyevich Gogol
What grief is not taken away by time? What passion will survive an unequal battle with it? I knew a man in the bloom of his still youthful powers, filled with true nobility and virtue, I knew him when he was in love, tenderly, passionately, furiously, boldly, modestly, and before me, almost before my eyes, the object of his passion - tender, beautiful as an angel - was struck down by insatiable death. I never saw such terrible fits of inner suffering, such furious scorching anguish, such devouring despair as shook the unfortunate lover. I never thought a man could create such a hell for himself, in which there would be no shadow, no image, nothing in the least resembling hope
Battle | Despair | Grief | Hell | Man | Nobility | Nothing | Object | Passion | Thought | Will | Thought |
Of all things I liked books best. My father had a large library and whenever I could manage I tried to satisfy my passion for reading. He did not permit it and would fly in a rage when he caught me in the act. He hid the candles when he found that I was reading in secret. He did not want me to spoil my eyes. But I obtained tallow, made the wicking and cast the sticks into tin forms, and every night I would bush the keyhole and the cracks and read, often till dawn.
Nikolai Gogol, fully Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol or Nikolay Vasilyevich Gogol
What is stronger in us — passion or habit? Or are all the violent impulses, all the whirl of our desires and turbulent passions, only the consequence of our ardent age, and is it only through youth that they seem deep and shattering?
Osho, born Chandra Mohan Jain, also known as Acharya Rajneesh and Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh NULL
You cannot eat respectability, and you cannot eat money, and you cannot eat prestige. They are just games: meaningless, stupid, mediocre. if you are intelligent enough you will understand that you have to live your life and you are not to bother about other things. All other considerations are meaningless: it is your life. You have to live it authentically, lovingly, with great passion and with great compassion, with great energy. You have to become a tidal wave of bliss.
Osho, born Chandra Mohan Jain, also known as Acharya Rajneesh and Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh NULL
That’s what spirituality is really all about: to live death intensely, to live life intensely; to live both so passionately that nothing is left behind unlived, not even death. If you live life and death totally, you transcend. In that tremendous passion and intensity of life and death, you transcend duality, you transcend the dichotomy, you come to the One. That One is really the truth. You can call it God, you can call it life, you can call it truth, samadhi, ecstasy, or whatsoever you choose.
Ouida, pseudonym of Maria Louise Ramé, preferred to be called Marie Louise de la Ramée NULL
This had been the higher, diviner way which she had missed, this obligation from the passion of the past which she had left unfulfilled, unaccepted.
Obligation | Passion | Past |
If you investigate the matter deeply enough and widely enough, you will find that happiness eludes nearly all men despite the fact that they are forever seeking it. The fortunate and successful few are those who have stopped seeking with the ego alone and allow the search to be directed inwardly by the higher self. They alone can find a happiness unblemished by defects or deficiencies, a Supreme Good which is not a further source of pain and sorrow but an endless source of satisfaction and peace.
Defects | Ego | Enough | Good | Men | Pain | Search | Sorrow | Will | Happiness |
Paul Tillich, fully Paul Johannes Tillich
The passion for truth is silenced by answers which have the weight of undisputed authority.
Paul Fleming, also spelled Flemming
Why shouldst thou fill to-day with sorrow about to-morrow, my heart?
Sorrow |
Pearl S. Buck, fully Pearl Sydenstricker Buck, also known by her Chinese name Sai Zhenzhu
We learn as much from sorrow as from joy, as much from illness as from health, from handicap as from advantage and indeed perhaps more.
Only children believe they're capable of everything… Opportunities multiply as they are seized… Other people think exactly the opposite: they surrender themselves without a second thought, hoping to find in passion the solutions to all their problems. They make the other person responsible for their happiness and blame them for their possible unhappiness. They are either euphoric because something marvelous has happened or depressed because something unexpected has just ruined everything… Nothing in the world is ever completely wrong. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day… Nothing in this world happens by chance… Nothing will behave in the logical way you have come to expect.
Blame | Children | Nothing | Passion | People | Right | Surrender | Will | World | Happiness | Think |
No one should let themselves get used to anything… No one wants their life thrown into chaos at all. That's why many people holding back the threat level under control, and that's the way they are able to prop up a house or structure has rotted. They are the architects of innovation. Others think the opposite: they surrender themselves without a second thought; they hope to find in the passion that the method solves all their problems. They force people to take responsibility for their happiness, and blame those people because they were not happy. They are in an excited state because of the magic has happened or depressed because things just do not expect the destruction of all. Alkali keep the passion, or surrender it blindly-way, less destructive The most extreme? I do not know.
Blame | Force | Hope | Life | Life | Magic | Method | Passion | People | Responsibility | Surrender | Wants | Think |
Sorrow, terror, anguish, despair itself are often the chosen expressions of an approximation to the highest good. Our sympathy in tragic fiction depends on this principle; tragedy delights by affording a shadow of the pleasure which exists in pain. This is the source also of the melancholy which is inseparable from the sweetest melody. The pleasure that is in sorrow is sweeter than the pleasure of pleasure itself.
Despair | Melancholy | Pleasure | Sorrow | Sympathy | Tragedy |