Great Throughts Treasury

This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.

Emotions

"Emotion may be considered the source of power that drives us forward toward our goals in life. It is through the energy of our emotions that we fuel our thought to make them real. It is in the presence of thought that our emotion is given direction, breathing life into the image of our thoughts" - Gregg Braden

"How well people manage their emotions determines how effectively they can use their intellectual ability." - Seymour Epstein

"I believe that our choice between two models of psychiatry is really a choice between two competing sets of moral values that will ultimately determine the kind of society we live in. One is the Psychotherapeutic Model’s ideal of healing the soul with its values of self-awareness, autonomy, personal growth, an I-Thou spirit of love, respect, and compassion for others, and an acceptance of moral responsibility for our own egoistic impulses and emotions. The other is the Medical Model’s ideal of quick fix, with its swimming-pool values of stability and conformity, and an I-It orientation toward material success and other superficial addictive pleasures" - Elio Frattaroli

"If, as Heraclitus said, “A man’s character is his fate” – that is, if our fate is largely determined by the habitual tendencies of our repetition compulsion-personality – then the power of consciousness is that it allows us to change impulses, we have what Kierkegaard called “the possibility of possibility”: the possibility of having a free choice and the moral responsibility that comes with it. In that sense, the fear of consciousness is ultimately the fear of moral responsibility, because if we own our anxiety, shame, and guilt, and allow ourselves to have full consciousness of emotions that motivate our behavior, then we will inevitably recognize the full weight of our responsibility for that behavior." - Elio Frattaroli

"Fear, the opposite of boldness, is the most paralyzing of all emotions...Fear, like hopes and dreams, have a way of clothing themselves ultimately with reality." - Adam Lindsey Gordon

"The act of praying centers attention on the higher emotion, unifies the spirit, crystallizes emotions, clarifies the judgments, releases latent powers, reinforces confidence that what needs to be done can be done." - Georgia Harkness

"The strong, manly ones in life are those who understand the meaning of the word patience. Patience means restraining one’s inclinations. There are seven emotions: joy, anger, anxiety, love, fear, grief, and hate; and if a man does not give way to these, he can be called patient. I am not as strong as I might be, but I have long known and practiced patience." - Tokugawa Ieyasu

"To approach the living question with the mind alone is impossible. The intellect must be coupled with feeling in order to stir a person to authentic inquiry. Real philosophy recognizes that ideas have sensations and emotions connected with them, and that one responds to them with the whole of oneself." - Jacob Needleman

"The energy that actually shapes the world springs from emotions." -

"He who would take good care of his health should be sparing in his tastes, banish his worries, temper his desires, restrain his emotions, take good care of his vital force, spare his words, regard lightly success and failure, ignore sorrows and difficulties, drive away foolish ambitions, avoid great likes and dislikes, calm his vision and his hearing, and be faithful in his internal regimen. How can one have sickness if he does not tire his spirits and worry his soul? Therefore he would nourish his nature should eat only when he is hungry and not fill himself with food, and he should drink only when he is thirsty and not fill himself with too much drink. He should eat little and between long intervals, and not too much and not too constantly. He should aim at being a little hungry when well-filled, and being a little well-filled when hungry. Being well-filled hurts the lungs and being hungry hurts the flow of vital energy." - Ssemiao NULL

"For those facing a long haul and a series of defeats, pessimism can be an ally. Apart from anything else, as some Native Americans have also discovered, the presentation of the bleakest and starkest possible picture can have the paradoxical effect of mobilizing the emotions and intellect." - Christopher Hitchens

"The important thing is being capable of emotions, but to experience only one's own would be a sorry limitation." - André Gide, fully André Paul Guillaume Gide

"We call "happiness" a certain set of circumstances that makes joy possible. But we call joy that state of mind and emotions that needs nothing to feel happy." - André Gide, fully André Paul Guillaume Gide

"The man who believes firmly that the Creator of the universe loves him and cares infinitely what he dose with his life - this man is automatically freed from much of the self-distrust that afflicts less certain men. Fear, guilt, hostility, anger - these are the emotions that stifle thought and impede action. By reducing or eliminating them, religious faith makes boldness possible, and boldness makes achievement possible." - Arthur Gordon

"Our principle, that the abstract is the unreal, moves us steadily upward. It forces us first to rejection of bare primary qualities, and it compels us in the end to credit Nature with our higher emotions. That process can cease only where Nature is quite absorbed into spirit, and at ever stage of the process we find increase in reality." - Bernard Bosanquet

"Compassion is the only one of the human emotions the Lord permitted Himself and it has carried the divine flavor ever since." - Dagobert Runes, fully Dabovert David Runes

"Life is like a tree, and its root is consciousness. Therefore, once we tend the root, the tree as a whole will be healthy. Nature controls healing form this deeper level already, for every cell participates in the body's inner intelligence, responding to the patient's thoughts, emotions, desires, beliefs, and self-image." - Deepak Chopra

"All noise is waste. So cultivate quietness in your speech, in your thoughts, in your emotions. Speak habitually low. Wait for attention and then your low words will be charged with dynamite." - Elbert Green Hubbard

"All positive emotions come from love, all negative emotions come from fear." - Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

"The study of art is a taste at once engrossing and unselfish, which may be indulged without effort, and yet has the power of exciting the deepest emotions - a taste able to exercise and to gratify both the nobler and softer parts of our nature." - François Guizot, fully François Pierre Guillaume Guizot

"What is the true content of art, and with what aim is this content to be presented? On this subject our consciousness supplies us with the common opinion that it is the task and ima of art to bring in contact with our sense, our feeling, our inspiration, all that finds a place in the mind of man... Its aim is therefore placed in arousing and animating the slumbering emotions, inclinations, and passions; in filling the heart, in forcing the human being, whether cultured or uncultured, to feel the whole range of what man’s soul in its inmost and secret corners has power to experience and to create, and all that is able to move and to stir the human breast in its depths and in its manifold aspects and possibilities; to present as a delight to emotion and to perception all that the mind possesses of real and lofty in its thought and in the Idea - all the splendor of the noble, the eternal, and the true; and no less to make intelligible misfortune and misery, wickedness and crime; to make men realize the inmost nature of all that is shocking and horrible, as also of all pleasure and delight; and, finally, to set imagination roving in idle toyings of fancy, and luxuriating in the seductive spells of sense-stimulating visions." - Georg Hegel, fully Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

"Existence was given us for action. Our worth is determined by the good deed we do, rather than by the fine emotions we feel." - George MacDonald

"Both love of mankind, and respect for their rights are duties; the former however is only a condition, the latter an unconditional, purely imperative duty, which he must be perfectly certain not to have transgressed who would give himself up to the secret emotions arising from benevolence." - Immanuel Kant

"The pleasantest part of a man’s life is generally that which passes in courtship, provided his passion be sincere, and the party beloved kind with discretion. Love, desire, hope, all the pleasing emotions of the soul, rise in the pursuit." - Joseph Addison

"The appearance of things changes according to the emotions, and thus we see magic and beauty in them, while the magic and beauty are really in ourselves." - Kahlil Gibran

"Art should be a satire and a warning against our paralyzed emotions, our devitalized thinking and our denaturalized living. It teaches us unsophistication in a sophisticated world. It should restore to us health and sanity caused by too much mental activity. It should sharpen our senses, re-establish the connection between our reason and our human nature, and assemble the ruined parts of a dislocated life again into a whole, by restoring our original nature." - Lin Yutang

"The best orator is the one who address instructs, delights, and moves the minds of the hearers. The orator is obliged to instruct, while pleasure is gratuity granted to the audience. But to stir the emotions is indispensable." - Cicero, fully Marcus Tullius Cicero, anglicized as Tully NULL

"Emotions and actions do not usually follow adversity directly. Rather, they issue directly from your beliefs about adversity. This means that if you change your mental response to adversity, you can cope with setbacks much better." - Martin Seligman, Martin E. P. "Marty" Seligman

"The sign of an intelligent people is their ability to control emotions by the application of reason." -

"Laughter is a powerful way to tap positive emotions." - Norman Cousins

"The strangest and most fantastic fact about negative emotions is that people actually worship them." - P.D. Ouspensky, fully Peter Demianovich Ouspensky, also Pyotr Demianovich Ouspenskii, also Uspenskii or Uspensky

"“Negative” emotions [“fear, anxiety, despair”] are much like repressed and disposed peoples in the body politic. They cease to be destructive when they are invited into full participation in the commonwealth. Repress them and there will be insurrection rather than resurrection." - Sam Keen

"Youth is not a time of life, it is a state of mind, it is not a matter of rosy cheeks, red lips and supple knees; it is a matter of the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions; it is the freshness off the deep springs of life. Youth means the temperamental predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the love of ease. This often exists in a man of sixty more than a boy of twenty. Nobody grows old merely by a number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul. Worry, fear, self-distrust bows the heart and turns the spirit back to dust. Whether sixty or sixteen, there is in every human being's heart the lure of wonder, the unfailing childlike appetite of what's next, and the joy of the game of living." - Samuel Ullman

"Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality but an escape from personality. But, of course, only those who have personality and emotions know what it means to want to escape from these things." - T. S. Eliot, fully Thomas Sterns Eliot

"The effect of a work of art upon the person who enjoys it is an experience different in kind from any experience not of art... Great poetry may be made without direct use of any emotion whatever: composed out of feelings solely... It is not the “greatness,” the intensity, of the emotions, the components, but the intensity of the artistic process, the pressure, to so to speak, under which the fusion takes place, that counts." - T. S. Eliot, fully Thomas Sterns Eliot

"If we can get past various fundamentalist attitudes about the spiritual life, such as attachment to a too simple code of morality, fixed interpretations of stories, and a community in which individual thinking is not prized, then many different ways of being spiritual come into view. We may discover that there are ways to be spiritual that do not counter the soul's need for body, individuality, imagination and exploration. Eventually we might find that all emotions, all human activities, and all spheres of life have deep roots in the mysteries of the soul, and therefore are holy." - Thomas Moore

"It is impossible for the mind which is not totally destitute of piety to behold the piety to behold the sublime, the awful, the amazing works of creation and providence - the heavens with their luminaries, the mountains, the ocean, the storm, the earthquake, the volcano, the circuit of the seasons, and the revolutions of empires - without marking them all the mighty hand of god, and feeling strong emotions of reverence toward the Author of these stupendous works." - Timothy Dwight, fully Timothy Dwight IV

"You can’t pursue happiness and catch it. Happiness come upon you unawares while you are helping others... Happiness does not depend upon a full pocketbook, but upon a mind full of rich thoughts and a heart full of rich emotions. Happiness does not depend upon what happens outside of you but on what happens inside of you; it is measured by the spirit in which you meet the problems of life. Happiness is a state of mind... Happiness doesn’t come from doing what we like to do but from liking what we have to do... Happiness grows out of harmonious relationships with others, based on attitudes of good will, tolerance, understanding and love... The master secret of happiness is to meet the challenge of each new day with the serene faith that: “All things work together for good to them that love God.”" - Wilferd Peterson, fully Wilferd Arlan Peterson

"Music and religion are as intimately related as poetry and love; the deepest emotions require for their civilized expression the most emotional of arts." - Will Durant, fully William James "Will" Durant

"Happiness is a skill that can be learned. To acquire this skill it is necessary to master: the ability to focus on happiness-producing thoughts instead of those which cause unhappiness and the ability to evaluate events and situations as positive instead of negative, or at least lower the degree of negativity... The person with greater control over his thoughts will have greater control over his emotions." - Zelig Pliskin

"We know too much and feel too little. At least, we feel too little of those creative emotions from which a good life springs. " - Bertrand Russell, fully Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell

"You cannot be hurt by criticism when you know that you are master of your thoughts, reactions and emotions." - Joseph Murphy

"A belief which does not spring from a conviction in the emotions is no belief at all" - Evelyn Scott, also wrote under pseudonyms Ernest Souza and Elsie Dunn

"Perfect beauty implies perfect simplicity, a quality that at first sight does not arouse the emotions which we feel before gigantic works, objects whose very disproportion constitutes an element of beauty." - Eugène Delacroix, fully Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix

"Emotions reflect intentions. Therefore, awareness of emotions leads to awareness of intentions. Every discrepancy between a conscious intention and the emotions that accompany it, points directly to a splintered aspect of the self that requires healing." - Gary Zukav

"Fear and love can never be experienced at the same time. It is always our choice as to which of these emotions we want." - Gerald G. Jampolsky

"For children, learning is never without emotional overtones. Whenever a teacher ignores the emotions and resorts to logical explanations, learning limps to a halt." - Haim Ginott, fully Haim G. Ginott, orignially Ginzburg

"I think [the Enneagram] is here because we need it, on a global basis, to take more responsibility for our thoughts and emotions and to consider, deeply, how to stand in someone else's shoes, and see the decision or the event from very different sets of eyes and see the validity of it." - Helen Palmer

"Not alone to know, but to act according to thy knowledge, is thy destination, proclaims the voice of thy inmost soul. Not for indolent contemplation and study of thyself, nor for brooding over emotions of piety - no, for action was existence given thee; thy actions, and thy actions alone, determine thy worth. " - Immanual Hermann Fichte

"Not alone to know, but to act according to thy knowledge, is thy destination,--proclaims the voice of my inmost soul. Not for indolent contemplation and study of thyself, nor for brooding over emotions of piety,--no, for action was existence given thee; thy actions, and thy actions alone, determine thy worth." - J. G. Fichte, fully Johann Gottlieb Fichte