quotations about emotion
Emotions are not tools of cognition. They tell you nothing about the nature of reality.
DAVE GALANTER
Troublesome Minds
Emotions are raised in us, not only by the qualities and actions of others, but also by their feelings. I cannot behold a man in distress, without partaking of his pain; nor in joy, without partaking of his pleasure.
HENRY HOME KAMES
Elements of Criticism
I have feelings, but my pen cannot and will not write feelings; nay, my heart has no mind that can coin them into words.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Reminiscences
Anything that's human is mentionable, and anything that's mentionable can be more manageable. When we can talk about our feelings, they become less overwhelming, less upsetting, and less scary. The people we trust with that important talk can help us know that we're not alone.
FRED ROGERS
You Are Special: Neighborly Wit and Wisdom from Mister Rogers
An emotion is like one of those dashboard sensor lights, "No, check engine," right? I'm angry. "Oh, maybe this is a sign that I should get curious about why am I angry? What's going on with me?"
PAUL TEVIS
"Empathy: A Keystone Habit", InfoQ, February 2, 2019
The fact of the matter is that, since we are determined always to keep our feelings to ourselves, we have never given any thought to the manner in which we should express them. And suddenly there is within us a strange and obscene animal making itself heard, whose tones may inspire as much alarm in the person who receives the involuntary, elliptical and almost irresistible communication of one's defect or vice as would the sudden avowal indirectly and outlandishly proffered by a criminal who can no longer refrain from confessing to a murder of which one had never imagined him to be guilty.
MARCEL PROUST
The Guermantes Way
We have lost confidence in reason because we have learned that man is chiefly a creature of habit and emotion.
JOHN DEWEY
"What I Believe"
Emotions can keep you ill. When the brain warns of danger, emotion leaps into action; blood pressure increases, adenaline flows into the blood stream, muscles tense. When emergency passes, the emotions let up and we relax. But when the danger does not go away ... the emotions keep pouring out distress signals which may ultimately manifest themselves physically.
BLAKE CLARK
attributed, Words of Wisdom and Quotable Quotes
There are so many tender and holy emotions flying about in our inward world, which, like angels, can never assume the body of an outward act; so many rich and lovely flowers spring up which bear no seed, that it is a happiness poetry was invented, which receives into its limbs all these incorporeal spirits, and the perfume of all these flowers.
JEAN PAUL RICHTER
attributed, Flowers; Their Moral
Emotions talked to you before you had words, so listen to them ... they are often more honest than the mind's remarkable ability to self deceive.
WM. PAUL YOUNG
FaceBook post, Jul. 7, 2014
People who think they can control their negative emotions and manifest them when they want to, simply deceive themselves. Negative emotions depend on identification; if identification is destroyed in some particular case, they disappear. The strangest and most fantastic fact about negative emotions is that people actually worship them.
P. D. OUSPENSKY
The Psychology of Man's Possible Evolution
If we deny emotion, we lose all touch with our internal universe.
FRANK HERBERT
God Emperor of Dune
He who embodies his own emotions in the verbiage of his tongue and pen, addresses an eternal audience; for human nature is identical, and its highest vernacular never changes.
MAGOON
attributed, Day's Collacon
Funny about feelings, they seem to come and go in a flash yet outlast metal.
JOHN UPDIKE
Rabbit is Rich
Loving emotions, like plants, shoot up most rapidly in the tempestuous atmosphere of life.
JOHN PAUL F. RICHTER
attributed, Laconics; or
Is "UGH" an emotion? Because I feel it all the time.
ANONYMOUS
Calm feeling is like a lake without ripples; emotion is like ripples appearing on the surface of the lake, that change the appearance of whatever is reflected there.
SWAMI KRIYANANDA
"Intuition and Insight", Economic Times, January 27, 2019
The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.
H.P. LOVECRAFT
Supernatural Horror in Literature
There are moments in life, when the heart is so full of emotion
That if by chance it be shaken, or into its depths like a pebble
Drops some careless word, it overflows and its secret,
Spilt on the ground like water, can never be gathered together.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
"The Courtship of Miles Standish"
The taste for emotion may, however, become a dangerous taste ; and we should be very cautious how we attempt to squeeze out of human life, more ecstasy and paroxysm than it can well afford. It throws an air of insipidity over the greater part of our being, and lavishes on a few favoured moments the joy which was given to season our whole existence. It is to act like school boys--to pick the plums and sweet-meats out of the cake, and quarrel with the insipidity of the batter: whereas the business is, to infuse a certain share of flavour throughout the whole of the mass; and not so to habituate ourselves to strong impulse and extraordinary feeling, that the common tenor of human affairs should appear to us incapable of amusement, and devoid of interest.
SYDNEY SMITH
Elementary Sketches of Moral Philosophy