Mary Shelley on emotion

Invention, it must be humbly admitted, does not consist in creating out of void, but out of chaos.

We are unfashioned creatures, but half made up, if one wiser, better, dearer than ourselves — such a friend ought to be — do not lend his aid to perfectionate our weak and faulty natures.

What terrified me will terrify others; and I need only describe the spectre which had haunted my midnight pillow.

Mankind are governed more by their feelings than by reason.

Samuel Adams1722–1803Letter to Samuel Cooper (30 April 1776)

I am very conscious of the fact that our feelings and strivings are often contradictory and obscure and that they cannot be expressed in easy and simple formulas.

Albert Einstein1879–1955Why Socialism? (1949)

Never apologize for showing feeling, my friend. Remember that when you do so, you apologize for truth.

Benjamin Disraeli1804–1881Contarini Fleming (1832), Part 1, Chapter 13