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Quotes about emotion

132 quotes from 84 people

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Blessed are the hearts that can bend; they shall never be broken.
Albert Camus1913–1960A Happy Death (written 1936-38 (published in 1971, over 11 years after the author’s death))
Wonder and humility are wholesome emotions, and they do not exist side by side with a lust for destruction.
Rachel Carson1907–1964Speech accepting the John Burroughs Medal (April 1952)
- Virtue
Tears do not burn except in solitude.
ECEmil Cioran1911–1995On the Heights of Despair (1934)
To get up in the morning, wash and then wait for some unforeseen variety of dread or depression. I would give the whole universe and all of Shakespeare for a grain of ataraxy.
ECEmil Cioran1911–1995The Trouble With Being Born (1973)
Your tears come easy, when you’re young, and beginning the world. Your tears come easy, when you’re old, and leaving it.
Wilkie Collins1824–1889The Moonstone (1868), First Period: The Loss of the Diamond (1848), Chapter XIXIn context
- Age
- Youth
Who knows what true loneliness is — not the conventional word, but the naked terror? To the lonely themselves it wears a mask. The most miserable outcast hugs some memory or some illusion.
Joseph Conrad1857–1924Under Western Eyes (1911), Pt. I, ch. 2
The human heart is vast enough to contain all the world. It is valiant enough to bear the burden, but where is the courage that would cast it off?
Joseph Conrad1857–1924Lord Jim (1900), Chapter 34In context
- Courage
In the desert
I saw a creature, naked, bestial,
Who, squatting upon the ground,
Held his heart in his hands,
And ate of it.
I said, “Is it good, friend?”
“It is bitter⁠—bitter,” he answered;
“But I like it
“Because it is bitter,
“And because it is my heart.”
Stephen Crane1871–1900In the Desert (1895)In context
To-day we love what to-morrow we hate; to-day we seek what to-morrow we shun; to-day we desire what to-morrow we fear, nay, even tremble at the apprehensions of.
Daniel Defoe1660–1731Robinson Crusoe (1719), Chapter XIIn context
- Change
I do things differently, because I don’t go by a rule book, because I lead from the heart, not the head, and albeit that’s got me into trouble in my work, I understand that.
Diana, Princess of Wales1961–1997Interview with Martin Bashir on BBC Panorama (20 November 1995)
- Leadership
There’s a certain slant of light,
On winter afternoons,
That oppresses, like the weight
Of cathedral tunes.
Emily Dickinson1830–1886There’s a certain Slant of light (1890)In context
- Nature
After great pain a formal feeling comes⁠—
The nerves sit ceremonious like tombs;
The stiff Heart questions⁠—was it He that bore?
And yesterday⁠—or centuries before?
Emily Dickinson1830–1886After great pain, a formal feeling comes (1929)In context
This is the hour of lead
Remembered if outlived
As freezing persons recollect
The snow⁠—
First chill, then stupor, then
The letting go.
Emily Dickinson1830–1886After great pain, a formal feeling comes (1929)In context
- Life & Death
I felt a funeral in my brain,
And mourners, to and fro,
Kept treading, treading, till it seemed
That sense was breaking through.
Emily Dickinson1830–1886I felt a Funeral, in my Brain (1896)In context
We are constantly railing against the passions; we ascribe to them all of man’s afflictions, and we forget that they are also the source of all his pleasures.
Denis Diderot1713–1784Pensées philosophiques (1746), No. 1, as translated in Otis Fellows, Diderot (1977), p. 39