No passion is stronger in the breast of a man than the desire to make others believe as he believes. Nothing so cuts at the root of his happiness and fills him with rage as the sense that another rates low what he prizes high.
With me poetry has been not a purpose, but a passion; and the passions should be held in reverence: they must not they cannot at will be excited, with an eye to the paltry compensations, or the more paltry commendations, of mankind.
There is nothing like lust. Lust may be said to be the most powerful passion. Fortunately, we have but one thing which is more powerful. If the thirst for truth were weaker than passion, how many of us in the world would be able to follow the way of righteous?
Free from gross passion or of mirth of anger constant spirit, not swerving with the blood, garnish'd and deck'd in modest compliment, not working with the eye without the ear, and but in purged judgement trusting neither? Such and so finely bolted didst thou seem.
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.
Those who are pure in heart and single in purpose are able to understand the most supreme Way. It is like polishing a mirror, which becomes bright when the dust is removed. Remove your passions, and have no hankering.
The deluding passions are inexhaustible. I vow to extinguish them all.
The number of beings is endless. I vow to save them all.
The Truth cannot be told. I vow to explain it.
The Way which cannot be followed is unattainable. I vow to attain it.
And let it direct your passion with reason, that your passion may livethrough its own daily resurrection, and like the phoenix rise above its own ashes.
There is no such thing as a life of passion any more than a continuous earthquake, or an eternal fever. Besides, who would ever shave themselves in such a state?