Paulo Coelho Quotes

Passions, as fire and water, are good servants, but bad masters, and subminister to the best and worst purposes.

All passions that suffer themselves to be relished and digested are but moderate.

Why cannot we correct the baneful passions, without weakening the good?

Subdue your passion or it will subdue you.

I like working emotions that can take you beyond your life. And yet you have to resist them in order remain within your life. Otherwise, you're burned. I like that fight. It's more of a fight with yourself.

Why should we desire the destruction of human passions? Take passions from human beings and what is left? The great object should be not to destroy passions, but to make them obedient to the intellect. To indulge passion to the utmost is one form of intemperance - to destroy passion is another. The reasonable gratification of passion under the domination of the intellect is true wisdom and perfect virtue.

A man who allows wild passion to arise within, himself burns his heart, then after burning adds the wind that thereto which ignites the fire again, or not, as the case may be.

Self-control might be as passionate and as active as the surrender to passion.

You'll have to learn to control your emotions. They're new, like achild's now, bursting with passion. Never let them fade, or part of you will die. But they cal also destroy you. Hold them dear, but don't let them take hold of you.

Wise people may say what they will, but one passion is never cured by another.

For Reason, ruling alone, is a force confining; and Passion, unattended, is a flame that burns to its own destruction.

The man who is master of his passions is Reason's slave.

The passions are like those demons with which Afrasahiab sailed down the Orus. Our only safety consists in keeping them asleep. If they we are lost.

The principal use of prudence, of self-control, is that it teaches us to be masters of our passions, and to so control and guide them that the evils which they cause are quite bearable, and that we even derive joy from them all.

The philosopher who would fain extinguish his passions resembles the chemist who would like to let his furnace go out.

Virtue does not consist in the absence of the passions, but in the control of them.

Freedom is not only the absence of external restraints. It is also the absence of irresistible internal compulsions, unmanageable passion, and uncensorable highlights.

The man who gives way to anger, or hatred, or any other passion, cannot work; he only breaks himself to pieces, and does nothing practical. It is the calm, forgiving, equable, well-balanced mind that does the greatest amount of work.

The passions should be purged; all may become innocent if they are well directed and moderated. Even hatred maybe a commendable feeling when it is caused by a lively love of good. Whatever makes the passions pure, makes them stronger, more durable, and more enjoyable.

It is not lust alone that one should be afraid of in the life of the world. There is also anger. Anger arises when obstacles are placed in the way of desire.

Because whipping an atlas at Jackson's head while he was flirt-touching that Frankie girl in geography would have been very satisfying. And beating him with the Eiffel Tower snowglobe while he kissed Cleo in French would have been tres cathartic. But she hadn't. Instead she'd been egg-like: a hard shell on the outside, and a runny mess on the inside.

One can overcome the forces of negative emotions, like anger and hatred, by cultivating their counter-forces, like love and compassion.

So powerful is the charm of words, which for us reduces to manageable entities all the passions that would otherwise madden and destroy us.

Emotions will either serve or master, depending on who is in charge.