Character Quote by Thomas Aquinas

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

— Josh Billings

Even virtue itself, all perfect as it is, requires to be inspirited by passion; for duties are but coldly performed which are but philosophically…

— Anna Brownell Jameson

Passions are defects or virtues in the highest power.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Every man without passions has within him no principle of action, nor motive to act.

— Claude Adrien Helvetius

Passions are no more forgiving than human laws and they reason more justly. Are they not based on a conscience of their own, infallible…

— Honore de Balzac

The passions we cannot control are the ones that define us.

— Simon Van Booy

The happiness in this life does not consist of being devoid of passion, but mastering them.

— Anonymous

The passions should be purged; all may become innocent if they are well directed and moderated. Even hatred maybe a commendable feeling when it…

— Joseph Joubert

Passions are vices or virtues to their highest powers.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Passions often produce their contraries: avarice sometimes leads to prodigality, and prodigality to avarice; we are often obstinate through weakness and daring through timidity.

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

To regard the excesses of the passions as maladies has so salutary an effect that this idea renders all moral sermons useless.

— Pierre-Claude-Victor Boiste

Virtue consists, not in abstaining from vice, but in not desiring it.

— George Bernard Shaw