51 Quotes About Emotions

Emotions are the vibrant threads that weave the rich tapestry of human experience. From the euphoric highs of joy to the profound depths of sorrow, emotions shape our perceptions, guide our decisions, and connect us with one another on the most fundamental level. In a world that often moves at a relentless pace, taking a moment to reflect on our emotions can offer clarity, insight, and inspiration. Whether you're seeking comfort, motivation, or a deeper understanding of yourself and those around you, our curated collection of 51 quotes about emotions serves as a gentle reminder of the power and beauty held within these complex feelings. Dive into a journey of self-discovery and wisdom as we explore these poignant reflections on what it means to be human.

1. “Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions.” - David Hume

2. “Your emotions are the slaves to your thoughts, and you are the slave to your emotions.” - Elizabeth Gilbert

3. “When a tender affection has been storing itself in us through many of our years, the idea that we could accept any exchange for it seems to be a cheapening of our lives. And we can set a watch over our affections and our constancy as we can over other treasures.” - George Eliot

4. “Feel, he told himself, feel, feel, feel. Even if what you feel is pain, only let yourself feel.” - P.D. James

5. “I got words in me, Jess, fighting to find a way out. Sometimes there's so many words and they get so crowded in my skull I think my head is gonna explode. I want to write them down. I've tried, but most of the time my thoughts and my feelings are bigger than what I can get on paper.” - Carolee Dean

6. “Do you imagine the universe is agitated? Go into the desert at night and look at the stars. This practice should answer the question.” - Lao Tzu

7. “I don't like hope very much. In fact, I hate it. It's the crystal meth of emotions. It hooks you fast and kills you hard. It's bad news. The worst. It's sharp sticks and cherry bombs. When hope shows up, it's only a matter of time until someone gets hurt.” - Jennifer Donnelly

8. “All the knowledge I possess everyone else can acquire, but my heart is all my own.” - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

9. “Anger ... it's a paralyzing emotion ... you can't get anything done. People sort of think it's an interesting, passionate, and igniting feeling — I don't think it's any of that — it's helpless ... it's absence of control — and I need all of my skills, all of the control, all of my powers ... and anger doesn't provide any of that — I have no use for it whatsoever."[Interview with CBS radio host Don Swaim, September 15, 1987.]” - Toni Morrison

10. “I'm not going to be hardened by these people, to these things, I'm not going to let them destroy my feelings or my emotions.” - Pete Doherty

11. “Laine slowly rolled out of bed. The queen size was one of the few new things in the house. But now, even the new bed felt tainted. It was an inner-spring monument to lies, a petri dish of mendacity she had shared with her faithless husband, and shared now with creeping dreams that flew from the light but left harsh scratches and diseased black feathers. Laine promised herself that, as soon as, she could, she would rid herself of this house, this bed, her clothes, her jewelry - everything but the flesh she lived in. She would scrub herself clean and flee to start a new life whose first and only commandment would be: Never let thyself be lied to again.” - Stephen M. Irwin

12. “People who keep stiff upper lips find that it's damn hard to smile.” - Judith Guest

13. “I'd written Smashed not because I was ambitious and not because writing down my feelings was cathartic (it felt more like playing one's own neurosurgeon sans anesthesia). No. I'd made a habit--and eventually a profession--of memoir because I hail from one of those families where shows of emotions are discouraged.” - Koren Zailckas

14. “There is an emotional promiscuity we’ve noticed among many good young men and women. The young man understands something of the journey of the heart. He wants to talk, to “share the journey.” The woman is grateful to be pursued, she opens up. They share the intimacies of their lives - their wounds, their walks with God. But he never commits. He enjoys her... then leaves. And she wonders, What did I do wrong? She failed to see his passivity. He really did not ever commit or offer assurances that he would. Like Willoughby to Marianne in Sense and Sensibility.Be careful you do not offer too much of yourself to a man until you have good, solid evidence that he is a strong man willing to commit. Look at his track record with other women. Is there anything to be concerned about there? If so, bring it up. Also, does he have any close male friends - and what are they like as men? Can he hold down a job? Is he walking with God in a real and intimate way? Is he facing the wounds of his own life, and is he also demonstrating a desire to repent of Adam’s passivity and/or violence? Is he headed somewhere with his life? A lot of questions, but your heart is a treasure, and we want you to offer it only to a man who is worthy and ready to handle it well.” - Stasi Eldredge

15. “Our thoughts dictate how we feel; so it is important to recognize that we are as we think we are” - Jeremy Aldana

16. “Emotions are like muscles. Most of them go highly unattended, it's usually the weaker, undefined ones that cause injury to the rest, and there is most certainly memory response in play.” - Erica Goros

17. “It's as if they have thinner boundaries separating them from other people's emotions and from the tragedies and cruelties of the world.” - Susan Cain

18. “If you believe everything you feel is an illusion then you’re delusional. Your emotion is part you. You’re made with it. Denying it and thinking it is all your mind, is denying your existence.” - Ann Marie Aguilar

19. “Bridget's anger evaporated and the sadness came back. The anger was easier. She owned and controlled it, whereas the sadness owned her.” - Ann Brashares

20. “people will forget what you said, people will forget what you do, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” - Jason Barger

21. “Having their feelings make sense is how people get their kicks.” - Mark Vonnegut

22. “Though her emotions had not deviated from a jittery frailty she knew that in her own room she could at least attempt sleep and that if she dreamed she might then finally be with Henry.” - Anna Godbersen

23. “All of us, whether vivisector or vegan, have been subject to mechanisms undercutting sympathy for animals. How long and to what extent we submit to these mechanisms is not a matter of rationality: to cut off our feelings and support animal exploitation is rational, given societal expectations and sanctions; but to assert our feelings and oppose animal exploitation is also rational, given the pain involved in losing our natural bonds with animals. So our task is not to pass judgment on others' rationality, but to speak honestly of the loneliness and isolation of anthropocentric society, and of the damage done to every person expected to hurt animals.” - Brian Luke

24. “Civilized people don't feel.” - Mervyn Peake

25. “Sex is always about emotions. Good sex is about free emotions; bad sex is about blocked emotions.” - Deepak Chopra

26. “I am an extremely sincere individual. I am sincere, to a fault. One of the many things that I have come to realize, to learn, is that sincerity must be reserved and given only to those who deserve it. And one must save one's emotions, channeling them only to the people who are worthy of it. One must not throw one's pearls to the pigs.” - C. JoyBell C.

27. “He wanted to say that all this talk of feelings was irrelevant. Thatemotions come and go and can't be controlled, so there's no reason to worry about them. That in the end, people should be judged by their actions, since in the end, it was actions that defined everyone.” - Nicholas Sparks

28. “I wonder how one can hate to love and love to hate the same person over a period of time in a relationship” - Dr. Amit Abraham

29. “But pain's like water. It finds a way to push through any seal. There's no way to stop it. Sometimes you have to let yourself sink inside of it before you can learn how to swim to the surface.” - Katie Kacvinsky

30. “I have been using art as a means to the emotions of life and reading into it the ideas of life.” - Clive Bell

31. “Some things are too big to be seen; some emotions are too huge to be felt.” - Neil Gaiman

32. “Our senses and emotions are the great source of inspiration for creating compelling and interesting art pieces (books included). Each art piece, be it a book, a song, a painting, a photograph or a product should touch our senses and evoke emotions. Emotionless art lacks purpose and interest.” - Serafima Bogomolova

33. “Don't listen to anyone. Trust what gives you pleasure. Trust the emotions. If you love something but can't explain why, that's enough” - Calice Becker

34. “That’s what violence was: emotion leaking out from consciousness into the physical world, linking up with the muscles of the arms and shoulders and diaphragm and, inevitably, the face. Stifle emotion during an act of violence and the face becomes a blank, unreadable mask.” - Ryu Murakami

35. “Artists shouldn't wait until they are told what their art should be, they shouldn't follow trends or allow other people to influence their work, an artist should only create from the strongest emotions within their heart” - Andrew James Pritchard

36. “Metaphor is awkward, but emotion, by its nature, leaves you no more scalable approach.” - Rachel Hartman

37. “Learning to have patience and not forcing the relationship is part of the twin soul process. If you are trying to force your will onto the other person, chances are you’re not ready to really connect yourself. There should be no blame here - only deep and unconditional love. ” - Chimnese Davids

38. “All she wanted was a breathing space in which to hurt.” - Margaret Mitchell

39. “I believe that it may be normal, healthy, and even productive to experience mild to moderate depression from time to time as part of the variable emotional spectrum, either as an appropriate response to situations or as a way of turning inward and mentally chewing over problems to find solutions.” - Andrew Weil

40. “A flock of sheep near the airport or a high voltage generator beside the orchard: these combinations open up my life like a wound, but they also heal it. That's why my feelings always come in twos.” - Yehuda Amichai

41. “Do you ever think that people who find it tougher to say what they're feeling are the ones who feel things more intensely? As if they're the ones who really understand what it means to love someone? As if they have to keep their defenses high, because they care too much and have too much to lose?” - Claire Cross

42. “Rather than allowing our response to an even affect our breathing, we can learn instead to let our breathing change our relationship to the event.” - Cyndi Lee

43. “He was a breath of fresh air after the heart wrenching storm that had engulfed me.” - Rebecca Donovan

44. “Amal,I believe that most Americans do not love as we do. It is not for any inherent deficiency or superiority in them. They live in the safe, shallow, parts that rarely push human emotions into the depths where we dwell.” - Susan Abulhawa

45. “The sudden appearance of pain and pressure are not indicative of an injury, but of the presence of suppressed emotions.” - Heidi DuPree

46. “The loss of these tastes [for poetry and music] is a loss of happiness, and may possibly be injurious to the intellect, and more probably to the moral character, by enfeebling the emotional part of our nature.” - Charles Darwin

47. “There comes a point where emotions must give way to objective facts.” - Max Brooks

48. “Subject to the law(s) of nature, hate is born to die” - T.F. Hodge

49. “His rules were thus: One, resist when beneficial to the cause. Two, dignity before humiliation. Three, don’t show true emotions.” - Courtney Kirchoff

50. “Families start out, most of the time, with unconditional acceptance of one another. That acceptance starts in childhood and continues into adulthood. Somewhere in there, between childhood and adulthood, the ability to distinguish right versus wrong is born.” - Bart Hopkins

51. “Your only problem, perhaps, is that you scream without letting yourself cry.” - Friedrich Nietzsche