“Passion is born deaf and dumb.”

“Nature makes only dumb animals. We owe the fools to society.”

“All humanity is passion; without passion, religion, history, novels, art would be ineffectual.”

“Passion is univeral humanity. Without it religion history art and romance would be useless.”

“If you decide to join up with me, I want it to be because you're making a rational choice, not because you've been pushed by passion or despair.”

“The viscountess had raised the forefinger of her right hand and made a pretty gesture toward a stool at her feet. There was such intense tyrannical passion in the gesture that the marquis relinquished the doorknob and came back.”

“However gross a man may be, the minute he expresses a strong and genuine affection, some inner secretion alters his features, animates his gestures, and colors his voice. The stupidest man will often, under the stress of passion, achieve heights of eloquence, in thought if not in language, and seem to move in some luminous sphere. Goriot's voice and gesture had at this moment the power of communication that characterizes the great actor. Are not our finer feelings the poems of the human will?”