And hence one master-passion in the breast, Like Aaron's serpent, swallows up the rest.
chaos of thought and passion, all confus'd.
What Reason weaves, by Passion is undone.
The ruling passion, be it what it will. The ruling passion conquers reason still.
See how the World its Veterans rewards! A Youth of Frolics, an old Age of Cards; Fair to no purpose, artful to no end, Young without Lovers, old without a Friend; A Fop their Passion, but their Prize a Sot; Alive ridiculous, and dead forgot.
In men, we various ruling passions find; In women, two almost divide the kind Those, only fixed, they first or last obey, The love of pleasure, and the love of sway.
Passions are the gales of life.
Chaos of thought and passion, all confused; Still by himself abused or disabused; Created half to rise, and half to fall; Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all; Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurled,- The glory, jest, and riddle of the world.
Whate'er the passion, knowledge, fame, or pelf, Not one will change his neighbor with himself.
Intestine war no more our passions wage, And giddy factions bear away their rage.
On life's vast ocean diversely we sail, Reason the card, but passion is the gale; Nor God alone in the still calm we find, He mounts the storm, and walks upon the wind.
Search then the ruling passion: This clue, once found, unravels all the rest.
Search then the ruling passion; there alone, The wild are constant, and the cunning known; The fool consistent, and the false sincere; Priests, princes, women, no dissemblers here.
The difference is as great between The optics seeing as the objects seen. All manners take a tincture from our own; Or come discolor'd through out passions shown; Or fancy's beam enlarges, multiplies, Contracts, inverts, and gives ten thousand dyes.
Our passions are like convulsion fits, which, though they make us stronger for a time, leave us the weaker ever after.