William James Quotes

When you experience the emotion of sadness, there will be changes in facial expression, and your body will be closed in, withdrawn. There are also changes in your heart, your guts: they slow down. And there are hormonal changes.

I just love human emotion and faces.

Laughter is a strange response. I mean, what is it? It's a spasm of some kind! Is that always joy? It's very often discomfort. It's some sort of explosive reaction. It's very complex.

Sometimes, I cry because I'm sad, and sometimes, I cry just because it's just emotional and it's super awesome.

When someone is looking down, they're saying no. When they're looking up, they're looking to their brain for memory. When they look to the left, they're looking for a lie or something they memorized. When they look to the right, they're feeling sorry - they don't want to answer.

I prefer to express myself physically, or non-verbally. I prefer just to react without having a lot of dialogue.

There are receptors to these molecules in your immune system, in your gut and in your heart. So when you say, 'I have a gut feeling' or 'my heart is sad' or 'I am bursting with joy,' you're not speaking metaphorically. You're speaking literally.

If emotion can create a physical action, then duplicating the physical action can re-create the emotion.

I tend to be emotional when... I breathe.

Don’t panic, I thought. But already my breathing was faster, shallower. “You mean you can feel happy or sad or—” “Desire.” A barely-there smile.

All anger feels like righteous anger; sorrow does not care whether it is righteous or not.

Emotion, whether of ridicule, anger, or sorrow,--whether raised at a puppet show, a funeral, or a battle,--is your grandest of levellers. The man who would be always superior should be always apathetic.

How much better is it to weep at joy than to joy at weeping?

When one is pretending the entire body revolts.

An emotion is both a mental and a physical event.

Isn't it weird that I'm getting all emotionable?

Blushing is the most peculiar and most human of all expressions.

The body is a multilingual being. It speaks through its color and its temperature, the flush of recognition, the glow of love, the ash of pain, the heat of arousal, the coldness of nonconviction. . . . It speaks through the leaping of the heart, the falling of the spirits, the pit at the center, and rising hope.

The glance embroiders in joy, knits in pain, and sews in boredom. When indifferent, the eye takes stills, when interested, movies. Laughter is regional: a smile extends over the whole face.

His gratitude widened his smile and bent his back.

Color is joy. One does not think joy. One is carried by it.

I don't feel I'm angry. I feel as though I'm describing something true. If I had stabbed my husband, I could understand being called "angry." If I had an affair with my husband's best friend and written about that experience, I could see the anger. But I'm not doing that.

Saying "I feel guilty" is a mere form of words. Saying "I feel ashamed" is not.

A man must be completely wanting in intelligence if he does not show it when actuated by love, malice, or necessity.

Emotion is created by motion. Whatever you're feeling right now is related to how you're using your body.