If we would learn what the human race really is at bottom, we need only observe it in election times.
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, 1835-1910
Mankind are governed more by their feelings than by reason. Events which excite those feelings will produce wonderful effects.
I hate the word 'ought' - it always implies something dull, cold, and commonplace. The 'ought nots' of life are its pleasantest things.
I like to have a much greater base and know a lot more about my character before I begin to fill the person. So a lot of it really entails sit-downs with them, determining who she is, where she came from, and why she reacts a certain way, and then I was really able to expand upon a lot of that and create a lot of that story on my own.
Religion, morality, and patriotism are feelings that are manifested only when they are outraged.
What all emotions have in common, and what distinguishes them from bodily appetites, is a focus on an object and a view of that object as salient for one's life.
Jealousy is both reasonable and belongs to reasonable men, while envy is base and belongs to the base, for the one makes himself get good things by jealousy, while the other does not allow his neighbour to have them through envy.
Divorce has become so easy nowadays that women have stopped crying at weddings.
Conflicts create the fire of affects and emotions; and like every fire it has two aspects: that of burning and that of giving light.
I have pitfalls. I have emotional responses to things that are really not about me. They're about other people.
And your brain doesn't naturally know how to think the way Zeckhauser knows how to play bridge. "for example," people do not react symmetrically to loss and gain. Well maybe a great bridge player like Zeckhauser does, but that's a trained response. Ordinary people, subconsciously affected by their inborn tendencies.
You are 100% emotional in everything you think, feel and decide. You decide emotionally and justify logically.
The problem is, most people don't like to hear suggestions that directly confront or run counter to their most sacred beliefs.
Surely people should eventually cease to be surprised at anything? And yet they continue to be.
Whenever people are excited about 'My Girl', I always think if I met the kids from 'The Neverending Story.' I would probably be the same way.
Maybe that's what history is, you go from one I can't believe it the next. And sometimes the I can't believe its are good, and sometimes they're bad. But the sum total of positive ones always outweighs the negative ones.
I've had the most amazing interviews, and I've done interviews that were so bad, I was embarrassed to be interviewed. I've seen both sides of the coin.
I'm quite a rational person. I'm not very superstitious, but I really do enjoy horror as a genre.
Everyone has an opinion when it comes to immigration - strong, intense opinions.
Son, feelings are what women have. They come from their ovaries.
For there are two distinct sorts of ideas: Those that proceed from the head and those that emanate from the heart.
Character is expressed through our behavior patterns, or natural responses to things.
People frequently bore me, sometimes amuse me, most often irritate me, but rarely intrigue me.
Feeling good and feeling bad are not necessarily opposites. Both at least involve feelings. Any feeling is a reminder of life. The worst 'feeling' evidently is non-feeling.
Pleasure and distress, fear and courage, desire and aversion, where have these affections and experiences their seat?Clearly, either in the Soul alone, or in the Soul as employing the body, or in some third entity deriving from both. And for this third entity, again, there are two possible modes: it might be either a blend or a distinct form due to the blending.
