"We must act out passion before we can feel it"
About this Quote
Passion is not a preexisting flame but a fire we strike by moving. Sartre treats emotion as a mode of action, not a passive inner state that descends on us. Existence precedes essence: we are not born with fixed natures, so our feelings do not simply reveal who we already are. They are formed and deepened through projects, commitments, and the gestures we choose to make. Waiting to feel passion before acting is, in Sartrean terms, a way of shrinking from freedom, a subtle form of bad faith that pretends we cannot help what we do.
In his Sketch for a Theory of the Emotions, Sartre argues that emotions are intentional reorganizations of the world, choices by which consciousness gives situations a new meaning when ordinary means seem insufficient. Passion becomes genuine only when it is enacted as a sustained project. The aspiring painter who shows up every day, the activist who organizes before feeling heroic, the lover who practices fidelity and attention even when ardor is quiet, all demonstrate how feeling follows form. What looks like mere performance is not hypocrisy if it is owned; authenticity is not about prior sincerity but about ongoing responsibility for what one does.
There is an echo of William James here, who claimed we feel sorry because we cry, not the other way around. Sartre rejects a purely physiological account, yet he shares the insight that action discloses and shapes emotion. By embodying a value, we clarify it. By making promises and keeping them, we learn what our hearts can hold.
The line is both bracing and liberating. Do not wait for a thunderclap of certainty. Begin, and through choice and repetition you create the conditions under which passion can be felt truthfully. Feeling is not the permission slip for action; action is the workshop where feeling is forged.
In his Sketch for a Theory of the Emotions, Sartre argues that emotions are intentional reorganizations of the world, choices by which consciousness gives situations a new meaning when ordinary means seem insufficient. Passion becomes genuine only when it is enacted as a sustained project. The aspiring painter who shows up every day, the activist who organizes before feeling heroic, the lover who practices fidelity and attention even when ardor is quiet, all demonstrate how feeling follows form. What looks like mere performance is not hypocrisy if it is owned; authenticity is not about prior sincerity but about ongoing responsibility for what one does.
There is an echo of William James here, who claimed we feel sorry because we cry, not the other way around. Sartre rejects a purely physiological account, yet he shares the insight that action discloses and shapes emotion. By embodying a value, we clarify it. By making promises and keeping them, we learn what our hearts can hold.
The line is both bracing and liberating. Do not wait for a thunderclap of certainty. Begin, and through choice and repetition you create the conditions under which passion can be felt truthfully. Feeling is not the permission slip for action; action is the workshop where feeling is forged.
Quote Details
| Topic | Wisdom |
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