We are tossed about by external causes in many ways, and like waves driven by contrary winds, we waver and are unconscious of the issue and our fate.' We think we are most ourselves when we are most passionate, whereas it is then we are most passive, caught in some ancestral torrent of impulse or feeling, and swept on to a precipitate reaction which meets only part of the situation because without thought only part of a situation can be perceived.
Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy: The Lives and Opinions of the World's Greatest Philosophers
atavism, drive, emotion, feeling, impulse, instinct, passion, philosophy, reactionary, spinoza, urge