The strong current of Western thought that idealizes a dispassionate world has ostracized the passions as quaint, even dangerous. Intense states have come to be seen as symptoms of pathology. A fondness for irony along with our civic ideal of tolerance lead us to prefer the diluted emotional life of feelings and moods. This work meditates on whether this victory is permanent - and how it might diminish us. From Aristotle to Hume to contemporary biology, the text finds evidence that the passions have defined the core of human nature no less important than reason or desire. Traversing "The Iliad", "King Lear", "Moby Dick" and other great works, it discerns the properties of the high-spirited states we call the passions. In reintroducing us to our own vehemence, the book reminds us that it is not only through our strongest passions that we feel the contours of injustice, mortality, loss and knowledge. It is only through our personal worlds that we can know the world.