The World as Will and Representation or Idea III

Accordingly the emotion is related to the passion as delirium to madness.

The emotion is just as irresistible, but yet only a passing excitement of the will, by a motive which receives its power, not from a deeply rooted inclination, but merely from the fact that, appearing suddenly, it excludes for the moment the counter-effect of all other motives, for it consists of an idea, which completely obscures all others by its excessive vividness, or, as it were, conceals them entirely by its too close proximity, so that they cannot enter consciousness and act on the will, whereby, therefore, the capacity for reflection, and with it intellectual freedom, is to a certain extent abolished.

there is a limit to which reflection can penetrate and can so far lighten the night of our existence, although the horizon always remains dark.