Sentiment, if it is rightly inspired, is an adequation: it is to love what is lovable, detest what is detestable, admire what is admirable, disdain what is contemptible, fear what is fearful and trust what is trustworthy; the positive quintessence of sentiment being love, which is a divine dimension. From this priority it follows that to detest is not properly speaking to create an aversion, it is rather to withdraw love, which exists before hate, as lovable things exist before detestable things, ontologically speaking; whereas to love is not to withdraw a preexisting hatred – inexistent in fact – it is to remain in the original attitude: in the love that, according to Dante  , “moves the sun and the other stars.” [GTUFS: RootsHC, Pillars of Wisdom]

Sentiment, envisaged in all its aspects, operates on the one hand a sort of vital discrimination between what is noble, lovable and useful and what is not so and on the other, an assimilation of what is worthy of being assimilated and thereby realized; in other words love is dependent on the worth of the object. If love takes precedence over hatred to the point that there is no common measure between them, this is because absolute Reality is absolutely lovable; love is substance, hatred is accident, except in the case of creatures that are perverse. [GTUFS: EsoterismPW, The Nature and Role of Sentiment]

Sentiment in itself is not sentimentalism; it is not an abuse unless it falsifies a truth; in itself, it is the faculty of loving what is objectively lovable: the true, the holy, the beautiful, the noble; “beauty is the splendor of the true.” [GTUFS: HaveCenter, Intelligence and Character]

The Intellect – that kind of static Revelation, permanent in principle and “supernaturally natural” – is not opposed to any possible expression of the Real; it is situated beyond sentiment, imagination, memory and reason, but it can at the same time enlighten and determine all of these since they are like its individualized ramifications, ordained as receptacles to receive the light from on high and to translate it according to their respective capacities. The positive quintessence of sentiment is love; and love, to the extent that it transcends itself in the direction of its supernatural source, is the love of man for God and of God for man, and finally it is Beatitude without origin and without end. [GTUFS: TransfMan, Reflections on Ideological Sentimentalism]

Sentiment / Sentimentality / Sentimentalism: It is important not to confuse the notions of sentiment, sentimentality and sentimentalism, as is too often done as the result of either a rationalistic or an intellectualistic prejudice. The second case, moreover, is more surprising than the first, for if the reason is in a certain sense opposed to sentiment, the intellect remains neutral in this regard, just as light remains neutral with regard to colors; we intentionally say “intellectualistic” and not “intellectual” for intellectuality cannot admit of prejudice. That a sentiment which is opposed to a truth is not worthy of esteem, everyone will agree, and this is the very definition of sentimentalism. When one justifiably reproaches an attitude for being sentimental, this can only mean one thing, namely that the attitude in question contradicts a rational attitude and usurps its place; and it must be borne in mind that an attitude can be positively rational only when it is based either on intellectual knowledge or simply on adequate information regarding a real situation. An attitude cannot be termed rational just because it makes use of logic, inasmuch as it is possible to reason in the absence of the necessary data. Just as intellectuality signifies on the one hand the nature of what is intellectual and on the other a tendency towards the intellect, so sentimentality signifies both the nature of what is sentimental and a tendency towards sentiment; as for sentimentalism, it systematizes an excess of sentimentality to the detriment of the normal perception of things: denominational and political fanaticisms are in this category. If we draw attention to these distinctions which in themselves are obvious, it is solely because of the frequent confusions which we observe in this domain – we are certainly not alone in so doing – and which run the risk of falsifying the notions of intellectuality and spirituality. [GTUFS: EsoterismPW, The Nature and Role of Sentiment]