The Silmarillion: Ch. 6: Of Fëanor and the Unchaining of Melkor

[Artanis]

Originally posted by Maedhros
There was this guy Melkor who was a very powerful Vala, who perverted some of the Ñoldor, but that has been overlooked in this thread.

Maedhros has a good point here about Melkor. It was not only Fëanor who listened to and were stirred by Melkor's cunning talk and lies. Many of the Ñoldor had become proud and unrestful by the lies of Melkor, but it was only Fëanor who rebelled openly, and so he got the blame.

Originally posted by azalea
It is my opinion that those who value the retrieval of stolen jewels, no matter how beautiful, above all else, including one's own life and the lives of others, is someone who has a limited ability to love others, no matter how brilliant a craftsman of earth and language he is.

I see your point. But still Fëanor did love other people: His mother and father, and Nerdanel, and his sons. The Silmarillion says about Fëanor that

his father was dearer to him than the Light of Valinor or the peerless works of his hands; and who among sons, of Elves or of Men, have held their fathers of greater worth?

Also, to give up the Silmarils may be harder than we can imagine. The words spoken by Aulë and Fëanor when the two trees have been slain and and Fëanor si asked by the Valar to break the Silmarils says something about that:

Then Tulkas cried: 'Speak, O Noldo, yea or nay! But who shall deny Yavanna? And did not the light of the Silmarils come from her work in the beginning?'
But Aulë the Maker said: 'Be not hasty! We ask a greater thing than thou knowest. Let him have peace yet awhile.'
But Fëanor spoke then, and cried bitterly: 'For the less even as for the greater there is some deed that he may accomplish but once only; and in that deed his heart shall rest. It may be that I can unlock my jewels, but never again shall I make their like; and if I must break them, I shall break my heart, and I shall be slain; first of all the Eldar in Aman.'

Fëanor is such a tragic character. He has this magnificent potential, but if everything he makes with his hands and his minds are wonderful, his personal relations ends with disaster, from the very beginning of his life.