Agitate Quotes

• Agitation is the marshalling of the conscience of a nation to mold its laws.

  Robert Peel

  Law, Mold, Agitation

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• Let me give you a word of the philosophy of reform. The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims, have been born of earnest struggle. The conflict has been exciting, agitating, all-absorbing, and for the time being, putting all other tumults to silence. It must do this or it does nothing. If there is no struggle there is no progress.

  Frederick Douglass

  Philosophy, Struggle, August

  Frederick Douglass, Philip Sheldon Foner, Yuval Taylor (1999). “Frederick Douglass: Selected Speeches and Writings”, p.367, Chicago Review Press

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• It is odd but agitation or contest of any kind gives a rebound to my spirits and sets me up for a time.

  Lord Byron

  Time, Giving, Agitation

  "Poet of all the passions" by Fiona MacCarthy, www.theguardian.com. November 8, 2002.

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• Minds that are ill at ease are agitated by both hope and fear.

  Ovid

  Fear, Psychology, Mind

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• Pour some water into a tub and stir it up. Now try as hard as you can to calm the water with your hands; you will succeed in agitating it further. Let it stand undisturbed a while, and it will calm down by itself. The human brain works much the same way.

  Koichi Tohei

  Art, Philosophy, Hands

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• Of agitating good roads there is no end, and perhaps this is as it should be, but I think you'll agree that it is high time to agitate less and build more. [Here is] a plan whereby the automobile industry of America can build a magnificent "Appian Way" from New York to San Francisco, having it completed by May 1, 1915 and present it to the people of the United States.

  Carl G. Fisher

  New York, Science, Thinking

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• All prayers die in the air which they uselessly agitate.

  Robert Green Ingersoll

  Prayer, Air, Religion

  Robert Green Ingersoll (1900). “The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll ...”

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• Compassion brings fulfillment to the heart. Selfish desires simply agitate the heart.

  Radhanath Swami

  Selfish, Heart, Compassion

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• The soul is the perceiver and revealer of truth. We know truth when we see it, let skeptic and scoffer say what they choose ... We distinguish the announcements of the soul, its manifestations of its own nature, by the term Revelation. These are always attended by the emotion of the sublime. For this communication is an influx of the Divine mind into our mind. It is an ebb of the individual rivulet before the flowing surges of the sea of life. Every distinct apprehension of this central commandment agitates men with awe and delight.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Communication, Men, Sea

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• Let me now warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party. The common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it. It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms; kindles the animosity of one part against another. In governments purely elective, it is a spirit not to be encouraged.

  George Washington

  Wise, Party, Government

  George Washington’s "Farewell Address", oll.libertyfund.org. September 19, 1796.

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• The appearance and retirement of actors are the great events of the theatrical world; and their first performances fill the pit with conjecture and prognostication, as the first actions of a new monarch agitate nations with hope and fear.

  Samuel Johnson

  Retirement, Theatre, Firsts

  Samuel Johnson (1825). “The works of Samuel Johnson [ed. by F.P. Walesby].”, p.222

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• Unless the poor of the world agitate for themselves to be heard, there will be no changes in their circumstances.

  Vandana Shiva

  World, Poor, Circumstances

  "Earth Democracy: Justice, Sustainability And Peace". Book by Vandana Shiva, 2005.

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• I will not permit thirty men to travel four hundred miles to agitate a bag of wind.

  Andrew Dickson White

  Sports, Men, Wind

  On refusing permission for a team from Cornell University to visit Michigan to play a game of American football. Quoted in D Wallechinsky The People's Almanac (1975).

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• Agitate him and ascertain the pattern of his movement.

  Sun Tzu

  Art, War, Movement

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• Humility does not disturb or disquiet or agitate, however great it may be; it comes with peace, delight, and calm. . . . The pain of genuine humility doesn't agitate or afflict the soul; rather, this humility expands it and enables it to serve God more.

  Teresa of Avila

  Pain, Humility, Soul

  Teresa of Avila (2011). “The Collected Works of St. Teresa of Avila, vol 2”, p.89, ICS Publications

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• Organize, agitate, educate, must be our war cry.

  Susan B. Anthony

  Education, War, Cry

  Lynn Sherr, Susan B. Anthony (1995). “Failure Is Impossible: Susan B. Anthony in Her Own Words”, Crown

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• A reporter is always concerned with tomorrow. There's nothing tangible of yesterday. All I can say I've done is agitate the air ten or fifteen minutes and then boom - it's gone.

  Edward R. Murrow

  Air, Yesterday, Gone

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• The primary and most beautiful of Nature's qualities is motion, which agitates her at all times, but this motion is simply a perpetual consequence of crimes, she conserves it by means of crimes only.

  Marquis de Sade

  Change, Beautiful, Nature

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• I hadn't been out to the hives before, so to start off she gave me a lesson in what she called 'bee yard etiquette'. She reminded me that the world was really one bee yard, and the same rules work fine in both places. Don't be afraid, as no life-loving bee wants to sting you. Still, don't be an idiot; wear long sleeves and pants. Don't swat. Don't even think about swatting. If you feel angry, whistle. Anger agitates while whistling melts a bee's temper. Act like you know what you're doing, even if you don't. Above all, send the bees love. Every little thing wants to be loved.

  Sue Monk Kidd

  Thinking, Long, Bees

  Sue Monk Kidd (2003). “The Secret Life of Bees”, p.92, Penguin

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• I am terrified by this dark thing That sleeps in me; All day I feel its soft, feathery turnings, its malignity. Clouds pass and disperse. Are those the faces of love, those pale irretrievables? Is it for such I agitate my heart? I am incapable of more knowledge. What is this, this face So murderous in its strangle of branches? - Its snaky acids kiss. It petrifies the will. These are the isolate, slow faults That kill, that kill, that kill.

  Sylvia Plath

  Heart, Sleep, Dark

  Sylvia Plath (2010). “Ariel: The Restored Edition”, p.35, Faber & Faber

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• My aim is to agitate and disturb people. I'm not selling bread; I'm selling yeast.

  Miguel de Unamuno

  People, Yeast, Bread

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• When you have an emotional reaction to what you see, you are judging. That is your signal that you have an issue inside of yourself - with yourself - not with the other person. If you react to evil, look inside yourself for the very thing that so agitates you, and you will find it. If it were not there, you will simply discern, act appropriately, and move on.

  Gary Zukav

  Moving, Emotional, Issues

  Gary Zukav (2007). “Soul to Soul: Communications from the Heart”, p.157, Simon and Schuster

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• And when demigods use cell phones, the signals agitate every monster within a hundred miles. It's like sending up a flare: Here I am! Please rearrange my face!

  Rick Riordan

  Phones, Cells, Here I Am

  Rick Riordan (2013). “Percy Jackson: The Complete Series”, p.984, Penguin UK

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• Memory is the seamstress, and a capricious one at that. Memory runs her needle in and out, up and down, hither and thither. We know not what comes next, or what follows after. Thus, the most ordinary movement in the world, such as sitting down at a table and pulling the inkstand towards one, may agitate a thousand odd, disconnected fragments, now bright, now dim, hanging and bobbing and dipping and flaunting, like the underlinen of a family of fourteen on a line in a gale of wind.

  Virginia Woolf

  Running, Memories, Wind

  Virginia Woolf (2007). “Selected Works of Virginia Woolf”, p.436, Wordsworth Editions

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• Ghosts Take shape under moonlight, materialize in dreams. Shadows. Silhouettes of what is no more. But ghosts don't bother me. The day brings bigger things to worry about than flimsy remains of yesterday. No, spooks don't scare me. Gauzy apparitions might prank your psyche or agitate your nightmares, but lacking flesh and blood they are powerless to hurt you-cannot hope to inflict the kind of damage that real, live people do.

  Ellen Hopkins

  Dream, Hurt, Real

  Ellen Hopkins (2013). “Perfect”, p.61, Simon and Schuster

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