Compelled Quotes

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  I may be compelled to face danger, but never fear it, and while our soldiers can stand and fight, I can stand and feed and nurse them.

  Clara Barton

  Military, War, Nursing

  236 Copy quote

• It would be curious to know what leads a man to become a stationer rather than a baker, when he is no longer compelled, as among the Egyptians, to succeed to his father's craft.

  Honore de Balzac

  Father, Men, Bakers

  7 Copy quote

• We live not alone but chained to a creature of a different kingdom: our body.

  Marcel Proust

  Different, Body, Kingdoms

  Marcel Proust (2006). “Remembrance of Things Past”, p.1104, Wordsworth Editions

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• When I started doing these advocacy groups, it sort of propelled and compelled me to write songs, because otherwise I wasn't really sure what I was going to do, music-wise. I wasn't particularly motivated to write songs. But this level of humanity and spirit that I witnessed greatly impacted and so inspired me, so that I felt this sort of renewed vigor to write music. As far as how grounding it is, yeah, it's the ultimate amount of perspective.

  Thao Nguyen

  Wise, Song, Writing

  Source: therumpus.net

  4 Copy quote

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• You can never fully put your finger on the reason why you're suddenly, inexplicably compelled to explore one life as opposed to another.

  Daniel Day-Lewis

  Life, Roles, Cinema

  20 Copy quote

• Virtue and merit can become their opposites if they are exacted or compelled.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Opposites, Merit, Virtue

  Christopher Hitchens (2009). “Letters to a Young Contrarian”, p.139, Basic Books

  5 Copy quote

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• Only by self-respect will you compel others to respect you.

  Fyodor Dostoevsky

  Respect, Self Esteem, Self

  "The Insulted and the Injured". Book by Fyodor Dostoevsky, 1861.

  27 Copy quote

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• When the past dies, there is mourning, but when the future dies our imaginations are compelled to carry it on.

  Gloria Steinem

  Past, Imagination, Mourning

  Gloria Steinem (2013). “Marilyn: Norma Jeane”, p.15, Open Road Media

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• Whatever truth we feel compelled to withhold, no matter how unthinkable it is to imagine ourselves telling it, not to is a way of spiritually holding our breath. You can only do it for so long.

  Mark Nepo

  Long, Matter, Way

  Mark Nepo (2000). “The Book of Awakening: Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have”, p.410, Conari Press

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• I tell aspiring writers that you have to find what you must write. When you find it, you will know, because the subject matter won’t let you go. It’s not enough to write simply because you think it would be neat to be published. You have to be compelled to write. If you’re not, nothing else that you do matters.

  Rick Riordan

  Writing, Thinking, Would Be

  "Advice For Writers". Q&A, rickriordan.com.

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• Wait to start a startup until you come up with an idea that you feel compelled to explore.

  Sam Altman

  Ideas, Waiting, Come Up

  5 Copy quote

• Pythagoras asks that we not let a friend go lightly, for whatever reason. Instead, we should stay with a friend as long as we can, until we're compelled to abandon him completely against our will. It's a serious thing to toss away money, but to cast aside a person is even more serious. Nothing in human life is more rarely found, nothing more dearly possessed. No loss is more chilling or more dangerous than that of a friend.

  Thomas Moore

  Friendship, Loss, Long

  14 Copy quote

• I remembered seeing it and it was this metallic turbine and I thought it was beautiful. I had never been in a power plant before, but I felt, without being overly dramatic, compelled to make photographs of this for myself.

  John Sexton

  Beautiful, Artist, Photographer

  3 Copy quote

• The effect of emotional venting is to sustain an unsatisfactory status quo. Most people think the opposite, that complaining is part of an effort to change an unsatisfying situation. Nope. Complaining lets off pressure so that we neither explode with frustration nor feel compelled to take the often risky steps of openly opposing a difficult person or situation. Keeping emotional pressure tolerably low doesn't change problematic circumstances but rather perpetuates them.

  Martha Beck

  Emotional, Thinking, Frustration

  14 Copy quote

• The fact that I loved Jesus was beginning to interfere with the plans I once had for my life and certainly with the plans others had for me. My heart had been apprehended by a great love, a love that compelled me to live differently.

  Katie Davis

  Jesus, Heart, Great Love

  9 Copy quote

• After a time I found that I could almost listen to the silence, which had a dimension all of its own. I started to attend to its strange and beautiful texture, which of course, it was impossible to express in words. I discovered that I felt at home and alive in the silence, which compelled me to enter my interior world and around there. Without the distraction of constant conversation, the words on the page began to speak directly to my inner self. They were no long expressing ideas that were simply interesting intellectually, but were talking directly to my own yearning and perplexity.

  Karen Armstrong

  Beautiful, Home, Ideas

  8 Copy quote

• I'm pretty sure I can say that no one in my family ever asked Demetrie what it felt like to be black in Mississippi, working for our white family. It never occurred to us to ask. It was everyday life. It wasn't something people felt compelled to examine. I have wished, for many years, that I'd been old enough and thoughtful enough to ask Demetrie that question. She died when I was sixteen. I've spent years imagining what her answer would be. And that is why I wrote this book.

  Kathryn Stockett

  Book, Thoughtful, Years

  3 Copy quote

• People fidget. They are compelled to look engaged in an activity, or purposeful. Vampires can just occupy space without feeling obliged to justify it.

  Charlaine Harris

  Space, People, Feelings

  Charlaine Harris (2002). “Living Dead in Dallas: A Sookie Stackhouse Novel”, p.70, Penguin

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• You have been compelled to cultivate your reflective faculties, for want of occasions for frittering your life away in silly trifles.

  Emily Bronte

  Silly, Want, Faculty

  "Wuthering Heights".

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• How strange that we should ordinarily feel compelled to hide our wounds when we are all wounded! Community requires the ability to expose our wounds and weaknesses to our fellow creatures. It also requires the ability to be affected by the wounds of others... But even more important is the love that arises among us when we share, both ways, our woundedness.

  M. Scott Peck

  Community, Important, Weakness

  19 Copy quote

• How did I get into the world? Why was I not asked about it and why was I not informed of the rules and regulations but just thrust into the ranks as if I had been bought by a peddling shanghaier of human beings? How did I get involved in this big enterprise called actuality? Why should I be involved? Isn't it a matter of choice? And if I am compelled to be involved, where is the manager—I have something to say about this. Is there no manager? To whom shall I make my complaint?

  Soren Kierkegaard

  Choices, Rules And Regulations, World

  155 Copy quote

• This concern with the basic condition of freedom -- the absence of physical constraint -- is unquestionably necessary, but is not all that is necessary. It is perfectly possible for a man to be out of prison and yet not free -- to be under no physical constraint and yet to be a psychological captive, compelled to think, feel and act as the representatives of the national State, or of some private interest within the nation, want him to think, feel and act.

  Aldous Huxley

  Men, Thinking, Want

  32 Copy quote

• "There's got to be more to life than just living," Foyle said to the robot. "Then find it for yourself, sir. Don't ask the world to stop moving because you have doubts." "Why can't we all move forward together?" "Because you're all different. You're not lemmings. Some must lead, and hope that the rest will follow." "Who leads?" "The men who must... driven men, compelled men." "Freak men." "You're all freaks, sir. But you always have been freaks. Life is a freak. That's its hope and glory."

  Alfred Bester

  Moving, Men, Doubt

  "The Stars My Destination". Book by Alfred Bester (Chapter 16), 1957.

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• Where am I? Who am I? How did I come to be here? What is this thing called the world? How did I come into the world? Why was I not consulted? And If I am compelled to take part in it, where is the director? I want to see him.

  Soren Kierkegaard

  Philosophy, Umpires, Directors

  48 Copy quote

• It may be a procession of faithful failures that enriches the soil of godly success. Faithful actions are not religious acts. They are not even necessary actions undertaken by people of faith. Faithful actions, whether they are marked by success or they end in failure, are actions that are compelled by goodness.

  Desmond Tutu

  Religious, Godly, People

  3 Copy quote