Compelled Quotes - Page 2

• For a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder.

  F. Scott Fitzgerald

  Men, Lasts, Faces

  The Great Gatsby ch. 9 (1925)

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• Mr. Speaker, I once again find myself compelled to vote against the annual budget resolution for a very simple reason: it makes government bigger.

  Ron Paul

  Simple, Government, Vote

  Ron Paul (2008). “Pillars of Prosperity: Free Markets, Honest Money, Private Property”, p.430, Ludwig von Mises Institute

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• not to find out new principles, or new arguments, never before thought of . . . but to place before mankind the common sense of the subject, in terms so plain and firm as to command their assent, and to justify ourselves in the independent stand we are compelled to take.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Independent, Common Sense, Principles

  Thomas Jefferson, Henry Augustine Washington (1859). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence. Reports and opinions while secretary of state”, p.407

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• I hate vulgar realism in literature. The man who would call a spade a spade should be compelled to use one.

  Oscar Wilde

  Hate, Men, Use

  Oscar Wilde (2015). “The Picture of Dorian Gray (Diversion Classics)”, p.212, Diversion Books

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• The ego refuses to be distressed by the provocations of reality, to let itself be compelled to suffer. It insists that it cannot be affected by the traumas of the external world; it shows, in fact, that such traumas are no more than occasions for it to gain pleasure.

  Sigmund Freud

  Reality, Ego, Suffering

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• We knew the pain of winter rushing up your skirt, and the ache of keeping your knees together in class, and how drab and infuriating it was to jump rope while the boys played baseball. We could never understand why the girls cared so much about being mature, or why they felt compelled to compliment each other.

  Jeffrey Eugenides

  Girl, Baseball, Pain

  Jeffrey Eugenides (1993). “The Virgin Suicides: A Novel”, p.40, Macmillan

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• Religion has been compelled by science to give up one after another of its dogmas. . . .

  Herbert Spencer

  Giving Up, Religion, Dogma

  Herbert Spencer (1864). “First Principles”, p.109

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• We must be compelled to hold this doctrine to be false, and the old and new law called the Old and New Testament, to be impositions, fables and forgeries.

  Thomas Paine

  Law, Religion, Doctrine

  Thomas Paine, Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1834). “The Theological Works of Thomas Paine: To which are Added the Profession of Faith of a Savoyard Vicar”, p.241

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• We submit to the majority because we have to. But we are not compelled to call our attitude of subjection a posture of respect.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Attitude, Majority, Posture

  Ambrose Bierce (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)”, p.2692, Delphi Classics

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• You can go into neighborhoods in the United States where people dress a certain way because they don't want to be out of touch, where boys wear pants down to their knees, which nobody has compelled them to do but they pick up the cultural norms, or where girls are improperly dressed by my eyes, but that's what they see in the media.

  Hillary Clinton

  Girl, Eye, Boys

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• Man is not logical and his intellectual history is a record of mental reserves and compromises. He hangs on to what he can in his old beliefs even when he is compelled to surrender their logical basis.

  John Dewey

  Men, History, Intellectual

  John Dewey, Jo Ann Boydston (1977). “The Poems of John Dewey”, p.61, SIU Press

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• I've always believed that if you are precise in your thoughts, it's not the lines you say that are important - it's what exists between the lines. What I'm compelled by most is that transparency of thought, what is left unspoken.

  Vera Farmiga

  Important, Lines, Transparency

  "Vera Farmiga: 'I demand a lot from myself'". Interview with Elizabeth Day, www.theguardian.com. March 26, 2011.

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• And who can doubt that it will lead to the worst disorders when minds created free by God are compelled to submit slavishly to an outside will? When we are told to deny our senses and subject them to the whim of others? When people devoid of whatsoever competence are made judges over experts and are granted authority to treat them as they please? These are the novelties which are apt to bring about the ruin of commonwealths and the subversion of the state.

  Galileo Galilei

  Math, People, Judging

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• Poverty is uncomfortable; but nine times out of ten the best thing that can happen to a young man is to be tossed overboard and compelled to sink or swim.

  James A. Garfield

  Swimming, Men, Nine

  "Elements of Success". "President Garfield and education. Hiram college memorial". Book compiled by B. A. Hinsdale, p. 331, 1882.

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• The compelled mother loves her child as the caged bird sings. The song does not justify the cage nor the love the enforcement.

  Germaine Greer

  Mother, Song, Children

  Germaine Greer (1990). “The Madwoman's Underclothes: Essays and Occasional Writings”, p.115, Atlantic Monthly Press

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• Meditation is to get insight, to get understanding and compassion, and when you have them, you are compelled to act.

  Nhat Hanh

  Compassion, Meditation, Understanding

  "Burma's Monks: Already a Success". content.time.com. October 12, 2007.

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• Owners of dogs will have noticed that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they will think you are God. Whereas owners of cats are compelled to realize that, if you provide them with food and water and affection, they draw the conclusion that they are God.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Inspirational, Dog, Cat

  Christopher Hitchens (2007). “The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever”, p.16, Da Capo Press

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• To prefer evil to good is not in human nature; and when a man is compelled to choose one of two evils, no one will choose the greater when he might have the less.

  Plato

  Men, Two, Evil

  Plato (1977). “The Portable Plato”, p.74, Penguin

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• It is in moments of illness that we are compelled to recognize that we live not alone but chained to a creature of a different kingdom, whole worlds apart, who has no knowledge of us and by whom it is impossible to make ourselves understood: our body.

  Marcel Proust

  Fitness, Cancer, Knowledge

  Marcel Proust (1941). “Remembrance of Things Past: Swann's way. Within a budding grove. The Guermantes way”

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• For God loves to be entreated, He loves to be compelled.

  Gregory of Nazianzus

  Prayer, God Love

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• Until philosophers are kings, or the kings and princes of this world have the spirit and power of philosophy, and political greatness and wisdom meet in one, and those commoner natures who pursue either to the exclusion of the other are compelled to stand aside, cities will never have rest from their evils - no, nor the human race, as I believe - and then only will this our State have a possibility of life and behold the light of day.

  Plato

  Kings, Plato, Philosophy

  Plato (2015). “The Republic”, p.206, First Avenue Editions

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• It is indeed better (as no one ever could deny) that men should be led to worship God by teaching, than that they should be driven to it by fear of punishment or pain; but it does not follow that because the former course produces the better men, therefore those who do not yield to it should be neglected. For many have found advantage (as we have proved, and are daily proving by actual experiment), in being first compelled by fear or pain, so that they might afterwards be influenced by teaching, or might follow out in act what they had already learned in word.

  Saint Augustine

  Pain, Teaching, Men

  Saint Augustine of Hippo (2016). “Saint Augustine of Hippo Collection [50 Books]”, p.10789, Aeterna Press

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• People with mental problems are our neighbors. They are members of our congregations, members of our families; they are everywhere in this country. If we ignore their cries for help, we will be continuing to participate in the anguish from which those cries for help come. A problem of this magnitude will not go away. Because it will not go away, and because of our spiritual commitments, we are compelled to take action.

  Rosalynn Carter

  Spiritual, Country, Commitment

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• I believe that the universe is one being, all its parts are different expressions of the same energy... parts of one organic whole.... (This is physics, I believe, as well as religion.) The parts change and pass, or die, people and races and rocks and stars; none of them seems to me important in itself, but only the whole. This whole is in all its parts so beautiful, and is felt by me to be so intensely in earnest, that I am compelled to love it, and to think of it as divine.

  Robinson Jeffers

  Love, Beautiful, Stars

  Robinson Jeffers, Albert Gelpi (2003). “The Wild God of the World: An Anthology of Robinson Jeffers”, p.189, Stanford University Press

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• The answer is, of course, that it would be best to be both loved and feared. But since the two rarely come together, anyone compelled to choose will find greater security in being feared than in being loved.

  Niccolo Machiavelli

  Two, Together, Would Be

  Niccolo Machiavelli (2002). “The Prince”, Spark Notes

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