Impulse Quotes - Page 17

• I'm sure that writing isn't a craft, that is, something for which you learn the skills and go on turning out. It must come from some deep impulse, deep inspiration. That can't be taught, it can't be what you use in teaching.

  Robert Lowell

  Teaching, Inspiration, Writing

  Robert Lowell, Jeffrey Meyers (1988). “Robert Lowell, Interviews and Memoirs”, p.49, University of Michigan Press

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• I couldn’t get near what I wanted through seeing, recognizing and recreating, so I stood the problem on its head. I started studying squares, rectangles, triangles and the sensations they give rise to It is untrue that my work depends on any literary impulse or has any illustrative intention. The marks on the canvas are sole and essential agents in a series of relationships which form the structure of the painting.

  Bridget Riley

  Squares, Giving, Essentials

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• In fact, an Islamic revival - already abetted from the outside not only by Iran but also by Saudi Arabia - is likely to become the mobilizing impulse for the increasingly pervasive new nationalisms, determined to oppose any reintegration under Russian - and hence infidel - control.

  Zbigniew Brzezinski

  Islamic, Iran, Arabia

  "The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy And Its Geostrategic Imperatives". Book by Zbigniew Brzezinski, 1997.

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• It win be a device that will permit communication without any time interval between two points in space. The device will not transmit messages, of course; simultaneity is identity. But to our perceptions, that simultaneity will function as a transmission, a sending. So we will be able to use it to talk between worlds, without the long waiting for the message to go and the reply to return that electromagnetic impulses require. It is really a very simple matter. Like a kind of telephone.

  Ursula K. Le Guin

  Communication, Winning, Simple

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• De Tocqueville considered the impulse toward well-being as one of the strongest impulses of a democratic society. He can't be blamed for underestimating the destructive powers generated by this same impulse.

  Saul Bellow

  Underestimate, Democratic, Well Being

  Saul Bellow (1976). “Herzog”, Viking Adult

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• In good novelistic fashion, the discovery I’ve made is that it’s complicated. I think that’s one of good things about exploring these questions in a non-polemic, fictional way: you get to feel out territory rather than take positions. Through writing this, I can understand the impulse to faith, how people make meaning, how people make community, without having to say, do this, don’t do that, or I believe, I don’t believe.

  Hari Kunzru

  Fashion, Believe, Writing

  "Starting into the void with Hari Kunzru" by Rollo Roming, www.newyorker.com. March 13, 2012.

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• The poetic impulse is distinct from ideas about things or feelings about things, though it may use these. It's more like a desire to separate a piece of one's experience & set it up on its own, an isolated object never to trouble you again, at least not for a bit. In the absence of this impulse nothing stirs.

  Philip Larkin

  Ideas, Feelings, Desire

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• It was the same with the whole Russian machine. Fear was the impulse. For them it was always safer to advance than retreat. Advance against the enemy and the bullet might miss you. Retreat, evade, betray and the bullet would never miss.

  Ian Fleming

  Missing, Enemy, Might

  Ian Fleming (1961). “gilt-edged bonds”

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• Most people have learned to live in the moment. The argument goes that if the past has uncertain effect on the present, there is no need to dwell on the past. And if the present has little effect on the future, present actions need not be weighed for their consequence. Rather, each act is an island in time, to be judged on its own. ... It is a world of impulse. It is a world of sincerity. It is a world in which every word spoken speaks just to that moment, every glance given has only one meaning.

  Alan Lightman

  Learning, Past, Islands

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• Whereas the average individuals "often have not the slightest idea of what they are, of what they want, of what their own opinions are," self-actualizing individuals have "superior awareness of their own impulses, desires, opinions, and subjective reactions in general."

  Abraham Maslow

  Motivation, Reflection, Self

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• God knows greed won't vanish. Neither will hatred or chauvanism. Human nature is a stubborn thing. But it isn't beyond control. Even if our core impulses can;t be banished, they can be tempered and redirected.

  Robert Wright

  Hatred, Greed, Stubborn

  Robert Wright (2001). “Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny”, p.315, Vintage

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• Every one expects to go further than his father went; every one expects to be better than he was born and every generation has one big impulse in its heart - to exceed all the other generations of the past in all the things that make life worth living.

  William Allen White

  Father, Heart, Past

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• The genuine coherence of our ideas does not come from the reasoning that ties them together, but from the spiritual impulse that gives rise to them.

  Nicolas Gomez Davila

  Spiritual, Ideas, Ties

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• Although most people spend their entire lives following this biological impulse (i.e. the sex drive), it is only a tiny portion of our beings. . . . If we remain obsessed with seeds and eggs, we are married to the fertile reproductive valley of the Mysterious Mother but not to her immeasurable heart and all-knowing mind.

  Laozi

  Mother, Sex, Heart

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• There is no big mystery to Tantra. It is in the allowance and grace of the breath. Breathe easy and naturally and you will open the door to a sacred intent. With this sacred intent, love making becomes spiritual and holy. You open the gateway to total joy and you embrace the divine, erotic impulse. So breathe and relax. This is tantra.

  Janet Robertson

  Spiritual, Doors, Joy

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• It's not that bullying is any worse today. The impulse for cruelty is the same impulse. The only difference is that the tools to achieve that have become more sophisticated.

  Jodee Blanco

  Bullying, Differences, Tools

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• The universe likes speed. Don't delay. Don't second guess. Don't doubt. When the opportunity is there, when the impulse is there, when the intuitive nudge from within is there, act. That's your job. That's all you have to do.

  Joe Vitale

  Jobs, Opportunity, Law Of Attraction

  Joe Vitale (2011). “The Key: The Missing Secret for Attracting Anything You Want”, p.26, John Wiley & Sons

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• Inherent in the impulse to be free, is insecurity. The impulse to be free comes from outside of the mind, and because of this, it makes the mind feel very insecure. Most spiritual seekers move away from this insecurity by seeking and striving for a distant spiritual goal. That's how they avoid feeling insecure.

  Adyashanti

  Spiritual, Moving, Insecure

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• Never resist a generous impulse.

  H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

  Life Lesson, Generous

  H. Jackson Brown Jr., Rochelle Pennington (2001). “Highlighted in Yellow: A Short Course In Living Wisely And Choosing Well”, p.59, Harper Collins

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• Whoever desires Paradise, proceeds towards goodness; whoever fears Hell, refrains from the impulses of passions; whoever believes firmly in death, detests wordly life; and whoever recognises the worldly life, the trials and tribulations (of life) become slight for him.

  Ali ibn Abi Talib

  Wisdom, Islamic, Believe

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• Practice giving things away, not just things you don't care about, but things you do like. Remember, it is not the size of a gift, it is its quality and the amount of mental attachment you overcome that count. So don't bankrupt yourself on a momentary positive impulse, only to regret it later. Give thought to giving. Give small things, carefully, and observe the mental processes going along with the act of releasing the little thing you liked.

  Robert Thurman

  Regret, Attachment, Practice

  Robert Thurman (2011). “The Tibetan Book of the Dead: Liberation Through Understanding in the Between”, p.53, Bantam

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• Miserere is about redemption, and the triumph of our best impulses over our worst. It's also about swords, monsters, chases, ghosts, magic, [and] court intrigues. It's also really, really good.

  Alex Bledsoe

  Magic, Monsters, Triumph

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• If the impulse to daring and bravery is too fierce and violent, stay it with guidance and instruction.

  Xunzi

  Bravery, Fierce, Guidance

  Xunzi, John Knoblock (1988). “Xunzi: A Translation and Study of the Complete Works”, p.153, Stanford University Press

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• The harm that theology has done is not to create cruel impulses, but to give them the sanction of what professes to be lofty ethic, and to confer an apparently sacred character upon practices which have come down from more ignorant and barbarous times.

  Bertrand Russell

  Character, Practice, Giving

  Bertrand Russell (1997). “Religion and Science”, p.106, Oxford University Press, USA

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• But courage in fighting is by no means the only form, nor perhaps even the most important. There is courage in facing poverty, courage in facing derision, courage in facing the hostility of one's own herd. In these, the bravest soldiers are often lamentably deficient. And above all there is the courage to think calmly and rationally in the face of danger, and to control the impulse of panic fear or panic rage.

  Bertrand Russell

  Courage, Mean, Fighting

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell”, p.364, Routledge

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