Impulse Quotes - Page 28

• Behind innocence there gathers a clotted mass of superstition, of twisted and misdirected impulse; clandestine flirtation, fads, and ragtime fill the unventilated mind.

  Walter Lippmann

  Mind, Fads, Superstitions

  Walter Lippmann, Clinton Rossiter, James Lare (1982). “The Essential Lippmann: A Political Philosophy for Liberal Democracy”, p.38, Harvard University Press

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• Great Love has many attributes, and shrines For varied worshippers, but his force divine Shows most its many-named fulness in the man Whose nature multitudinously mixed-- Each ardent impulse grappling with a thought-- Resists all easy gladness, all content Save mystic rapture, where the questioning soul Flooded with consciousness of good that is Finds life one bounteous answer.

  George Eliot

  Love, Men, Soul

  George Eliot (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated)”, p.4145, Delphi Classics

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• The idea of duty, that recognition of something to be lived for beyond the mere satisfaction of self, is to the moral life what the addition of a great central ganglion is to animal life. No man can begin to mould himself on a faith or an idea without rising to a higher order of experience: a principle of subordination, of self-mastery, has been introduced into his nature; he is no longer a mere bundle of impressions, desires, and impulses.

  George Eliot

  Men, Animal, Self

  George Eliot (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated)”, p.6068, Delphi Classics

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• Family, monogamy, romance. Everywhere exclusiveness, a narrow channelling of impulse and energy.

  Aldous Huxley

  Romance, Energy, Monogamy

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• Unfruitful emotion is to be suspected. Feeling acts as an impulse, as a spur, as a spring, and when feelings are excited, and they put nothing forward, they are sometimes even dangerous to a man.

  Henry Ward Beecher

  Spring, Men, Feelings

  Henry Ward Beecher, Truman Jeremiah Ellinwood (1871). “The original Plymouth pulpit”, p.349

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• I have friends, some of whom are spectacularly good writers, who really want someone to edit them. I don't register that impulse. It's like the impulse for wanting a dog.

  Fran Lebowitz

  Dog, Want, Register

  Interview with Sam Adams, www.avclub.com. June 17, 2011.

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• Literature is the voice of the age and the state; the character, energy, and resources of the country are reflected and imaged forth in the conceptions of its great minds; they are organs of the time; they speak not their own language, they scarce think their own thoughts; but under an impulse like the prophetic enthusiasm of old, they must feel and utter the sentiments which society inspires.

  Edward Everett

  Country, Character, Thinking

  Edward Everett (1839). “Selections from the Works of Edward Everett: With a Sketch of His Life”, p.127

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• It is a mere illusion that, above a certain income, the personal desires will be satisfied and leave a wider margin for the generous impulse.

  Robert Louis Stevenson

  Desire, Income, Wealth

  Robert Louis Stevenson (2016). “Familiar Studies of Men and Books: Stevenson's Vol. 16”, p.62, VM eBooks

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• For wisest ends this universal Power Gave appetites, from whose quick impulse life Subsists, by which we only live, all life Insipid else, unactive, unenjoy'd. Hence to this peopled earth, which, that extinct, That flame for propagation, soon would roll A lifeless mass, and vainly cumber heaven.

  John Armstrong

  Flames, Heaven, Earth

  John Armstrong (1770). “The forced marriage, a tragedy. Sketches: or, Essays on various subjects, by Launcelot Temple, Esq”

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• The philosophy of chiropractic is founded upon the knowledge of the manner in which a vital functions are performed by innate in health and disease. When the controlling intelligence is able to transmit mental impulses to all parts of the body, free and unobstructed, we have normal action which is health.

  Daniel D. Palmer

  Philosophy, Body, Disease

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• Eros is not tranquil-it gives us spikes of happiness rather than a constant feeling of wellbeing. It's the love we feel at the beginning of a love affair and corresponds to the expression 'falling in love' since it is as involuntary an impulse as a physical fall.

  François Lelord

  Falling In Love, Expression, Giving

  "Ideas for modern living: love" by François Lelord, www.theguardian.com. February 12, 2011.

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• A man's acts are partly determined by spontaneous impulse, partly by the conscious and unconscious effects of the various groups to which he belongs.

  Bertrand Russell

  Men, Groups, Determined

  Bertrand Russell (2015). “Icarus; or, the Future of Science”, p.10, Lulu Press, Inc

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• Institutions are essential in order to preserve the achievement of the past, but the original creative impulse in every age comes from the amateur, the rebel, the breaker of idols.

  Robert Gordis

  Creativity, Past, Order

  Robert Gordis (1960). “A Faith for Moderns”

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• Decisive inventions and discoveries always are initiated by an intellectual or moral stimulus as their actual motivating force, but, usually, the final impetus to human action is given by material impulses ... merchants stood as a driving force behind the heroes of the age of discovery; this first heroic impulse to conquer the world emanated from very mortal forces

  Stefan Zweig

  Hero, Discovery, Conquer The World

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• Among all the modernized aspects of the most luxurious of industries, the model, a vestige of voluptuous barbarianism, is like some plunder-laden prey. She is the object of unbridled regard, a living bait, the passive realization of an ideal. No other female occupation contains such potent impulses to moral disintegration as this one, applying as it does the outward signs of riches to a poor and beautiful girl.

  Sidonie Gabrielle Colette

  Beautiful, Girl, Fashion

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• Part of the very impulse of writing for me is actually wanting to get away from myself.

  Graham Swift

  Writing, Get Away

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• When anybody starts out with a memoir, you get the impulse to tell your own story with your own voice, and you get all that out in one fell swoop sometimes.

  Dave Eggers

  Voice, Stories, Sometimes

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• I'm an impulse buyer. I don't really go out with a list.

  Sophie Kinsella

  Lists, Buyers

  "My life in shopping". The Guardian Interview, www.theguardian.com. February 2, 2007.

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• We are pre-disposed for fantasy, there is a natural impulse for human beings to want to get off their heads or out of their heads in something in a substance or a drink or an idea or a religion which will comfort them and make life exciting.

  Tom Baker

  Ideas, Comfort, Substance

  "Q&A with all the living Doctors from Classic Doctor Who". ohnotheydidnt.livejournal.com. June 7, 2012.

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• I've always loved writing, and the impulse for me is storytelling. I don't sit down and think: 'What political message can I sell?' I love the creativity of it.

  Randa Abdel-Fattah

  Writing, Creativity, Thinking

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• The high point of civilization is that you can hate me and I can hate you but we develop an etiquette that allows us to deal with each other because if we acted solely upon our impulse we'd probably go to war.

  Stanley Crouch

  Hate, War, Civilization

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• Meryl Streep's brilliant, just brilliant. I've been fortunate to do two movies with Meryl. And for an actor to go moment to moment like she does, there's no one better. And she dances between moments. Each take is different because she's riding instincts, she's riding impulses. And she trusts that.

  Jeff Daniels

  Two, Riding, Doe

  "Jeff Daniels: Anchoring The Cast Of 'The Newsroom'". "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross, www.npr.org. June 20, 2012.

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• I've always known a lot of very bad people, destructive, brutes of a certain kind. Then I've seen these lovely impulses and what not, and they've stayed with me and comforted me.

  Paula Fox

  People, Lovely, Kind

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• Secular humanists suspect there is something more gloriously human about resisting the religious impulse; about accepting the cold truth, even if that truth is only that the universe is as indifferent to us as we are to it.

  Tom Flynn

  Religious, Cold, Truth Is

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• So, it becomes an exercise in futility if you write something that does not express the film as the director wishes. It's still their ball game. It's their show. I think any successful composer learns how to dance around the director's impulses.

  Danny Elfman

  Writing, Exercise, Successful

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