Inclination Quotes - Page 11

• He had no settled plan of life, nor looked forward at all, but merely lived from day to day. Yet he read a great deal in a desultory manner, without any scheme of study, as chance threw books in his way, and inclination directed him through them.

  James Boswell

  Book, Way, Chance

  James Boswell (2015). “Life of Johnson: Top Biography”, p.1727, 谷月社

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• Our zeal works wonders, whenever it supports our inclination toward hatred, cruelty, ambition.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Ambition, Support, Hatred

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• Prayer or not, I want to believe that, despite all evidence to the contrary, it is possible for anyone to find that one special person. That person to spend Christmas with or grow old with or just to take a nice silly walk in Central Park with. Somebody who wouldn't judge another for the prepositions they dangle, or their run-on sentences, and who in turn wouldn't be judged for the snobbery of their language etymology inclinations.

  Rachel Cohn

  Running, Prayer, Nice

  Rachel Cohn, David Levithan (2010). “Dash & Lily's Book of Dares”, p.72, Knopf Books for Young Readers

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• But I had not the strength nor the inclination to bandy words with a drunkard. What have you done when you have bested a fool?

  Charles Portis

  Done, Fool, Drunkards

  Charles Portis (2010). “True Grit: A Novel”, p.84, The Overlook Press

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• Besides a mathematical inclination, an exceptionally good mastery of one's native tongue is the most vital asset of a competent programmer.

  Edsger Dijkstra

  Learning, Mastery, Tongue

  Edsger W. Dijkstra (2012). “Selected Writings on Computing: A personal Perspective”, p.130, Springer Science & Business Media

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• Natural talent is a questionable phenomenon. Inclination perhaps, but innate ability is extremely rare.

  Erin Morgenstern

  Natural Talent, Ability, Questionable

  Erin Morgenstern (2016). “The Night Circus”, p.18, Random House

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• People usually think according to their inclinations, speak according to their learning and ingrained opinions, but generally act according to custom.

  Francis Bacon

  Inspirational, Learning, Thinking

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• I'm a mediator by training and inclination.

  Joan Blades

  Training, Mediators

  "Back to the Basics" by Joan Blades, www.huffingtonpost.com. May 13, 2006.

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• Is it a surprise that into the vessel, in which the mercury has no inclination and no repugnance, not even the slightest, to being there, it should enter and should rise in a column high enough to make equilibrium with the weight of the external air which forces it up?

  Evangelista Torricelli

  Air, Weight, Mercury

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• Who has forbidden women to engage in private and individual studies? Have they not a rational soul as men do?...I have this inclination to study and if it is evil I am not the one who formed me thus - I was born with it and with it I shall die.

  Juana Inés de la Cruz

  Men, Evil, Soul

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• I will gladly give lessons as a favor, particularly when I see that my student has talent, inclination, and anxiety to learn; but to be obliged to go to a house at a certain hour, or to have to wait at home for a pupil, is what I cannot do, no matter how much money it may bring me in. . . I am a composer and was born to be a Kapellmeister. I neither can nor ought to bury the talent for composition with which God in his goodness has so richly endowed me. . .

  Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

  Home, Giving, House

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• No quality of human nature is more remarkable, both in itself and in its consequences, than that propensity we have to sympathize with others, and to receive by communication their inclinations and sentiments, however different from, or even contrary to our own.

  David Hume

  Communication, Quality, Different

  David Hume (1874). “A Treatise on Human Nature: Being an Attempt to Introduce the Experimental Method of Reasoning Into Moral Subjects; and Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion”, p.111

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• A small craft in the ocean is, or should be, a benevolent dictatorship. The skipper's brain is the vessel's brain and he must give up his soul to her, regardless of his own feelings or inclinations.

  Tristan Jones

  Giving Up, Ocean, Soul

  Tristan Jones (1990). “One Hand for Yourself, One for the Ship: The Essentials of Single-Handed Sailing”, p.26, Sheridan House, Inc.

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• The good designer aims at a perfect fusion of the various considerations which enter into his design. He aims at an untortured unity-a direct whole. He arranges his levels consciously or subconsciously, adhearing to the requisites of the problem he is asked to solve or to his own inclination. Some designers see total act through a disc of aesthetic considerations-others, more practical minded, may put economic considerations at top level.

  Leo Lionni

  Perfect, Design, Unity

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• One cannot long remain so absorbed in contemplation of emptiness without being increasingly attracted to it. In vain one bestows on it the name of infinity; this does not change its nature. When one feels such pleasure in non-existence, one's inclination can be completely satisfied only by completely ceasing to exist.

  Emile Durkheim

  Names, Long, Doe

  Emile Durkheim (2005). “Suicide: A Study in Sociology”, p.243, Routledge

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• Whatever a monk keeps pursuing with his thinking and pondering, that becomes the inclination of his awareness.

  Gautama Buddha

  Thinking, Awareness, Monk

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• Americans are willing to go to enormous trouble and expense defending their principles with arms, very little trouble and expense advocating them with words. Temperamentally we are ready to die for certain principles (or, in the case of overripe adults, send youngsters to die), but we show little inclination to advertise the reasons for dying.

  E. B. White

  Political, Dying, Adults

  "The Thud of Ideas," The New Yorker, September 23, 1950.

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• Cure yourself of the inclination to bother about how you look to other people. Be concerned only . . . with the idea God has of you.

  Miguel de Unamuno

  Ideas, People, Looks

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• It is of the nobility of man's soul that he is insatiable: for he hath a benefactor so prone to give, that he delighteth in us for asking. Do not your inclinations tell you that the WORLD is yours? Do you not covet all? Do you not long to have it; to enjoy it; to overcome it? To what end do men gather riches, but to multiply more? Do they not like Pyrrhus the King of Epire, add house to house and lands to lands, that they may get it all?

  Thomas Traherne

  Kings, Wall, Men

  Thomas Traherne (2010). “Centuries of Meditations”, p.15, Cosimo, Inc.

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• And here one must not that hatred is acquired just as much by means of good actions as by bad ones; and so, as I said above, if a prince wishes to maintain the state, he is often obliged not to be good; because whenever that group which you believe you need to support you is corrupted, whether it be the common people, the soldiers, or the nobles, it is to your advantage to follow their inclinations in order to satisfy them; and then good actions are your enemy.

  Niccolo Machiavelli

  Believe, Mean, Order

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• Man has no greater enemy than himself. I have acted contrary to my sentiments and inclination; throughout our whole lives we do what we never intended, and what we proposed to do, we leave undone.

  Petrarch

  Men, Enemy, Undone

  "An Examination of the Advantages of Solitude and of Its Operations". Book by Johann Georg Ritter von Zimmermann, 1808.

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• There is an element of paranoia in this inclination to view any serious attempt at a compromised peace as somehow directed against Israel.

  Zbigniew Brzezinski

  Israel, Views, Elements

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• For myself the delay [in assuming the office of the President] may be compared with a reprieve; for in confidence I assure you, with the world it would obtain little credit that my movements to the chair of Government will be accompanied by feelings not unlike those of a culprit who is going to the place of his execution: so unwilling am I, in the evening of a life nearly consumed in public cares, to quit a peaceful abode for an Ocean of difficulties, without that competency of political skill, abilities and inclination which is necessary to manage the helm.

  George Washington

  Ocean, Government, Skills

  Comment to General Henry Knox on the delay in assuming office, March 1789.

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• I have thought of a pulley to raise me gradually; but that would give me pain, as it would counteract my natural inclination. I would have something that can dissipate the inertia and give elasticity to the muscles. We can heat the body, we can cool it; we can give it tension or relaxation; and surely it is possible to bring it into a state in which rising from bed will not be a pain.

  Samuel Johnson

  Pain, Giving, Relaxation

  James Boswell, Samuel Johnson (1888). “The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: Together with A Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides”

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• Go your way, seducers, flatterers, idlers, those glib of tongue and charlatans; I am not a seed that you can force to grow; my goal differs so from yours that I would be wasting my time in trying to explain where my inclination drives me.

  Dominique Fernandez

  Goal, Trying, Would Be

  Dominique Fernandez (1976). “Porporino: Or, The Secrets of Naples”

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