Inclination Quotes - Page 6

• Though inclination be as sharp as will,
  My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent,
  And, like a man to double business bound,
  I stand in pause where I shall first begin,
  And both neglect.

  William Shakespeare

  Strong, Business, Memorable

  William Shakespeare, Barbara A. Mowat, Paul Werstine (2004). “Hamlet”, p.165, Simon and Schuster

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• The point is to develop the childlike inclination for play and the childlike desire for recognition and to guide the child over to important fields for society. Such a school demands from the teacher that he be a kind of artist in his province.

  Albert Einstein

  Education, Teacher, Children

  Albert Einstein (2010). “Ideas And Opinions”, p.63, Broadway Books

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• The technique of 35mm photography appears simple. One is beguiled by the quick viewing and operation, and by the very questionable inclination to make many pictures with the hope that some will be good.

  Ansel Adams

  Photography, Simple, Technique

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• Imposition of the death penalty is arbitrary and capricious. Decision of who will live and who will die for his crime turns less on the nature of the offense and the incorrigibility of the offender and more on inappropriate and indefensible considerations: the political and personal inclinations of prosecutors; the defendant's wealth, race and intellect; the race and economic status of the victim; the quality of the defendant's counsel; and the resources allocated to defense lawyers.

  Gerald Heaney

  Race, Decision, Political

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• The natural inclination of man is to rely solely upon himself and to ignore the purpose of his existence as well as his relationship to God who is his spiritual father. If man will recognize his divine origin, he will then realize his Heavenly Father will not leave him alone to grope in darkness of mind and spirit, but will make available a power to influence him in right paths and into standards of good behavior. The Holy Ghost is that power.

  Delbert L. Stapley

  Spiritual, Father, Men

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• Our own evil inclinations are far more dangerous than any external enemies.

  Ambrose

  Faith, Inspiration, Evil

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• It is, indeed, a fact that, in the midst of society and sociability every evil inclination has to place itself under such great restraint, don so many masks, lay itself so often on the procrustean bed of virtue, that one could well speak of a martyrdom of the evil man. In solitude all this falls away. He who is evil is at his most evil in solitude: which is where he is at his best - and thus to the eye of him who sees everywhere only a spectacle also at his most beautiful.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Beautiful, Fall, Eye

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• In reality, moral rules are directions for running the human machine. Every moral rule is there to prevent a breakdown, or a strain, or a friction, in the running of that machine. That is why these rules at first seem to be constantly interfering with our natural inclinations.

  C. S. Lewis

  Running, Reality, Machines

  C.S. Lewis (1996). “Joyful Christian”, p.11, Simon and Schuster

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• There are souls that are incurable and lost to the rest of society. Deprive them of one means of folly, they will invent ten thousand others. They will create subtler, wilder methods, methods that are absolutely DESPERATE. Nature herself is fundamentally antisocial, it is only by a usurpation of powers that the organized body of society opposes the natural inclination of humanity.

  Antonin Artaud

  Mean, Soul, Humanity

  Antonin Artaud (1988). “Antonin Artaud, Selected Writings”, p.99, Univ of California Press

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• It is indolence... Indolence and love of ease; a want of all laudable ambition, of taste for good company, or of inclination to take the trouble of being agreeable, which make men clergymen. A clergyman has nothing to do but be slovenly and selfish; read the newspaper, watch the weather, and quarrel with his wife. His curate does all the work and the business of his own life is to dine.

  Jane Austen

  Life, Selfish, Ambition

  Jane Austen (2006). “8 Books in 1: Jane Austen's Complete Novels. Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, Northanger Abbey, Persuasion, Lady Susan, and Love an”, p.307, Shoes & Ships & Sealing Wax

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• Every one in a crowd has the power to throw dirt; none out of ten have the inclination.

  William Hazlitt

  Power, Crowds, Dirt

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• It is impossible that had Buonaparte descended from a race of vegetable feeders that he could have had either the inclination or the power to ascend the throne of the Bourbons.

  Percy Bysshe Shelley

  Power, Race, Vegetables

  Percy Bysshe Shelley, Donald H. Reiman, Neil Fraistat (2004). “The Complete Poetry of Percy Bysshe Shelley”, p.303, JHU Press

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• Although I tried to be universal in thought, I am European by instinct and inclination.

  Albert Einstein

  Instinct, Universal

  Albert Einstein (2010). “The Ultimate Quotable Einstein”, p.15, Princeton University Press

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• I adore clothes, I adore drinking. I just don't have the time or the inclination to totally indulge in it.

  Christine Baranski

  Drinking, Indulge In, Clothes

  Interview with Randy Shulman, www.metroweekly.com. June 7, 2006.

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• When you move artistically, the natural inclination is to denounce everything that's gone before.

  Billy Corgan

  Moving, Gone, Natural

  "Smashing Pumpkins". Book by Jim Stapleton, 1996.

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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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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