Involuntary Quotes - Page 2

• When a man is not amused, he feels an involuntary contempt for those who are.

  Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

  Men, Contempt, Feels

  9 Copy quote

• I think all these reverend gentlemen who insist on the word 'obey' in the marriage service should be removed for a clear violation of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution, which says there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude within the United States.

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton

  Marriage, Thinking, Gentleman

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton (2016). “Elizabeth Cady Stanton: As Revealed in Her Letters & Diary (Abridged)”, p.169, BIG BYTE BOOKS

  14 Copy quote

  Show source

• I am lithe, but fragile from constant involuntary self-analysis.

  Mary MacLane

  Self, Analysis, Constant

  Mary MacLane (2014). “I, Mary MacLane: A Diary of Human Days”, p.20, The Floating Press

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• But the involuntary tricks of memory and the voluntary ones of imagination make always such terrible havoc of facts that truth, be it ever so much sought and cared for, appears in history and biography only in a more or less disfigured condition.

  Frederick Niecks

  Truth, Memories, Imagination

  Frederick Niecks (2016). “Frederick Chopin”, p.709, Frederick Niecks

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• We feel that our actions are voluntary when they follow a decision and involuntary when they happen without decision. But if a decision itself were voluntary every decision would have to be preceded by a decision to decide - An infinite regression which fortunately does not occur. Oddly enough, if we had to decide to decide, we would not be free to decide

  Alan Watts

  Decision, Doe, Our Actions

  Alan Watts (1989). “The way of Zen”, Vintage

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• Beauty, midnight, vision dies: Let the winds of dawn that blow Softly round your dreaming head Such a day of welcome show Eye and knocking heart may bless, Find our mortal world enough; Noons of dryness find you fed By the involuntary powers, Nights of insult let you pass Watched by every human love.

  W. H. Auden

  Dream, Heart, Eye

  W. H. Auden, “Lullaby”

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• We fall in love or stay in love with people who are unsuitable or who no longer love us and, conversely, we feel no love towards people who would be very suitable. Love is involuntary, that's the problem. Our personal histories prepare us to be attracted to people who unconsciously evoke emotions from our childhood or adolescence.

  François Lelord

  Falling In Love, Love Is, People

  François Lelord (2011). “Hector and the Secrets of Love”, p.24, Gallic Books

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Illness reduces man to his basic state: a cloaca in which the chemical processes continue. The meaningless hegemony of the involuntary.

  Paul Bowles

  Men, Hegemony, Sickness

  Paul Bowles (2002). “The Sheltering Sky: Let it Come Down ; The Spider's House”

  24 Copy quote

  Show source

• Jesus teaches the redistribution of wealth - as long as the transfer is voluntary. But he is adamantly opposed to the involuntary redistribution of wealth, because that violates the moral law of God and is profoundly wrong. His words to take care of the poor are not addressed to government, they are addressed to us.

  Bryan Fischer

  Jesus, Government, Law

  19 Copy quote

• This is part of the involuntary bargain we make with the world just by being alive. We get to experiences the splendor of nature, the beauty of art, the balm of love and the sheer joy of existence, always with the knowledge that illness, injury, natural disaster, or pure evil can end it in an instant for ourselves or someone we love.

  Jeff Greenfield

  Art, Evil, Joy

  10 Copy quote

• In legal parlance, that is called 'the rational person test,' ... That's where somebody else says, 'Even though we have no idea what this person would want in this circumstance in which they cannot themselves tell us what they want, a 'rational' person - meaning, myself - in that circumstance would want to die.' So you move very quickly from so-called voluntary euthanasia to involuntary euthanasia. These legal and medical developments are not simply hypothetical They're in the courts right now.

  Richard John Neuhaus

  Moving, Ideas, Development

  27 Copy quote

• By its attempt to regulate and govern the private businesses, which are miscalled public accommodations in the bill, this proposal would inject the Government into the most sensitive areas of human contractual relations-agreements for personal services. In so doing, constitutional interpretations of long standing are being swept aside in favor of tortuous rationalizations which studiously ignore the constitutionally-forbidden imposition of involuntary servitude on citizens

  Strom Thurmond

  Agreement, Government, Long

  9 Copy quote

• Everyone alters and is altered by everyone else. We are all the time taking in portions of one another or else reacting against them, and by these involuntary acquisitions and repulsions modifying our natures.

  Gerald Brenan

  Time, Acquisition, Imitation

  4 Copy quote

• What had survived - maybe all that had survived of Trism - was Liir's sense of him. A catalog of impressions that arose from time to time, unbidden and often upsetting. From the sandy smell of his sandy hair to the locked grip of his muscles as they had wrestled in sensuous aggression - unwelcome nostalgia. Trism lived in Liir's heart like a full suit of clothes in a wardrobe, dress habillards maybe, hollow and real at once. The involuntary memory of the best of Trism's glinting virtues sometimes kicked up unquietable spasms of longing.

  Gregory Maguire

  Memories, Real, Heart

  4 Copy quote

• For me chivalry isn't dead; it's an involuntary reflex.

  Jim Butcher

  Chivalry, Reflexes

  Jim Butcher (2002). “Summer Knight: Book four of The Dresden Files”, p.107, Penguin

  15 Copy quote

  Show source

• And leaning out the window, enjoying the day above the varying volume of the entire city, only one thought swells my soul – the intimate will to die, to finish, not to see more light over any city, not to think, not to feel, to leave behind like wrapping paper the course of the sun and the days, to rid myself, at the edge of the grand bed, as of a heavy suit, of the involuntary effort to be.

  Fernando Pessoa

  Thinking, Light, Cities

  4 Copy quote

• You had this young man with you for... what, six years?" Halt shrugged. "Near enough," he replied. "And did you ever understand a word he was saying?" "Not a lot of the time, no," Halt said. Crowley shook his head in wonder. "It's just as well he didn't go into the Diplomatic Service. We'd be at war with half a dozen countries by now if he was on the loose." Will drew a deep breath to begin talking. He noticed that both men took an involuntary half step backward and he decided he'd better try to keep it as simple as possible.

  John Flanagan

  Country, War, Simple

  6 Copy quote

• It’s lovely,” I said, taking an involuntary half step back. “Really, though. I don’t like to handle other people’s cookware.” “That’s the best you can manage? That’s your bright, bold lie?” “Look, lady, I don’t know about you, but I’ve never had somebody corner me on a dark street and try to hand me a frying pan before,” I snapped.

  Mira Grant

  Lying, Dark, Hands

  4 Copy quote

• No man can have a right to impose an unchosen obligation , an unrewarded duty or an involuntary servitude on another man. There can be no such thing as " the right to enslave .

  Ayn Rand

  Men, Duty, Obligation

  Ayn Rand (1964). “The Virtue of Selfishness”, p.93, Penguin

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Convictions following the admission into evidence of confessions which are involuntary, i.e., the product of coercion, either physical or psychological, cannot stand. This is so not because such confessions are unlikely to be true but because the methods used to extract them offend an underlying principle in the enforcement of our criminal law: that ours is an accusatorial, and not an inquisitorial, system - a system in which the State must establish guilt by evidence independently and freely secured, and may not, by coercion, prove its charges against an accused out of his own mouth.

  Felix Frankfurter

  Law, Guilt, Principles

  "Rogers v. Richmond, 365 U.S. 534". U.S. Supreme Court case, supreme.justia.com. March 20, 1961.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• What was happening was only the working-out of a process that had started years ago. The first step had been a secret, involuntary thought, the second had been the opening of the diary. He had moved from thoughts to words, and now from words to actions. The last step was something that would happen in the Ministry of Love. He had accepted it. The end was contained in the beginning.

  George Orwell

  Years, Work Out, Secret

  George Orwell, A.M. Heath (2003). “Animal Farm and 1984”, p.253, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Tunstell, this is your Alpha speaking. Do as I tell you. You must regurgitate now. Regurgitation is an involuntary action. You cannot simply order me to do it,” replied Tunstell in a small voice. “I most certainly can. Besides which, you are an actor.” Tunstell grimaced. “I’ve never had cause to vomit onstage.

  Gail Carriger

  Order, Voice, Actors

  4 Copy quote

• Your own pain is involuntary; you feel overwhelmed and have no control. When feeling the pain of others, there is an element of discomfort, but there also is a level of stability because you are voluntarily accepting pain. It gives you a sense of confidence.

  Dalai Lama

  Pain, Helping Others, Giving

  7 Copy quote

• In historic events, the so-called great men are labels giving names to events, and like labels they have but the smallest connection with the event itself. Every act of theirs, which appears to them an act of their own will, is in an historical sense involuntary and is related to the whole course of history and predestined from eternity.

  Leo Tolstoy

  Greatness, Men, Names

  War and Peace bk. 9, ch. 1 (1865 - 1869) (translation by Louise and Aylmer Maude)

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• "It was suicide, wasn't it?" "In an involuntary sort of way," said Vorob'yev. "These Cetagandan political suicides can get awfully messy, when the principal won't cooperate." "Thirty-two stab wounds in the back, worst case of suicide they ever saw?" murmured Ivan, clearly fascinated by the gossip. "Exactly, my lord."

  Lois McMaster Bujold

  Suicide, Two, Gossip

  "Cetaganda (Vorkosigan Saga, Book 15)". Book by Lois McMaster Bujold, January 1996.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source