Vigorous Quotes - Page 10

• A burning desire is the greatest motivator of every human action. The desire for success implants 'success consciousness' which, in turn, creates a vigorous and ever-increasing 'habit of success'.

  Paul J. Meyer

  Desire, Burning, Action

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• Conversation opens our views, and gives our faculties a more vigorous play; it puts us upon turning our notions on every side, and holds them up to a light that discovers those latent flaws which would probably have lain concealed in the gloom of unagitated abstraction.

  William Melmoth

  Views, Play, Light

  William Melmoth (1805). “Fitzosborne's Letters on several subjects ... Eleventh edition, with the Dialogue on Oratory [translated from Tacitus]: to which is prefixed a life of the author”, p.191

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• This writer, who is horribly perspicacious and vigorous, demonstrates the certainty of a great European war, and regards it with the peculiar satisfaction excited by such things in a certain order of mind. His phrases about "dire calamity" and so on mean nothing; the whole tenor of his writing proves that he represents, and consciously, one of the forces which go to bring war about; his part in the business is a fluent irresponsibility, which casts scorn on all who reluct at the "inevitable." Persistent prophecy is a familiar way of assuring the event.

  George Gissing

  War, Writing, Mean

  "The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft". Book by George Gissing. Summer, § VII, p. 89, 1903.

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• There is danger that totalitarian governments, not subject to vigorous popular debate, will underestimate the will and unity of democratic societies where vital interests are concerned.

  John F. Kennedy

  Government, Unity, Underestimate

  Kennedy, John F. (1962). “Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: John F. Kennedy, 1961”, p.477, Best Books on

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• In pious times, ere priest-craft did begin, Before polygamy was made a sin; When man, on many, multipli'd his kind, Ere one to one was cursedly confin'd: When Nature prompted, and no Law deni'd Promiscuous use of concubine and bride; Then, Israel's monarch, after Heaven's own heart, His vigorous warmth did variously impart To wives and slaves: and, wide as his command, Scatter'd his Maker's image through the land.

  John Dryden

  Heart, Men, Israel

  John Dryden, “Absalom And Achitophel”

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• If a [democratic] society displays less brilliance than an aristocracy, there will also be less wretchedness; pleasures will be less outrageous and wellbeing will be shared by all; the sciences will be on a smaller scale but ignorance will be less common; opinions will be less vigorous and habits gentler; you will notice more vices and fewer crimes.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Ignorance, Vices, Aristocracy

  "Democracy in America". Book by Alexis de Tocqueville. Introduction, 1835.

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• The vigorous branching of life's tree, and not the accumulating valor of mythical marches to progress, lies behind the persistence and expansion of organic diversity in our tough and constantly stressful world. And if we do not grasp the fundamental nature of branching as the key to life's passage across the geological stage, we will never understand evolution aright.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Lying, Persistence, Keys

  Stephen Jay Gould (2010). “I Have Landed: Splashes and Reflections in Natural History”, p.396, Random House

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• On the one hand, society needs a common faith and vigorous institutions with the power to coerce; and on the other, the individual as a human soul or as the bearer of a new and possibly saving heresy, must be free. It is difficult enough to reconcile these two needs, but the problem holds another hazard: the need of action under the pressure of time.

  Jacques Barzun

  Hands, Two, Soul

  "Bernard Shaw in Twilight". The Kenyon Review, 1943.

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• I do not believe that ever any building was truly great, unless it had mighty masses, vigorous and deep, of shadow mingled with its surface.

  John Ruskin

  Believe, Shadow, Building

  John Ruskin (1866). “The seven lamps of architecture”, p.70

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• Thus the brave and aspiring life of one man lights a flame in the minds of others of like faculties and impulse; and where there is equally vigorous effort, like distinction and success will almost surely follow. Thus the chain of example is carried down through time in an endless succession of links--admiration exciting imitation, and perpetuating the true aristocracy of genius.

  Samuel Smiles

  Men, Light, Flames

  Samuel Smiles (2009). “Self-Help: With Illustrations of Character and Conduct”, p.528, The Floating Press

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• Slang is vigorous and apt. Probably most of our vital words were once slang.

  John Galsworthy

  Slang

  1927 Castles in Spain and Other Screeds

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• What I have said may serve to recommend mathematics for acquiring a vigorous constitution of mind; for which purpose they are as useful as exercise is for procuring health and strength to the body.

  John Arbuthnot

  Exercise, Mind, Purpose

  John Arbuthnot (1701). “An Essay on the Usefulness of Mathematical Learning,: In a Letter from a Gentleman in the City to His Friend in Oxford..”, p.9

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• Maybe freedom really is nothing left to lose. You had it once in childhood, when it was okay to climb a tree, to paint a crazy picture and wipe out on your bike, to get hurt. The spirit of risk gradually takes its leave. It follows the wild cries of joy and pain down the wind, through the hedgerow, growing ever fainter. What was that sound? A dog barking far off? That was our life calling to us, the one that was vigorous and undefended and curious.

  Peter Heller

  Dog, Hurt, Pain

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• Seneca's virtue shows forth so live and vigorous in his writings, and the defense is so clear there against some of these imputations, as that of his wealth and excessive spending, that I would not believe any testimony to the contrary.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Believe, Writing, Defense

  Michel de Montaigne (1979). “Essays”

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• The task of youth is not only its own salvation but the salvation of those against whom it rebels, but in that case there must be something vital to rebel against and if the elderly stiffly refuse to put up a vigorous front of their own, it leaves the entire situation in a mist.

  Jane Addams

  Elderly, Rebel, Tasks

  Jane Addams (1930). “The second twenty years at Hull-House, September 1909 to September 1929, with a record of a growing world consciousness”

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• A good argument diluted to avoid criticism is not nearly as good as the undiluted argument, because we best arrive at truth through a process of honest and vigorous debate. Arguments should not sneak around in disguise, as if dissent were somehow sinister... For it is bravery that is required to secure freedom.

  Clarence Thomas

  Courage, Truth, Justice

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• If Playboy ever loses its editorial balls, then it will deserve to be knocked over by a younger, more vigorous magazine in the coming generation. But that won't happen so long as I'm alive, I can promise you that.

  Hugh Hefner

  Long, Promise, Generations

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• We think that a powerful and vigorous movement is impossible without differences - "true conformity" is possible only in the cemetery.

  Joseph Stalin

  Powerful, Thinking, Differences

  "Our purposes". Pravda #1, Newspaper, January 22, 1912.

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• For the sake of democracy, vigorous, civilized debate must replace the law of silence that political correctness has imposed.

  Anthony Daniels

  Law, Silence, Political

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• Language is properly the servant of thought, but not unfrequently becomes its master. The conceptions of a feeble writer are greatly modified by his style; a man of vigorous powers makes his style bend to his conceptions.

  William Benton Clulow

  Men, Style, Language

  William Benton Clulow (1843). “Aphorisms and Reflections: A Miscellany of Thought and Opinion”, p.286

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• It was an elevating, transforming vision: a new, fresh, vigorous, and above all morally regenerate people rising from the obscurity to defend the battlements of liberty and then in triumph standing forth, heartening and sustaining the cause of freedom everywhere.

  Bernard Bailyn

  People, Vision, Liberty

  Bernard Bailyn (2012). “The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution”, p.160, Harvard University Press

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• Vigorous societies harbour a certain extravagance of objectives.

  Alfred North Whitehead

  Extravagance, Harbour, Certain

  Alfred North Whitehead (1967). “Adventures of Ideas”, p.288, Simon and Schuster

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• Laughter is the great antidote for self-pity, maybe a specific for the malady, yet probably it does tend to dry one's feelings out a little, as if by exposing them to a vigorous wind.

  Mary McCarthy

  Laughter, Self, Wind

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• There can be no good art that is international. Art to be vigorous and gesund must use the material at hand.

  Stevie Smith

  Art, Hands, Use

  Arthur C. Rankin, Stevie Smith (1985). “The poetry of Stevie Smith, "little girl lost"”, Barnes & Noble Imports

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• There is one thing no people have ever done; that is, to oppose a threatening war with intelligent and vigorous purpose some years before it was due to arrive.

  Carrie Chapman Catt

  War, Intelligent, Years

  Carrie Chapman Catt, Eleanor Roosevelt, National Committee on the Cause and Cure of War (U.S.) (1935). “Why wars must cease”

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