Impulse Quotes - Page 13

• Perhaps,” murmured his lordship, “I yielded to a compassionate impulse.” “A what?” gasped his best friend. “Oh, did you think I never did so?” said his lordship, the satirical glint in his eyes extremely pronounced. “You wrong me! I do, sometimes—not frequently, of course, but every now and then!

  Georgette Heyer

  Eye, Thinking, Sometimes

  Georgette Heyer (2011). “Frederica”, p.144, Random House

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• A man may debar nonsense from his library of reason, but not from the arena of his impulses.

  Rex Stout

  Men, Library, May

  Rex Stout (2010). “The League of Frightened Men”, p.22, Bantam

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• Side by side with the human race there runs another race of beings, the inhuman ones, the race of artists who, goaded by unknown impulses, take the lifeless mass of humanity and by the fever and ferment with which they imbue it turn this soggy dough into bread and the bread into wine and the wine into song.

  Henry Miller

  Running, Song, Wine

  Henry Miller (1964). “Henry Miller on Writing”, New Directions Publishing

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• Most people don't get lucky. They get human. They get crushes. This means you irrationally mortgage what little logic you own to pay for this one thing. This relationship is an impulse buy, and you'll figure out if it's worth it later.

  Sloane Crosley

  Break Up, Crush, Mean

  Sloane Crosley (2010). “How Did You Get This Number”, p.120, Penguin

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• The miracle is that, in most cases, he succeeds - for the powers of survival, of the will to survive, and to survive as a unique inalienable individual, are absolutely, the strongest in our being: stronger than any impulses, stronger than disease.

  Oliver Sacks

  Unique, Will To Survive, Miracle

  Oliver Sacks (2014). “The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat: Picador Classic”, p.111, Pan Macmillan

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• Come from the heart, the true heart, not the head. When in doubt, choose the heart. This does not mean to deny your own experiences and that which you have empirically learned through the years. It means to trust your self to integrate intuition and experience. There is a balance, a harmony to be nurtured, between the head and the heart. When the intuition rings clear and true, loving impulses are favored.

  Brian Weiss

  Heart, Mean, Self

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• A lonely impulse of delight

  William Butler Yeats

  Lonely, Contentment, Delight

  "An Irish Airman Foresees His Death" l. 9 (1919)

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• The beauty or ugliness of a character lay not only in its achievements, but in its aims and impulses; its true history lay, not among things done, but among things willed.

  Thomas Hardy

  Character, Achievement, Done

  Thomas Hardy (2016). “Tess of the d'Urbervilles: A Pure Woman”, p.412, Thomas Hardy

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• As we peer into society's future, we -- you and I, and our government -- must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering for our own ease and convenience the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow.

  Dwight D. Eisenhower

  Spiritual, Loss, Grandchildren

  Farewell Address, delivered 17 January 1961

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• Joan was nothing more than a friend. He was not in love with her. One does not fall in love with a girl whom one has met only three times. One is attracted, yes; but one does not fall in love. A moment's reflection enabled him to diagnose his sensations correctly. This odd impulse to leap across the compartment and kiss Joan was not love. It was merely the natural desire of a good-hearted young man to be decently chummy with his species.

  P. G. Wodehouse

  Girl, Falling In Love, Kissing

  P. G. Wodehouse (2012). “Something New: Or, Something Fresh”, p.107, The Floating Press

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• by and large the poor have the same impulses as the rich, with only less opportunity or skill to implement them

  Will Durant

  Opportunity, Skills, Rich

  Will Durant, Ariel Durant (1968). “The lessons of history”, Simon & Schuster

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• Like the Arthurian years at Camelot, the Sixties constituted a breakthrough, a fleeting moment of glory, a time when a significant little chunk of humanity briefly realised its moral potential and flirted with its neurological destiny, a collective spiritual awakening that flared brilliantly until the barbaric and mediocre impulses of the species drew tight once more the curtains of darkness.

  Tom Robbins

  Spiritual, Destiny, Years

  Tom Robbins (2003). “Jitterbug Perfume”, p.308, Bantam

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• Fiordland, a vast tract of mountainous terrain that occupies the south-west corner of South Island, New Zealand, is one of the most astounding pieces of land anywhere on God's earth, and one's first impulse, standing on a cliff top surveying it all, is simply to burst into spontaneous applause.

  Douglas Adams

  Nature, Islands, Pieces

  Douglas Adams, Mark Carwardine (2011). “Last Chance to See”, p.120, Ballantine Books

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• All her life she'd been warned that men were slaves to their desires, that they held their impulses in barely controlled check. A woman--a lady--must be very, very careful of her actions so she did not put spark to the gunpowder that was a man's libido.

  Elizabeth Hoyt

  Men, Desire, Gunpowder

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• I'm highly aware that some impulses are harder to ignore than others. I'm aware that fear of consequences causes us to guard our secrets. But it's our actions when faced with temptation that define who we are. It's our courage in admitting what we've done wrong that makes us forgivable.

  Gena Showalter

  Temptation, Secret, Admitting

  Gena Showalter (2010). “Intertwined”, p.138, Harlequin

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• Sometimes it seems to me that all of life is a struggle to contain the natural impulses of the body and spirit, and that what we call character represents only the degree to which we are successful in this endeavor.

  Anita Shreve

  Struggle, Character, Successful

  Anita Shreve (2003). “All He Ever Wanted: A Novel”, p.16, Hachette UK

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• When the creative impulse sweeps over you, grab it. You grab it and honor it and use it, because momentum is a rare gift.

  Justina Chen

  Creative, Over You, Honor

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• And then, as the room went black, I was suddenly hyperaware that Edward was sitting less than an inch from me. I was stunned by the unexpected electricity that flowed through me, amazed that it was possible to be more aware of him than I already was. A crazy impulse to reach over and touch him, to stroke his perfect face just once in the darkness, nearly overwhelmed me. I crossed my arms tightly across my chest, my hands balling into fists. I was losing my mind.

  Stephenie Meyer

  Crazy, Hands, Perfect

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• What moralists describe as the mysteries of the human heart are solely the deceiving thoughts, the spontaneous impulses of self-regard. The sudden changes in character, about which so much has been said, are instinctive calculations for the furtherance of our own pleasures. Seeing himself now in his fine clothes, his new gloves and shoes, Eugène de Rastignac forgot his noble resolve. Youth, when it swerves toward wrong, dares not look in the mirror of conscience; maturity has already seen itself there. That is the whole difference between the two phases of life.

  Honore de Balzac

  Heart, Character, Maturity

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• Every man had his personal habits, passions, and impulses toward goodness, beauty, and truth.

  Leo Tolstoy

  Passion, Men, Habit

  Leo Tolstoy (2016). “WAR AND PEACE Complete Edition – All 15 Books in One Volume (World Classics Series): The Magnum Opus of the Greatest Russian Novelists and Author of Anna Karenina & The Death of Ivan Ilyich (Including the Biography & Memoirs of the Author)”, p.1442, e-artnow

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• Torn between the impulse to stroke his head, and the urge to cave it in with a rock, I did neither.

  Diana Gabaldon

  Rocks, Caves, Torn

  Diana Gabaldon (2015). “The Outlander Series 8-Book Bundle: Outlander, Dragonfly in Amber, Voyager, Drums of Autumn, The Fiery Cross, A Breath of Snow and Ashes, An Echo in the Bone, Written in My Own Heart's Blood”, p.1175, Dell

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• The blues is an impulse to keep the painful details and episodes of a brutal experience alive in one's aching consciousness, to finger its jagged grain, and to transcend it, not by the consolation of philosophy but by squeezing from it a near-tragic, near-comic lyricism. As a form, the blues is an autobiographical chronicle of personal catastrophe expressed lyrically.

  Ralph Ellison

  Philosophy, Details, Alive

  Ralph Ellison (2011). “The Collected Essays of Ralph Ellison: Revised and Updated”, p.129, Modern Library

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• ...the first thing you do at the end is reflect on the beginning. Maybe it's some form of reverse closure, or just the basic human impulse toward sentimentality, or masochism, but as you stand there shell-shocked in the charred ruins of your life, your mind will invariably go back to the time when it all started. And even if you didn't fall in love in the eighties, in your mind it will fee like the eighties, all innocent and airbrushed, with bright colors and shoulder pads and Pat Benatar or The Cure on the soundtrack.

  Jonathan Tropper

  Falling In Love, Color, Mind

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• We humans are naturally disposed to worship gods and heroes, to build our pantheons and valhallas. I would rather see that impulse directed into the adoration of daft singers, thicko footballers and air-headed screen actors than into the veneration of dogmatic zealots, fanatical preachers, militant politicians and rabid cultural commentators.

  Stephen Fry

  Hero, Air, Valhalla

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• Whenever I was asked what I wanted my first impulse was to answer "Nothing." The thought went through my mind that it didn't make any difference, that nothing was going to make me happy.

  Osamu Dazai

  Differences, Mind, Firsts

  Osamu Dazai (1973). “No Longer Human”, p.30, New Directions Publishing

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