Impulse Quotes - Page 31

• I believe that it may happen that one will succeed, and one must not begin to despair, even though defeated here and there; and even though one sometimes feels a kind of decay, though things go differently from the expected, it is necessary to take heart again and new courage. For the great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together. And great things are not something accidental, but must certainly be willed. What is drawing? How does one learn it? It is working through an invisible iron wall that seems to stand between what one feels and what one can do.

  Vincent Van Gogh

  Wall, Believe, Heart

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• Madness is never that far away. It's as close as saying yes to the wrong impulse.

  Jim Carrey

  Saying Yes, Madness, Far Away

  YouTube Channel "walbertcito"/"Jim Carrey - Unnatural Act (1991)", www.youtube.com. June 11, 2012.

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• There's a lot of landscape I never would have described if I hadn't been homesick. The impulse was nostalgia.

  Joan Didion

  Landscape, Homesick, Nostalgia

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• Agriculture is for living; mind culture is for life. Skills are for shaping material things so that they cater more for the comfort of man; studies are for shaping attitudes, feelings, desires, emotions and impulses of man, so that they may confer more peace, more joy and more fortitude on man.

  Sathya Sai Baba

  Attitude, Men, Skills

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• I almost never start with an image. I start with a painting idea, an impulse, usually derived from my own world.

  Robert Motherwell

  Ideas, World, Painting

  Robert Motherwell, Dore Ashton, Jack D. Flam, Albright-Knox Art Gallery (1983). “Robert Motherwell”, Abbeville Pr

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• A living creature develops a destructive impulse when it wants to destroy a source of danger... The original motive is not pleasure in destruction... I destroy in a dangerous situation because I want to live and do not want to have any anxiety. In short, the impulse to destroy serves a primary biological will to live.

  Wilhelm Reich

  Dangerous Situations, Anxiety, Want

  "The Function of the Orgasm". Book by Wilhelm Reich, 1927.

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• Spirit of Beauty, whose sweet impulses, flung like rose of dawn across the sea, alone can flush the exalted consciousness with shafts of sensible divinity-light of the world, essential loveliness.

  Alan Seeger

  Beauty, Sweet, Light

  Alan Seeger (2001). “Poems”

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• Dare to be irrational! - keep free from formulas, open to any fresh impulse, fluid.

  Edward Weston

  Courage, Fluid, Dare

  Edward Weston (1988). “Edward Weston”

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• Ambition is an expensive impulse, one that requires an enormous investment of emotional capital. Like any investment, it can pay off in countless different kinds of coin.

  Jeffrey Kluger

  Ambition, Emotional, Different

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• The instinct that pulls us toward art is the impulse to evolve, to learn, to heighten and elevate our consciousness. The Ego hates this. Because the more awake we become, the less we need the Ego.

  Steven Pressfield

  Art, Hate, Ego

  Steven Pressfield (2002). “The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles”, p.140, Black Irish Entertainment LLC

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• You cannot govern the creative impulse; all you can do is eliminate obstacles and smooth the way for it.

  Kimon Nicolaides

  Creativity, Creative, Way

  Kimon Nicolaïdes (1990). “The Natural Way to Draw: A Working Plan for Art Study”, p.151, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• For the whole consequence of evolution from blind impulse through conscious will to self conscious knowledge, seems still somehow to correspond to a continued result of births, rebirths and new births, which reach from the birth of the child from the mother, beyond the birth of the individual from the mass, to the birth of the creative work from the individual and finally to the birth of knowledge from the work.

  Otto Rank

  Mother, Children, Self

  Otto Rank Association, Otto Rank (1976). “Journal”

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• Willpower is what separates us from the animals. It's the capacity to restrain our impulses, resist temptation - do what's right and good for us in the long run, not what we want to do right now. It's central, in fact, to civilisation.

  Roy Baumeister

  Running, Animal, Discipline

  "Why willpower matters – and how to get it" by Jon Henley, www.theguardian.com. February 7, 2012.

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• While it is emotion that gives an impulse to the landscape painter, it is his style that inspires the critic's praise, and his subject that inveigles the untutored beholder.

  Walter J. Phillips

  Giving, Inspire, Style

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• Chloride is essential for digestion and in respiration. Without sodium, which the body cannot manufacture, the body would be unable to transport nutrients or oxygen, transmit nerve impulses, or move muscles, including the heart.

  Mark Kurlansky

  Moving, Heart, Oxygen

  Mark Kurlansky (2003). “Salt: A World History”, p.11, Penguin

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• If you bring your sexual impulses to your creative work... you'll be working from deep in the genetic code, down where life wants to make new life and feel good in the process.

  Eric Maisel

  Creative, Feel Good, New Life

  Eric Maisel (2000). “The Creativity Book: A Year's Worth of Inspiration and Guidance”, p.220, Penguin

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• Father taught us that opportunity and responsibility go hand in hand. I think we all act on that principle; on the basic human impulse that makes a man want to make the best of what's in him and what's been given him.

  Laurance Rockefeller

  Fathers Day, Responsibility, Opportunity

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• To me, today, at age sixty-one, all prayer, by the humble or highly placed, has one thing in common: supplication for strength and inspiration to carry on the best human impulses which should bind us together for a better world.

  Walt Disney

  Dream, Prayer, Inspiration

  "Deeds Rather Than Words". Essay by Walt Disney, 1963.

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• Sheer animated fantasy is still my first and deepest production impulse.

  Walt Disney

  Firsts, Fantasy, Animated

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• Nature's great law, and the law of all men's minds? To its own impulse every creature stirs: Live by thy light, and Earth will live by hers.

  Matthew Arnold

  Art, Men, Light

  Matthew Arnold (2013). “Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold (Illustrated)”, p.47, Delphi Classics

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• I do not remember-that is the point-the first impulse that pumped and shoved most of the earlier poems along, and they are still too near me, with their vehement beat-pounding black and green rhythms like those of a very young policeman exploding, for me to see the written evidence of it.

  Dylan Thomas

  Inspirational, Black, Vehement

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• We men are easily prone to sins of thought. Therefore, He who has formed each heart individually, knowing that the impulse received from the intention constitutes the major element in sin, has ordained that purity in the ruling part of our soul be our primary concern.

  Saint Basil

  Heart, Men, Knowing

  Saint Basil (2010). “Ascetical Works (The Fathers of the Church, Volume 9)”, p.432, CUA Press

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• I have an addictive personality. Sport is my drug of choice these days. It's one of the best drugs there is. It keeps you fit and healthy, even if, in the case of ironman, it pushes your body to the limit. The word "addiction" comes with negative connotations, but it doesn't have to be a damaging impulse. It's all about channeling your craving into something positive.

  Chrissie Wellington

  Motivational, Sports, Addiction

  Chrissie Wellington (2012). “A Life Without Limits: A World Champion's Journey”, p.16, Hachette UK

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• One of the fundamental demonstrations of our natural instinct to Bond with each other is a will to give. Rather than domination, our most basic urge is to reach out to another human being, even at a cost to ourselves. Giving to others-the urge to empathize, to be compassionate, and to help others altruistically-is not the exception to the rule, but our natural state of being. Our impulse to connect with each other has developed an automatic desire to do for others, even at personal cost. Altruism comes naturally to us. It is selfishness that is culturally conditioned and a sign of pathology.

  Lynne McTaggart

  Inspirational, Helping Others, Exception To The Rule

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• Somewhere between obsession and compulsion is impulse.

  Alexander Pushkin

  Inspirational, Obsession, Compulsion

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