Impulse Quotes - Page 33

• 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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• England was nothing, compared to continental nations until she had become commercial... until about the middle of the last century, when a number of ingenious and inventive men, without apparent relation to each other, arose in various parts of the kingdom, succeeded in giving an immense impulse to all the branches of the national industry; the result of which has been a harvest of wealth and prosperity, perhaps without a parallel in the history of the world.

  Samuel Smiles

  Men, Numbers, Giving

  "Lives of the Engineers". Book by Samuel Smiles, 1861.

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• Buddhism teaches that a craving for things outside ourselves causes an unhappy and pointless search for security. It teaches me to stop following every impulse and to learn restraint. Obviously I lost track of what I was taught.

  Tiger Woods

  Buddhism, Track, Unhappy

  Tiger Woods' Apology Speech, newsok.com. February 19, 2010.

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• The impulse to write a novel comes from a momentary unified vision of life.

  Angus Wilson

  Writing, Vision, Novel

  Angus Wilson (1963). “The Wild Garden: Or, Speaking of Writing”, p.149, Univ of California Press

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• Modern European composers...have very largely received their stimulus, their rhythms and impulses from Machine Age America. They have a much older tradition of musical technique which has helped them put into musical terms a little more clearly the thoughts that originated here. They can express themselves more glibly.

  George Gershwin

  America, Musical, Age

  "The Composer in the Machine Age". Book by George Gershwin (p. 386), 1933.

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• Vanity as an impulse has without doubt been of far more benefit to civilization than modesty has ever been.

  William E. Woodward

  Vanity, Civilization, Doubt

  William E. Woodward (1946). “George Washington: The Image and the Man”

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• I consider morals and aesthetics one and the same, for they cover only one impulse, one drive inherent in our consciousness - to bring our life and all our actions into a satisfactory relationship with the events of the world as our consciousness wants it to be, in harmony with our life and according to the laws of consciousness itself.

  Naum Gabo

  Law, Events, World

  "The Quotable Artist". Book by Peggy Hadden, 2010.

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• Art is the result of a creative impulse derived out of a consciousness of life.

  John French Sloan

  Art, Creative, Consciousness

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• I've come to realize that the mark is the primal gesture, the internal connection of the caveman to the cosmos; an impossibility similar to an impulse in an insect's nervous system that it could somehow reduce to dust a steel beam by endlessly crawling over it.

  Joel-Peter Witkin

  Dust, Connections, Cosmos

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• Behind innocence there gathers a clotted mass of superstition, of twisted and misdirected impulse; clandestine flirtation, fads, and ragtime fill the unventilated mind.

  Walter Lippmann

  Mind, Fads, Superstitions

  Walter Lippmann, Clinton Rossiter, James Lare (1982). “The Essential Lippmann: A Political Philosophy for Liberal Democracy”, p.38, Harvard University Press

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• Great Love has many attributes, and shrines For varied worshippers, but his force divine Shows most its many-named fulness in the man Whose nature multitudinously mixed-- Each ardent impulse grappling with a thought-- Resists all easy gladness, all content Save mystic rapture, where the questioning soul Flooded with consciousness of good that is Finds life one bounteous answer.

  George Eliot

  Love, Men, Soul

  George Eliot (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated)”, p.4145, Delphi Classics

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• The idea of duty, that recognition of something to be lived for beyond the mere satisfaction of self, is to the moral life what the addition of a great central ganglion is to animal life. No man can begin to mould himself on a faith or an idea without rising to a higher order of experience: a principle of subordination, of self-mastery, has been introduced into his nature; he is no longer a mere bundle of impressions, desires, and impulses.

  George Eliot

  Men, Animal, Self

  George Eliot (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated)”, p.6068, Delphi Classics

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• Family, monogamy, romance. Everywhere exclusiveness, a narrow channelling of impulse and energy.

  Aldous Huxley

  Romance, Energy, Monogamy

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• Impulse arrested spills over, and the flood is feeling, the flood is passion, the flood is even madness.

  Aldous Huxley

  Passion, Feelings, Madness

  Aldous Huxley (1950). “The Collected Works of Aldous Huxley: Brave new world”

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• Unfruitful emotion is to be suspected. Feeling acts as an impulse, as a spur, as a spring, and when feelings are excited, and they put nothing forward, they are sometimes even dangerous to a man.

  Henry Ward Beecher

  Spring, Men, Feelings

  Henry Ward Beecher, Truman Jeremiah Ellinwood (1871). “The original Plymouth pulpit”, p.349

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• I have friends, some of whom are spectacularly good writers, who really want someone to edit them. I don't register that impulse. It's like the impulse for wanting a dog.

  Fran Lebowitz

  Dog, Want, Register

  Interview with Sam Adams, www.avclub.com. June 17, 2011.

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• Literature is the voice of the age and the state; the character, energy, and resources of the country are reflected and imaged forth in the conceptions of its great minds; they are organs of the time; they speak not their own language, they scarce think their own thoughts; but under an impulse like the prophetic enthusiasm of old, they must feel and utter the sentiments which society inspires.

  Edward Everett

  Country, Character, Thinking

  Edward Everett (1839). “Selections from the Works of Edward Everett: With a Sketch of His Life”, p.127

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• It is a mere illusion that, above a certain income, the personal desires will be satisfied and leave a wider margin for the generous impulse.

  Robert Louis Stevenson

  Desire, Income, Wealth

  Robert Louis Stevenson (2016). “Familiar Studies of Men and Books: Stevenson's Vol. 16”, p.62, VM eBooks

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• But what is life to a lichen ? Yet its impulse to exist, to be, is every bit as strong as ours arguably even stronger. If I were told that I had to spend decades being a furry growth on a rock in the woods, I believe I would lose the will to go on.

  Bill Bryson

  Strong, Believe, Rocks

  Bill Bryson (2014). “A Short History of Nearly Everything”, p.308, Lulu Press, Inc

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• For wisest ends this universal Power Gave appetites, from whose quick impulse life Subsists, by which we only live, all life Insipid else, unactive, unenjoy'd. Hence to this peopled earth, which, that extinct, That flame for propagation, soon would roll A lifeless mass, and vainly cumber heaven.

  John Armstrong

  Flames, Heaven, Earth

  John Armstrong (1770). “The forced marriage, a tragedy. Sketches: or, Essays on various subjects, by Launcelot Temple, Esq”

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• Love is the impulse which directs the world, And all things know it and obey its power. Man, in the maelstrom of his passions whirled; The bee that takes the pollen to the flower; The earth, uplifting her bare, pulsing breast To fervent kisses of the amorous sun;-- Each but obeys creative Love's behest, Which everywhere instinctively is done.

  Ella Wheeler Wilcox

  Love, Uplifting, Flower

  Ella Wheeler Wilcox (2016). “Complete Poetical Works of Ella Wheeler Wilcox (Delphi Classics)”, p.553, Delphi Classics

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• In the background lurks the scourge of international terrorism. There are people exercising power in a few countries and leading political factions in others who seem to be moved by narrow, brutal and irrational impulses. Their view of their own self-interest is so blinkered as to leave no space for purely human values, for peaceful negotiation or for economic advancement. They are bent on the destruction of the established order and of civilised ways of doing business. They must never be allowed to succeed.

  Margaret Thatcher

  Country, Exercise, Self

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• If children had teachers for judgment and eloquence just as they have for languages, if their memory was exercised less than their energy or their natural genius, if instead of deadening their vivacity of mind we tried to elevate the free scope and impulse of their souls, what might not result from a fine disposition? As it is, we forget that courage, or love of truth and glory are the virtues that matter most in youth; and our one endeavour is to subdue our children's spirits, in order to teach them that dependence and suppleness are the first laws of success in life.

  Luc de Clapiers

  Teacher, Children, Memories

  "Reflections and Maxims". Book by Luc de Clapiers, translated by E. Lee, pp. 185-186, 1903.

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• The monsters act out our rage. They act on their worst impulses, which is appealing to a certain part of us. They get punished for it, but we've enjoyed the spectacle of their liberation.

  Clive Barker

  Monsters, Rage, Certain

  FaceBook post by Clive Barker from Jan 06, 2013

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• I'm not a quester or a searcher for the truth. I don't really think there is one answer, so I never went looking for it. My impulse is less questing and more playful. I like trying on ideas and ways of life and religious approaches. I'm just not a good candidate for conversion.

  Ursula K. Le Guin

  Religious, Thinking, Ideas

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