Inclination Quotes - Page 15

• I also came to see that liberalism's superficial optimism concerning human nature caused it to overlook the fact that reason is darkened by sin. The more I thought about human nature the more I saw how our tragic inclination for sin causes us to use our minds to rationalize our actions. Liberalism failed to see that reason by itself is little more than an instrument to justify man's defensive ways of thinking. Reason, devoid of the purifying power of faith, can never free itself from distortions and rationalizations.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Thinking, Men, Optimism

  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (2013). “The Essential Martin Luther King, Jr.: "I Have a Dream" and Other Great Writings”, p.65, Beacon Press

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• How can you develop a self-concept linked to your untapped potential? First, you can decide on the kind of life you would like to lead in ten or fifteen years. This will give you a standard for making decisions about current activities and will reduce the inclination to compare yourself unfavorably to others. Learn to ask, "How would I handle this situation were I the person I hope to become?" And then take action in line with your vision.

  Ari Kiev

  Self, Years, Giving

  16 Copy quote

• There is an art, a science to gaining power. There is a natural force or inclination in all of our beings to accumulate power. The problem that we come into is conditioning.

  Frederick Lenz

  Art, Gaining Power, Problem

  4 Copy quote

• Many men without morals have attacked religion because it was contrary to their inclinations. Many wise men have despised it because it seemed to them ridiculous. Many persons have regarded it with indifference, because they have never felt its true disadvantages. But it is as a citizen that I attack it, because it seems to me harmful to the happiness of the state, hostile to the march of the mind of man, and contrary to sound morality, from which the interests of state policy can never be separated.

  Baron d'Holbach

  Wise, Men, Mind

  7 Copy quote

• The National Socialist Party in Austria never tried to hide its inclination for a greater Germany. That Austria would one day return to the Reich was a matter of course for all National Socialists and for true Germans in Austria.

  Arthur Seyss-Inquart

  Party, One Day, Return

  Speech in Berlin on April 07, 1938. "Trial of the Germans". Book by Eugene Davidson, 1966.

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• It is my greatest misfortune to be too lazy, and by the few mortifications I have already set with on that account I predict many evils in my future life. I have always the inclination to do what I ought; but by continually procrastinating for tomorrow the business of today, I insensibly delay, until at the end of one month I find myself in the same place as when I began it.

  Washington Allston

  Evil, Lazy, Delay

  4 Copy quote

• The laws would not prevent each man from living according to his inclination, unless individuals harmed each other; for envy creates the beginning of strife.

  Democritus

  Men, Law, Envy

  "Ancilla to the Pre-Socratic Philosophers: A Complete Translation of the Fragments in Diels Fragmente Der Vorsokratiker", translated by Kathleen Freeman, Harvard University Press, (p. 166), 1948.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• So that in the first place, I put for a general inclination of all mankind a perpetual and restless desire of Power after power, that ceaseth only in Death. And the cause of this is not always that a man hopes for a more intensive delight than he has already attained to, or that he cannot be content with a moderate power: but because he cannot assure the power and means to live well, which he hath present, without the acquisition of more.

  Thomas Hobbes

  Mean, Men, Desire

  Leviathan pt. 1, ch. 11 (1651)

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• The most part of men, though they have the use of reasoning a little way, as in numbering to some degree; yet it serves them to little use in common life; in which they govern themselves, some better, some worse, according to their differences of experience, quickness of memory, and inclinations to several ends; but specially according to good or evil fortune, and the errors of one another.

  Thomas Hobbes

  Memories, Men, Errors

  Thomas Hobbes (2008). “Leviathan”, p.45, Simon and Schuster

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Alas, alas, that ever love was sin! I ever followed natural inclination Under the power of my constellation And was unable to deny, in truth, My chamber of Venus to a likely youth.

  Geoffrey Chaucer

  Venus, Youth, Sin

  Geoffrey Chaucer (1959). “The Canterbury Tales”

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Virtues are dispositions not only to act in particular ways, but also to feel in particular ways. To act virtuously is not, as Kant was later to think, to act against inclination; it is to act from inclination formed by the cultivation of the virtues.

  Alasdair MacIntyre

  Thinking, Way, Virtue

  Alasdair MacIntyre (2013). “After Virtue”, p.175, A&C Black

  50 Copy quote

  Show source

• The path to a better future goes directly through our public schools. I have nothing against private schools, parochial schools and home schooling, and I think that parents with the means and inclination should choose whatever they believe is best for their children. But those choices cannot compete, and cannot come at the expense of what has been -- and what must always be -- the great equalizer in our society, a free and equal public education.

  Howard Dean

  Children, Believe, Home

  Howard Dean's speech on the Future of the Democratic Party at The George Washington University in Washington, D.C., www.c-span.org. December 8, 2004.

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• The belief that value judgments are not subject, in the last analysis, to rational control, encourages the inclination to make irresponsible assertions regarding right and wrong or good and bad. One evades discussion of serious issues by the simple device of passing them off as value problems, whereas, to say the least, many of these conflicts arose out of man's very agreement regarding values.

  Leo Strauss

  Simple, Men, Issues

  Leo Strauss (1959). “What is Political Philosophy? And Other Studies”, p.23, University of Chicago Press

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• You'll face overwhelming odds; you'll be incredibly outnumbered. Fear would be your natural inclination. But keep in mind, God is with you.

  James MacDonald

  Odds, Mind, Would Be

  James MacDonald (2011). “Always True: God's 5 Promises When Life Is Hard”, p.50, Moody Publishers

  25 Copy quote

  Show source

• Love is a gift, a miracle, a mystery. You are led to its threshold by your affinities, by your inclinations, and by the yearnings of your heart, although its power and presentation is by grace, not by expectation, demand, or requirement. Love is the ultimate paradox, for it is the lamb that is also the lion. Love is the ultimate power, which resides in surrender.

  Glenda Green

  Heart, Love Is, Expectations

  6 Copy quote

• Rome was in the most dangerous inclination to change on account of the unequal distribution of wealth and property, those of highest rank and greatest spirit having impoverished themselves by shows, entertainments, ambition of offices, and sumptuous buildings, and the riches of the city having thus fallen into the hands of mean and low-born persons. So that there wanted but a slight impetus to set all in motion, it being in the power of every daring man to overturn a sickly commonwealth.

  Plutarch

  Wisdom, Ambition, Mean

  Plutarch, John Dryden, Arthur Hugh Clough (2005). “Greek and Roman Lives”, p.376, Courier Corporation

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• About what mainly constituted what you ask, it was something other. It was just a certain inclination to meet people. And as far as possible, to change something in the other, but also to let me be changed by him. At any event, I had no resistance, I put no resistance to it. I already began as a young man. I felt I have not the right to want to change another if I am not open to be changed by him as far as it is legitimate.

  Martin Buber

  Men, People, Atheism

  7 Copy quote

• Angling is somewhat like poetry, men are to be born so: I mean, with inclinations to it, though both may be heightened by discourse and practice

  Izaak Walton

  Mean, Men, Practice

  1653 The Compleat Angler, pt.1, ch.1.

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• There is no mind so weak and powerless as not to have its inclinations, and none so guarded as to be without its prepossessions.

  George Crabbe

  Mind, Weak, Guarded

  4 Copy quote

• You were in a mood to quarrel. Please inform me once the inclination passes.

  Catherine the Great

  Mood, Quarrels, Please

  45 Copy quote

• The child takes most of his nature of the mother, besides speech, manners, and inclination.

  Herbert Spencer

  Mother, Children, Speech

  9 Copy quote

• We artists give daily thanks for the miracle of our planet and for the inclination and the capability to honour it.

  Robert Genn

  Artist, Giving, Miracle

  7 Copy quote

• Among the arts of conversation no one pleases more than mutual deference or civility, which leads us to resign our own inclinations to those of our companions, and to curb and conceal that presumption and arrogance so natural to the human mind.

  David Hume

  Art, Arrogance, Mind

  David Hume (2016). “Delphi Complete Works of David Hume (Illustrated)”, p.651, Delphi Classics

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• The goal of maximizing the welfare of all may be better achieved by an ethic that accepts our inclinations and harnesses them so that, taken as a whole, the system works to everyone's advantage.

  Peter Singer

  Taken, Goal, May

  Peter Singer (1982). “The expanding circle: ethics and sociobiology”, Plume

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• It is visible then that it was not any Heathen Religion or other Idolatrous Superstition, that first put Man upon crossing his Appetites and subduing his dearest Inclinations, but the skilful Management of wary Politicians; and the nearer we search into human Nature, the more we shall be convinced, that the Moral Virtues are the Political Offspring which Flattery begot upon Pride.

  Bernard de Mandeville

  Pride, Men, Political

  Bernard de Mandeville (1723). “The Fable of the Bees”, p.23, Jazzybee Verlag

  7 Copy quote

  Show source