Involuntary Quotes - Page 3

• A characteristic of those who are still progressing in blessed mourning is temperance and silence of the lips; and of those who have made progress - freedom from anger and patient endurance of injuries; and of the perfect - humility, thirst for dishonors, voluntary craving for involuntary afflictions, non- condemnation of sinners, compassion even beyond one's strength. The first are acceptable, the second laudable; but blessed are those who hunger for hardship and thirst for dishonor, for they shall be filled with the food whereof there can be no satiety.

  John Climacus

  Blessed, Humility, Compassion

  Saint John (Climacus) (1959). “The Ladder of Divine Ascent”

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• We fall in love or stay in love with people who are unsuitable or who no longer love us and, conversely, we feel no love towards people who would be very suitable. Love is involuntary, that's the problem. Our personal histories prepare us to be attracted to people who unconsciously evoke emotions from our childhood or adolescence.

  François Lelord

  Falling In Love, Love Is, People

  François Lelord (2011). “Hector and the Secrets of Love”, p.24, Gallic Books

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• And leaning out the window, enjoying the day above the varying volume of the entire city, only one thought swells my soul – the intimate will to die, to finish, not to see more light over any city, not to think, not to feel, to leave behind like wrapping paper the course of the sun and the days, to rid myself, at the edge of the grand bed, as of a heavy suit, of the involuntary effort to be.

  Fernando Pessoa

  Thinking, Light, Cities

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• For me chivalry isn't dead; it's an involuntary reflex.

  Jim Butcher

  Chivalry, Reflexes

  Jim Butcher (2002). “Summer Knight: Book four of The Dresden Files”, p.107, Penguin

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• I wanted to know more about the young ... strange that though they laughed so loud, they so seldom smiled. Perhaps laughter was involuntary whereas smiling was part of an attitude to life.

  Dodie Smith

  Laughter, Attitude, Strange

  Dodie Smith (2012). “The Town in Bloom”, p.200, Hachette UK

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• I would never behave with so little dignity. Nor would I wish to be confronted in such a manner by anyone else. Vampires inspire screams, not squees. Involuntary urination is common, I grant, but it properly flows from a sense of terror, not an ecstatic sense of hero worship.

  Kevin Hearne

  Hero, Inspire, Vampire

  Kevin Hearne (2011). “Hammered (with bonus short story): The Iron Druid Chronicles, Book Three”, p.93, Del Rey

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• Life is what you make of it, unless you have tourette's, in which case much becomes involuntary.

  Dov Davidoff

  Life Is, Tourettes, Cases

  FaceBook post by Dov Davidoff from Jul 16, 2011

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• Gentleness in the gait is what simplicity is in the dress. Violent gestures or quick movements inspire involuntary disrespect.

  Honore de Balzac

  Simplicity, Inspire, Disrespect

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  One can promise actions, but not feelings, for the latter are involuntary. He who promises to love forever or hate forever or be forever faithful to someone is promising something that is not in his power.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Love, Hate, Forever

  Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1984). “Human, All Too Human: A Book for Free Spirits”, p.54, U of Nebraska Press

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• There is a silence, the child of love, which expresses everything, and proclaims more loudly than the tongue is able to do; there are movements that are involuntary proofs of what the soul feels.

  Vittorio Alfieri

  Children, Silence, Soul

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• The fact of the matter is that, since we are determined always to keep our feelings to ourselves, we have never given any thought to the manner in which we should express them. And suddenly there is within us a strange and obscene animal making itself heard, whose tones may inspire as much alarm in the person who receives the involuntary, elliptical and almost irresistible communication of one's defect or vice as would the sudden avowal indirectly and outlandishly proffered by a criminal who can no longer refrain from confessing to a murder of which one had never imagined him to be guilty.

  Marcel Proust

  Communication, Animal, Inspire

  Marcel Proust (2000). “In Search of Lost Time, Volume III: The Guermantes Way”, p.257, Modern Library

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• Love is said to be an involuntary passion, and it is, therefore, contended that it cannot be resisted. This is true in part only, for like all things else, when nourished and supplied plentifully with ailment, it is rapid in its progress; but let these be withdrawn and it may be stifled in its birth or much stinted in its growth.

  George Washington

  Love, Passion, Growth

  Jay A. Parry, Andrew M. Allison, George Washington (1991). “The real George Washington”, Natl Center for Constitutional

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• The abhorrence of society to the use of involuntary confessions does not turn alone on their inherent untrustworthiness. It also turns on the deep-rooted feeling that the police must obey the law while enforcing the law; that, in the end, life and liberty can be as much endangered from illegal methods used to convict those thought to be criminals as from the actual criminals themselves.

  Earl Warren

  Law, Police, Feelings

  Writing for the court, Spano v. New York 360 U.S. 321, 1959.

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• Virtue is voluntary, vice involuntary.

  Plato

  Vices, Virtue

  Socrates, Plato, Aristotle (1967). “Wit and Wisdom of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle: Being a Treasury of Thousands of Glorious, Inspiring and Imperishable Thoughts, Views and Observations of the Three Great Greek Philosophers, Classified Under about Four Hundred Subjects for Comparative Study”

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• Talent is the capacity of doing anything that depends on application and industry and it is a voluntary power, while genius is involuntary.

  William Hazlitt

  Genius, Talent, Capacity

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• Love may be likened to a disease in this respect, that when it is denied a vent in one part, it will certainly break out in another; hence what a woman's lips often conceal, her eyes, her blushes, and many little involuntary actions betray.

  Henry Fielding

  Love, Eye, Break Out

  Henry Fielding (1783). “The Beauties of Fielding. Carefully Selected ... To which is Added Some Account of His Life”, p.111

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• Wonder is involuntary praise.

  Edward Young

  Wonder, Praise

  Edward Young, Dr. Doran (John) (1854). “Imperium Pelagi, a naval lyric. Epistles to Mr. Pope, concerning the authors of the age. Sea-piece. The foreign address; or the best argument for peace. Epitaph on Lord Aubrey Beauclerk. Reflections on the public situation of the kingdom. An epistle to the right hon. Sir Robert Walpole. The old man's relapse. Resignation. Tragedies. Prose works”, p.221

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• In many cases hate a person is rooted in the involuntary estimate of its virtues.

  Arthur Schopenhauer

  Hate, Virtue, Cases

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• Thus the feeling I sometimes have - which all of us who work closely with aphasiacs have - that one cannot lie to an aphasiac. He cannot grasp your words, and cannot be deceived by them; but what he grasps he grasps with infallible precision, namely the expression that goes with the words, the total, spontaneous, involuntary expressiveness which can never be simulated or faked, as words alone can, too easily.

  Oliver Sacks

  Lying, Expression, Feelings

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• A line is an involuntary combination of people who are simultaneously irritated with one another and focused on a single, common circle of interests and goals. This leads to a mixture of rivalry, hostility, and collective sentiment, a constant readiness to close ranks against a common enemy - anyone who breaks the rules.

  Lidiya Ginzburg

  Circles, People, Goal

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• When you see persons slip down on the ice, do not laugh at them. ... It is more feminine on witnessing such a sight, to utter an involuntary scream than a shout of laughter.

  Eliza Leslie

  Laughter, Sight, Ice

  Eliza Leslie (2016). “The Ladies' Guide to True Politeness and Perfect Manners”, p.25, Summersdale Publishers LTD - ROW

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• The effusions of genius are entitled to admiration rather than applause, as they are chiefly the effect of natural endowment, and sometimes appear to be almost involuntary.

  William Benton Clulow

  Genius, Admiration, Sometimes

  William Benton Clulow (1843). “Aphorisms and Reflections: A Miscellany of Thought and Opinion”, p.338

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• It is that faculty by which we discover and enjoy the beautiful, the picturesque, and the sublime in literature, art, and nature; which recognizes a noble thought, as a virtuous mind welcomes a pure sentiment by a involuntary glow of satisfaction. But while the principle of perception is inherent in the soul, it requires a certain amount of knowledge to draw out and direct it.

  Robert Aris Willmott

  Beautiful, Art, Soul

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• Some imitation is involuntary and unconscious.

  Robert Aris Willmott

  Imitation, Unconscious

  Robert Aris Willmott (1907). “Pleasures of Literature”

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• When Alexander had subdued the world, and wept that none were left to dispute his arms, his tears were an involuntary tribute to a monarchy that he knew not, man's empire over himself.

  Jane Porter

  Men, Tears, World

  Sir Philip Sidney, Jane Porter (1807). “Aphorisms of Sir Philip Sidney: With Remarks”, p.33

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