“I think too often in our society parents, who may have good impulses, overreach and try to mold and shape and direct their child.” ThinkingTryingMayChildrenParentShapesDirectImpulseOur SocietyMold Author:Michael Sandel
“I have a tendency when I feel myself getting stuck, my impulse is to go to my cupboard and find chips to eat.” FeelsStuckTendenciesImpulseChipsCupboards Author:Sara Bareilles
“I don't believe in guilt, I believe in living on impulse as long as you never intentionally hurt another person, and don't judge people in your life. I think you should live completely free.” PeopleThinkingInspirationalShouldBelievePersonsLongInspirationI BelieveWomenHurtSuccessfulPositiveJudgingGuiltDon't BelieveI Believe InImpulseLiving OnPeople In Your LifeBeliveSuccessful WomenIntentionally Hurt Author:Angelina Jolie
“I was going on this desert adventure with some friends and we were like, "How amazing would it be to just drag all these mirrors out there?" A lot of times I do things as an impulse and find out my inspirations afterward. Even with songs and lyrics, it can take me years to find out what I was actually trying to do.” TryingYearsInspirationSongAdventureMirrorsDesertImpulseTake MeDrag Author:Lykke Li
“Nothing can tell us so much about the general lawlessness of humanity as a perfect acquaintance with our own immoderate behavior. If we would think over our own impulses, we would recognize in our own souls the guiding principle of all vices which we reproach in other people; and if it is not in our very actions, it will be present at least in our impulses. There is no malice that self-love will not offer to our spirits so that we may exploit any occasion, and there are few people virtuous enough not to be tempted.” PeopleIfsThinkingMaySoulSelfEnoughActionSpiritHumanityPerfectPrinciplesSelf LoveOffersBehaviorVicesOccasionsImpulseVirtuousTemptedAcquaintanceExploitsMaliceReproachLawlessnessGuiding Principles Author:Madeleine de Souvre, marquise de Sable
“In November [2016], Americans are gonna have to make a decision about what we care about and who we are. We get these spasms of politics around immigration and fearmongering and then our traditions and our history and our better impulses kick in. That's how we all ended up here. 'Cause I guarantee you at some point every one of us has somebody in our background who people didn't want coming here. And yet here we are.” PeopleWantCareCausesDecisionTraditionBackgroundsImmigrationImpulseKicksWho We AreGuaranteesNovember Author:Barack Obama
“When you are the avatar for the writer/director, a lot of times, I just trusted him. If he had a choice, even if it wasn't necessarily what was my first impulse, I was like, "Billy Ray has been living with this for two years before I even came on board, so I'm going with him."” IfsYearsFirstsHas BeensTwoGuyChoicesDirectorsImpulseBoardsTwo YearsRaysTrustedThis Guy Author:Matt Bomer
“One thing I'm recognizing more and more in myself - and looking to change - is going down more of a self-destructive path when I feel pain. I'm trying to avoid that as much as possible. That is an impulse, when I feel out of control.” FeelsTryingSelfPainPathOne ThingImpulseDestructiveRecognizingSelf Destructive Author:Tyler Blackburn
“I've published many biographies over the years and enjoyed working with writers on their research, discussing it, thinking about it and how it revealed their subject - and one day the impulse came to me to write a life of someone. I made a long list of possible subjects and [ Barbara] Stanwyck was on the list.” ThinkingWritingYearsLongMadeSubjectsOne DayResearchListsEnjoyedImpulseBiographiesDiscussingBarbara Author:Victoria Wilson
“Any unchecked impulse does, within the human body and psyche, lead to the destruction of the organism.” HumansDoeBodyDestructionImpulseOrganismsHuman Body Author:William S. Burroughs
“The everyday brain could be dubbed "the baseline brain," because it operates at the minimum functioning to keep you alive and healthy. It controls your heart rate, your blood pressure, your immune function, all of your subconscious impulses. That's not a minor role; the baseline brain is a marvel of complexity and efficiency. But too much of it is devoted to habits, old conditioning, unconscious reflexes, and lack of self-awareness.” HeartSelfBrainRolesToo MuchAliveBloodAwarenessHabitHealthyFunctionPressureSelf AwarenessEverydayRateImpulseComplexityUnconsciousDevotedMinorsEfficiencyMinimumSubconsciousConditioningImmuneReflexesBlood PressureHeart Rate Author:Deepak Chopra
“There is a need for everyone's brain to be imprinted with more self-enhancing impulses: the impulse to peace over violence, love over fear, compassion over selfishness.” NeedsSelfBrainCompassionViolenceSelfishnessImpulse Author:Deepak Chopra
“Freedom requires responsibility to choose who we are above and beyond our immediate impulses, needs, and social pressures, so that we can genuinely express the type of person we want to be, live the life we truly want to live, leave the legacy we desire.” WantNeedsPersonsDesireSocialResponsibilityTypePressureLegacyImpulseLive LifeWho We AreAbove And BeyondSocial Pressure Book:The Motivation Manifesto Source: The Motivation Manifesto
“There's a difference between hot women and beautiful women. Hot women are everywhere; they abound. They are beautified, not beautiful. Beautiful women, on the other hand, are rare and a real mystery. Hotness speaks to our impulses. Beauty speaks to our imagination.” MenRealHandsBeautifulGirlSpeakWomenImaginationDifferencesMysteryHotSexualityImpulseBeautiful WomenRareHotness Author:Zan Perrion
“When I was in my teens I had a series of intensely religious experiences. They deepened my sense of God as the creator of all things. And they also deepened my sensitivity towards creation itself so that concern for God's creatures and animal rights followed from that. Some people think I'm an animal rights person who just happens, almost incidentally, to be religious. In fact, it's because I believe in God that I'm concerned about God's creatures. The religious impulse is primary.” PeopleThinkingBelievePersonsFactsHappensI BelieveReligiousAnimalRightsCreationCreaturesConcernConcernedAll ThingsSeriesCreatorI Believe InPrimariesImpulseBelieve In GodAnimal RightsTeensSensitivityI Believe In GodReligious Experience Author:Andrew Linzey
“We have no reason to expect the quality of intuition to improve with the importance of the problem. Perhaps the contrary: high-stake problems are likely to involve powerful emotions and strong impulses to action.” ReasonProblemActionStrongPowerfulEmotionQualityImportanceIntuitionContraryImpulseNo ReasonStakesPowerful Emotions Author:Daniel Kahneman
“When you upload a picture of your delicious Caesar salad to Instagram, you don't realize that what you're doing is leaving a tiny little footprint that will be there forever. This seems to be a human impulse.” HumansLittlesSeemsRealizingForeverLeavingTinyImpulseDeliciousInstagramSaladFootprintCaesar Salad Author:Derek Waters
“The "we" voice is rare, and the communal impulse of the "we" is interesting to me.” VoiceInterestingImpulse Author:Micah Perks
“The inimitable writer Maxine Hong Kingston published a book in 2002 with the title To Be the Poet. However, in contrast to the transformatory distinctions Kingston makes between the conditions of being a prose writer and "the poet," my multigenre impulses incline me to a broader transformation: to be a writer.” BookConditionsPoetTransformationImpulseTitlesProseDistinctionContrastIncline Author:Shirley Geok-lin Lim
“Anytime that I have an impulse to pull out my phone and take a picture, especially of a landscape or something, if the first thing I do is reach for the phone, I actually force myself to sit there and at least wait thirty seconds before I actually grab my phone. I'm, like, "No, sit here for thirty seconds, and just see what you think about. What does this make you think about?"” IfsThinkingFirstsDoeForceWaitingPhonesLandscapeImpulseThirtySecondsMake You Think Author:Tyler Hoechlin
“I honestly think the impulse is to grab something and capture it, and not capture a moment that you want to remember, but just capture an image that you want other people to see right away. It's about how someone is going to "like" this and it's no longer an experience. It's just this constant sharing of images. I personally don't like that very much.” PeopleThinkingWantMomentsRememberConstantHonestlyImpulseCapture Author:Tyler Hoechlin
“For some roles, like when I was doing Bent, that was harder and I didn't find that helpful because I was so calorie deprived, my brain wasn't getting food. I would end up not being as focused or as clearheaded as I would have liked to be during the run of the performances. I would lose those quality impulses that you lean on when you're acting because of malnutrition. basically. But I looked skinny.” EndsRunningLosesActingBrainQualityRolesPerformancesHarderFocusedImpulseHelpfulBentDeprivedSkinnyCaloriesMalnutrition Author:Patrick Heusinger
“We all are motivated by deep impulses and deep appetites to serve, even though we may not be able to locate that which we are hoping to serve. So this is just a part of my nature and I think everybody else's nature to offer oneself at the critical moment when the emergency becomes articulate. It's only then that we can locate that willingness to serve.” ThinkingMayMomentsAbleOffersOneselfCriticalImpulseWillingnessMotivatedAppetiteEmergenciesCritical MomentsWillingness To Serve Author:Leonard Cohen
“I imagine a certain amount of consumer impulse will be replaced by community connection. You can already see it starting with things like the local food movement.” CertainCommunityImagineMovementAmountConnectionsStartingLocalsConsumersImpulseReplacedLocal Food Author:Bill McKibben
“You focus on the here and now in order to escape existence forever and vanish into Nirvana. There is another religious impulse that is the opposite of this. It uses a world elsewhere in order to affirm life and give a reason to "go forth and multiply".” WorldGivingReasonUseOrderReligiousExistenceForeverFocusOppositesImpulseElsewhereHere And Now Author:Quentin S. Crisp
“I feel a little as if the Buddhism is creeping back, but I mention all this simply in order to illustrate that there is, in my life, a fundamental sense of conflict between something that I am calling 'Buddhism' and my creative impulse.” IfsFeelsLittlesOrderCreativeBuddhismCallingConflictFundamentalsImpulse Author:Quentin S. Crisp
“I think, the argument sometimes that I've had with folks who are much more interested in sort of race-specific programs is less an argument about what is practically achievable and sometimes maybe more an argument of "We want society to see what's happened, and internalize it, and answer it in demonstrable ways." And those impulses I very much understand.” ThinkingWayWantSometimesAnswersRaceHappenedProgramArgumentFolksImpulse Author:Barack Obama
“There is often with restaurant reviews in particular, I think, this kind of impulse to be deferential and bow down to the greatness of the restaurant and the greatness of the chef, and then with great regret to say, "And yet, all is not as it should be in the kingdom," and I didn't want to do any of that.” ThinkingWantShouldKindGreatnessParticularRegretKingdomsImpulseRestaurantsReviewsBowsChef Author:Pete Wells
“Slavery is the most insane thing... I don't know that we've ever seen in history, but it's got to be close. The idea of slavery is such a base impulse. It's like, "I'm going to kidnap you and then you're going to do everything I want." Like, what? And then there's the historical aspect. It had a huge effect on human history.” KnowsWantHumansIdeasEffectsHugeAspectSlaveryHistoricalInsaneImpulseHuman History Author:Neal Brennan
“This word "LOVE" - discredited, "clicheed" - can be restored and love, the instinct, the impulse to care for somebody in the hope that somebody will care for you - plus our language, the language, a language - is about all we have. With everything else going on, this is what makes us, what keeps us human.” HumansCareLanguageAnd LoveInstinctImpulsePlusWords LoveCare For You Author:Toni Morrison
“What does the frontal cortex do? Gratification postponement, executive function, long-term planning, and impulse control. Basically, it makes you do the harder thing.” LongDoeTermFunctionHarderPlanningImpulseLong TermExecutivesGratificationPostponementImpulse Control Author:Robert M. Sapolsky
“Who's the big government guy? These labels are nonsense. And the Tea Party, if you want to call them working class, you know, a working-class insurgency from below, they are a mass of contradictions; they don't have a single consistent viewpoint; but part of their impulse is to be wary of government.” IfsKnowsWantBigsGovernmentGuyPartyClassMassLabelsTeaImpulseConsistentContradictionNonsenseWorking ClassViewpointsTea PartyBig GovernmentInsurgency Author:Bill Ayers
“I'm wary of government. Part of [the Tea Party] impulse is to dislike and be worried about the rich. I'm that way too. So I don't find them to be as atrocious as most people do, as your liberals do. I'm not a liberal.” PeopleWayGovernmentPartyRichTeaWorriedImpulseDislikeTea Party Author:Bill Ayers
“I think when you get to export your creative impulse into something, it kind of lessens that busy energy that can be so confrontational and pissy.” ThinkingKindEnergyCreativeBusyImpulse Author:George Saunders
“I am a superior form of human and I have absolutely no quirks or irrational impulses of any kind.” HumansKindFormSuperiorsImpulseIrrationalQuirks Author:Dave Barry
“Writing is like a 'lust,' or like 'scratching when you itch.' Writing comes as a result of a very strong impulse, and when it does come, I for one must get it out.” WritingDoeStrongResultsLustImpulseVery Strong Author:C. S. Lewis
“Sometimes I see my students, especially the ones with a gift for the lyrical, reaching far outside the realm of their own experience for language and images. I understand this impulse. We think, in the beginning, that striking exotic words together will create something entirely new. That we must be worldly in our vocabulary. We idolize the styles of other writers and don't trust or perhaps yet know our own.” ThinkingKnowsSometimesTogetherLanguageStyleStudentsImpulseRealmsReachingWorldlyVocabularyExoticDon't TrustLyrical Author:Melissa Febos
“It does not in the least concern me whether I shall have at the end of my life thirty people who understand or three hundred. I am like an artist who paints a picture because he must, otherwise he is unhappy - not unhappy, but he must obey that creative impulse.” PeopleDoeEndsArtistThreeCreativeHundredConcernPaintUnhappyImpulseThirty Author:Jiddu Krishnamurti
“Alteration is a constructive act, not a destructive one, and it's the opposite of most of our impulses.” OppositesImpulseDestructiveConstructiveAlterations Author:Dario Robleto
“For me, reggae music and its aesthetic are touchstones in both simple and complex ways. Reggae's capacity to be a folk music that is created in a wholly modern context of the recording studio (and sometimes that is the sole performance space) is riddled with the kinds of contradictory impulses that we have come to expect from the post-modern. I revel in this, for it gives me, shall I say, permission.” WayGivingKindSometimesSimpleSpaceModernCapacityPerformancesGive MeComplexesFolksStudiosPostsImpulseAestheticSolePermissionContradictoryReggaeFolk MusicTouchstonesRecording StudioReggae MusicSimple And Complex Author:Kwame Dawes
“I can start with the idea of taking until you can take off, through the idea that all of my writing foregrounds the idea of how I'm taking from my own life. I'm stealing from my own life in a way, and from the people around me, but in service of getting somewhere else. I'm starting with an autobiographical impulse, to get a better vantage on the circumstances of the life that I happen to be in at the moment and how that life connects to others.” PeopleWritingMomentsCircumstancesStealingImpulse Author:Douglas A. Martin
“I think that the casual reader and the lyric and confession are trickily tied up together. I mean often when I read my students' poems my first impulse is to say, "O, the subject of this pronoun, this 'I,' is whatever kid wrote this poem." The audience for lyric poems is "confessionalized" to some extent. And I think this audience tends to find long narrative poems, for instance, kind of bewildering.” ThinkingKindMeanLongKidsTogetherAudienceImpulseConfessionTied Up Author:Shane McCrae
“The church is like any large corporation in one respect. In its early days, either the early church or the early years of Microsoft, you see all kinds of creativity, innovation, invention, people have nothing to lose, they're trying to find what works. Then you wake up and you're a vast enterprise, and it's very hard, when you have all kinds of buildings and structures and hierarchy and so on, to hang on to these very creative impulses that helped you get your great success in the first place. As a church we're going to have to figure a way out from under this.” PeopleTryingKindChurchCreativityCreativeBuildingWake UpInnovationInventionAll KindsImpulseEnterpriseGreat Success Author:Chris Lowney
“Generally the impulse to find justice through punitive measures can be a kind of quicksand. What James Whitman, the scholar I cite in the chapter of my book, talks about as an urge to level down, I think you see that everywhere. We're going to be a punitive society, so we might as well level out that punitiveness. Bankers and college swim stars and everyone face that same kind of wrath.” ThinkingKindBookJusticeCollegeImpulseSwimScholarCitingQuicksand Author:Chris Hayes
“The desire to punish is a desire that emanates from a place of equality and justice. The lesson I feel that we have to confront is that that impulse is so easily transmuted into something corrosive and corrupt in how it's actually put into practice. That's the danger. It's not that the impulse is wrong or unjust or not totally righteous. It's that the ways in which the system that operates, the system that we've constructed tends to not deliver the promise of equity we might want, when we look to the system to provide it.” DesireJusticeDangerPromiseImpulseRighteousEquity Author:Chris Hayes
“Writing, for me, has to do with liberty of mind. The liberty to intuit, assess, be surprised, even to be ashamed and reconsider. To feel the integrity and generosity of words, but also their disruptive violence and volatility. To even begin to do them justice requires a radical letting go and stringent attention. I was interested in following that impulse toward liberty.” WritingMindJusticeAttentionLibertyViolenceIntegrityLetting GoRadicalGenerosityImpulseAshamed Author:Laurie Sheck
“terrorism is interesting to a novelist because it's a crime that's driven by an idea, as opposed to some kind of base materialist impulse. It's not like stealing from someone's house, or even assassinating someone. There are very complex ideological reasons behind these almost abstract acts of violence.” KindReasonHouseInterestingViolenceCrimeTerrorismDrivenStealingImpulseAbstractIdeological Author:Karan Mahajan
“Arts and the Sciences are a natural symbiosis. They stem from the same human existential impulse - exploration. Exploration of what lies beneath the surface, and re-confuguration of elements of what we call reality.” ArtRealityLyingNaturalImpulseExplorationExistentialStem Author:Wole Soyinka
“A related aspect of intelligent consciousness is delay of gratification: the wisdom to accurately predict whether delay rather than acting on impulse will yield greater benefit.” ActingConsciousnessIntelligentImpulseGratification Author:Michio Kaku