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Impulse Quotes

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Impulse Quotes

“The Word 'Repulse': I hate this word. I believe 'repel' is a perfectly good word, and 'repulsion' is the noun, as well as the title of an excellent Dinosaur Jr. song. A compulsion compels you; an impulse impels you. Nobody ever says 'compulse' or 'impulse' as a verb. So why would you ever say 'repulse'? This word haunts me in my sleep, like a silver dagger dancing before my eyes. Renee looked it up and I was wrong. But I still kind of think I'm right.”

ThinkingBelieveWellsKindStillsEyeHateSongI BelieveSleepI HateDancingImpulseTitlesExcellentSilverCompulsionDinosaursVerbsNounsDaggersGood WordsPerfectly GoodRepulsion
Author:Rob Sheffield
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“Strictly speaking, there are no such things as good and bad impulses. Think...of a piano. It has not got two kinds of notes on it, the 'right' notes and the 'wrong' ones. Every single note is right at one time and wrong at another. The Moral Law is not any one instinct or set of instincts: it is something which makes a kind of tune (the tune we call goodness or right conduct) by directing the instincts.”

ThinkingKindTwoLawMoralGoodnessNotesInstinctImpulsePianoTunesOne TimeGood And BadMoral LawRight Conduct
Author:C. S. Lewis
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“The republican principle demands that the deliberate sense of the community should govern the conduct of those to whom they intrust the management of their affairs; but it does not require an unqualified complaisance to every sudden breeze of passion or to every transient impulse which the people may receive from the arts of men, who flatter their prejudices to betray their interests.”

PeopleMenShouldMayDoeArtPassionInterestCommunityPrinciplesRepublicanDemandPrejudiceManagementAffairImpulseBetrayBreezeDeliberateTransientUnqualifiedRepublican Government
Book:The Federalist Papers and the Constitution of the United States: The Principles of the American Government
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“But soon we shall die and all memory of those five will have left the earth, and we ourselves shall be loved for a while and forgotten. But the love will have been enough; all those impulses of love return to the love that made them. Even memory is not necessary for love. There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning.”

Has BeensMadeEnoughEarthDiesLeftMemoriesFiveLandReturnSurvivalForgottenImpulseBridges
Book:A Thornton Wilder Trio: The Cabala, The Bridge of San Luis Rey, The Woman of Andros
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“Wish you could turn off the questions, turn off the voices, turn off all sound. Yearn to close out the ugliness, close out the filthiness, close out all light. Long to cast away yesterday, cast away memory, cast away all jeapordy. Pray you could somehow stop uncertainty, somehow stop the loathing, somehow stop the pain. Act on your impulse, swallow the bottle, cut a little deeper, put the gun to your chest.”

LittlesLongLightPainTurnsWishSoundVoiceMemoriesCuttingPrayingGunCastsDeeperYesterdayImpulseUncertaintyChestsBottlesUglinessWish YouLoathingTurn OffCast Away
Book:Impulse
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“Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is. ... We never find out the strength of the evil impulse inside us until we try to fight it: and Christ, because He was the only man who never yielded to temptation, is also the only man who knows to the full what temptation means—the only complete realist.”

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Book:A Mind Awake: An Anthology of C. S. Lewis
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“To love righteousness is to make it grow, not to avenge it. Throughout his life on earth, Jesus resisted every impulse to work more rapidly for a lower good.”

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Book:The Complete Works of George MacDonald: Novels, Short Stories, Poetry, Theological Writings & Essays (Illustrated): The Princess and the Goblin, Phantastes, At the Back of the North Wind, Lilith, England’s Antiphon, David Elginbrod, Malcolm, The Light Princess, The Golden Key and many more
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“She opened her mouth but did not immediately speak, and I felt, simultaneously, the impulse to coax the words from her and the impulse to suppress them. I always thought I wanted to know a secret, or I wanted an event to unfold – I wanted my life to start – but in those rare moments when it seemed like something might actually change, panic shot through me.”

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Book:Prep: a novel
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“There are moments, psychologists tell us, when the passion for sin, or what the world calls sin, so dominates a nature, that every fibre of the body, as every cell of the brain, seems to be instinct with fearful impulses. Men and women at such moments lose the freedom of their will. They move to their terrible end as automatons move. Choice is taken from them, and conscience is either killed, or, if it lives at all, lives but to give rebellion its fascination, and disobedience its charm.”

IfsMenWorldGivingEndsMomentsBodySeemsMovingChoicesPassionLosesSinBrainTakenTerribleConscienceMen And WomenInstinctCellsImpulseCharmRebellionFearfulFascinationDisobediencePsychologist
Book:The Picture of Dorian Gray: The Story of a Fashionable Young Man Who Sells His Soul for Eternal Youth and Beauty (Beloved Books Edition)
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“Thinking about time is to acknowledge two contradictory certainties: that our outward lives are governed by the seasons and the clock; that our inward lives are governed by something much less regular-an imaginative impulse cutting through the dictates of daily time, and leaving us free to ignore the boundaries of here and now and pass like lightning along the coil of pure time, that is, the circle of the universe and whatever it does or does not contain.”

ThinkingDoeTwoUniverseCuttingPureSeasonsLeavingCirclesBoundariesCertaintyImpulseClockAcknowledgeLightningInwardImaginativeContradictoryHere And Now
Book:Sexing the Cherry
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“When you loved me I gave you the whole sun and stars to play with. I gave you eternity in a single moment, strength of the mountains in one clasp of your arms, and the volume of all the seas in one impulse of your soul.”

LoveSoulPlayWholeMomentsStarsSunSeaArmsMountainRomanticEternityYour SoulImpulseVolumePast LoveSun And Stars
Book:The Collected Works of George Bernard Shaw: Plays, Novels, Articles, Lectures, Letters and Essays: Pygmalion, Mrs. Warren’s Profession, Candida, Arms and The Man, Man and Superman, Caesar and Cleopatra, Androcles And The Lion, The New York Times Articles on War, Memories of Oscar Wilde and more
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“An Irish Airman foresees his Death I Know that I shall meet my fate Somewhere among the clouds above; Those that I fight I do not hate Those that I guard I do not love, My country is Kiltartan Cross, My countrymen Kiltartan’s poor, No likely end could bring them loss Or leave them happier than before. Nor law, nor duty bade me fight, Nor public man, nor cheering crowds, A lonely impulse of delight Drove to this tumult in the clouds; I balanced all, brought all to mind, The years to come seemed waste of breath, A waste of breath the years behind In balance with this life, this death.”

KnowsMenYearsMindEndsCountryLawHateFightingLossPoorBehindsFateDutyBalanceWasteCrossesLonelyBreathsCloudsCrowdsDelightThis LifeImpulseCheerBalancedCountrymenTumultAirmen
Author:William Butler Yeats
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“The point is... to live one's life in the full complexity of what one is, which is something much darker, more contradictory, more of a maelstrom of impulses and passions, of cruelty, ecstacy, and madness, than is apparent to the civilized being who glides on the surface and fits smoothly into the world.”

WorldPassionFitMadnessSurfaceCrueltyImpulseComplexityCivilizedContradictoryMaelstrom
Book:Secular Philosophy and the Religious Temperament: Essays 2002-2008
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