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Impulse Quotes

Browse 1350 quotes about Impulse.

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Impulse Quotes

“We men are easily prone to sins of thought. Therefore, He who has formed each heart individually, knowing that the impulse received from the intention constitutes the major element in sin, has ordained that purity in the ruling part of our soul be our primary concern.”

MenHeartSoulSinKnowingElementsMajorsConcernIntentionPrimariesImpulsePurityRuling
Book:Ascetical Works (The Fathers of the Church, Volume 9)
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“I have an addictive personality. Sport is my drug of choice these days. It's one of the best drugs there is. It keeps you fit and healthy, even if, in the case of ironman, it pushes your body to the limit. The word "addiction" comes with negative connotations, but it doesn't have to be a damaging impulse. It's all about channeling your craving into something positive.”

IfsBodyMotivationalChoicesSportsCasesPersonalityFitHealthyDrugLimitsNegativeAddictionYour BodyImpulseThese DaysCravingChannelingConnotationIronman
Book:A Life Without Limits: A World Champion's Journey
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“One of the fundamental demonstrations of our natural instinct to Bond with each other is a will to give. Rather than domination, our most basic urge is to reach out to another human being, even at a cost to ourselves. Giving to others-the urge to empathize, to be compassionate, and to help others altruistically-is not the exception to the rule, but our natural state of being. Our impulse to connect with each other has developed an automatic desire to do for others, even at personal cost. Altruism comes naturally to us. It is selfishness that is culturally conditioned and a sign of pathology.”

InspirationalGivingHumansStatesHelpingDesireNaturalHuman BeingsCostFundamentalsInstinctHelping OthersSelfishnessImpulseExceptionUrgesCompassionateReach OutAltruismDominationDemonstrationPathologyGiving To OthersNatural InstinctSelf GivingException To The Rule
Author:Lynne McTaggart
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“You must have the discipline and temperament to resist your impulses. Human beings have precisely the wrong instincts when it comes to the markets. If you recognise this, you can resist the urge to buy into a rally and sell into a decline. It’s also helpful to remember the power of compounding. You don’t need to stretch for returns to grow your capital over the course of your life.”

IfsNeedsHumansRememberCoursesGrowsHuman BeingsReturnDisciplineSellsInstinctImpulseUrgesHelpfulDeclineTemperamentRecognise
Author:Irving Kahn
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“We have learned that beneath the surface of an ordinary everyday normal casual conscious existence there lies a vast dynamic world of impulse and dream, a hinterland of energy which has an independent existence of its own and laws of its own: laws which motivate all our thoughts and our actions.”

WorldDreamActionLawLyingEnergyExistenceNormalOrdinaryConsciousIndependentEverydaySurfaceImpulseOur ThoughtsOur ActionsCasualBeneath The Surface
Book:The Dramatic Imagination: Reflections and Speculations on the Art of the Theatre, Reissue
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“The Great Story of our immense journey contains crucial lessons for guiding humanity safely through the dangers and confusions evident today. This grand epic will propel us forward in a spirit of expectant curiosity. We will place our trust not only in the Whole but also in our own species' capacity to serve as the vessel through which the evolutionary impulse is most active at this time.”

WholeStoriesTodaySpiritHumanityJourneyDangerLessonsCapacitySpeciesCuriosityActiveConfusionImpulseCrucialImmenseEpicEvidentVessel
Book:Thank God for Evolution: How the Marriage of Science and Religion Will Transform Your Life and Our World
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“It’s the strangest thing about this church - it is obsessed with sex, absolutely obsessed. Now they will say we, with our permissive society and rude jokes, are obsessed. No, we have a healthy attitude. We like it, it’s fun, it’s jolly; because it’s a primary impulse it can be dangerous and dark and difficult. It’s a bit like food in that respect, only even more exciting. The only people who are obsessed with food are anorexics and the morbidly obese, and that in erotic terms is the Catholic church in a nutshell.”

PeopleFunSexBitsDifficultTermChurchDarkAttitudeDangerousHealthyJokesExcitingCatholicPrimariesImpulseObsessedRudeEroticCatholic ChurchJollyObeseAnorexics
Author:Stephen Fry
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“Men may be very learned, and yet very miserable; it is easy to be a deep geometrician, or a sublime astronomer, but very difficult to be a good man. I esteem, therefore, the traveller who instructs the heart, but despise him who only indulges the imagination. A man who leaves home to mend himself and others, is a philosopher; but he who goes from country to country, guided by the blind impulse of curiosity, is only a vagabond.”

MenHeartMayCountryHomeEasyDifficultImaginationBlindCuriosityPhilosopherEsteemMiserableImpulseGood ManDespiseSublimeIndulgeTravellerAstronomersVagabonds
Book:The works of Oliver Goldsmith. 2: Enquiry into the present state of polite learning; The citizen of the world
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“Love is something difficult and it is more difficult than other things because in other conflicts nature herself enjoins men to collect themselves, to take themselves firmly in the hand with all their strength, while in the heightening of love the impulse is to give oneself wholly away.”

MenGivingHandsDifficultLove IsConflictOneselfImpulse
Book:Rilke on Love and Other Difficulties: Translations and Considerations
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“To a degree which is difficult to determine, the esoteric impulse in twentieth-century music, literature and the arts reflects calculation. It looks to the flattery of academic and hermeneutic notice. Reciprocally, the academy turns towards that which appears to require its exegetic, cryptographic skills.”

LooksArtTurnsLiteratureDifficultCenturySkillsDegreesDetermineImpulseAcademicFlatteryTwentieth CenturyAcademyCalculationsEsotericHermeneutics
Book:Real Presences: Is There Anything in What We Say?
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“Natural writers will often try to force themselves into a form - novel, story, screenplay, or poem - that is not necessarily the appropriate form for the way they see the world... if, in fact, they are writing from the artist's impulse, which is a deep, inchoate vision of some sort of order behind the apparent chaos of life on planet earth, they'll be driven then to express that vision in the creation of the object - the art object.”

IfsWorldWayWritingTryingArtFactsStoriesEarthFormArtistOrderForceNaturalBehindsVisionNovelCreationObjectsPlanetsChaosDrivenImpulseAppropriateScreenplaysPlanet Earth
Author:Robert Olen Butler
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“One might expect, perhaps, that a man full of genius could pasture in the greatness of his own thoughts, and renounce the cheap approbation of the crowd which he despises; yet he succumbs to the more powerful impulse of the herd instinct. His searching and his finding, his call, belong to the herd.”

MenMightPowerfulGreatnessGeniusFindingsInstinctCrowdsImpulseDespiseHerdsRenouncePastures
Book:Psychology of the Unconscious
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“When a child who has been conceived in love is born to a man and a woman, the joy of that birth sings throughout the universe. The joy of writing or painting is much the same, and the insemination comes not from the artist himself but from his relationship with those he loves, with the whole world. All real art is, in its true sense, religious; it is a religious impulse; there is not such thing as a non-religious subject.”

MenWorldWritingChildrenHas BeensArtRealWholeJoyArtistUniverseBornReligiousLove IsSubjectsPaintingBirthArt IsWhole WorldImpulseNon Religious
Author:Madeleine L'Engle
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“THE NINETEENTH CENTURY SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY WAS DUE PRIMARILY TO A NEW BURST OF RELIGIOUS LIFE EMANATING FROM THE CHRISTIAN IMPULSE. . . . NEVER IN ANY CORRESPONDING LENGTH OF TIME HAD THE CHRISTIAN IMPULSE GIVEN RISE TO SO MANY NEW MOVEMENTS. NEVER HAD IT HAD QUITE SO GREAT AN EFFECT UPON WESTERN EUROPEAN PEOPLES. IT WAS FROM THIS ABOUNDING VIGOR THAT THERE ISSUED THE MISSIONARY ENTERPRISE WHICH DURING THE NINETEENTH CENTURY SO AUGMENTED THE NUMERICAL STRENGTH AND THE INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY.”

ChristianGivenReligiousChristianityInfluenceEffectsCenturyMovementWesternSpreadDuesImpulseEnterpriseLengthMissionaryNineteenth CenturyVigorCorrespondingReligious Life
Author:Kenneth Scott Latourette
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“On reflection, moral judgment in the arts appears rather as a tribute to their power to influence emotion and possibly conduct. And reflecting further on what some critics do today, one sees that a good many have merely shifted the ground of their moralism, transferring their impulse of righteousness to politics and social issues.”

ArtTodaySocialEmotionMoralIssuesInfluenceJudgmentReflectionCriticsImpulseGood ManRighteousnessSocial IssuesReflectingTributeMoral JudgmentMoralism
Book:The Culture We Deserve
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“The ever-present impulse is to push against restriction and, in so doing, to feel intolerably hemmed in. Thus in practice, every liberation increases the sense of oppression. Nor is the paradox merely in the mind: the laws enacted to secure the rights of every person and group, by creating protective boundaries, create new barriers.”

FeelsMindPersonsLawPracticeRightsGroupsCreatingIncreaseBoundariesOppressionSecureLiberationImpulseBarriersParadoxRestrictionProtective
Author:Jacques Barzun
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“The criminal law has, from the point of view of thwarted virtue, the merit of allowing an outlet for those impulses of aggression which cowardice, disguised as morality, restrains in their more spontaneous forms. War has the same merit. You must not kill you neighbor, whom perhaps you genuinely hate, but by a little propaganda this hate can be transferred to some foreign nation, against whom all your murderous impulses become patriotic heroism.”

LittlesWarFormLawHateNationsViewsVirtueMoralityPoint Of ViewNeighborCriminalsImpulsePropagandaMeritPatrioticAllowingCowardiceHeroismAggressionSpontaneousOutletsCriminal Law
Author:Bertrand Russell
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“Most men do not feel in themselves the competence required for leading their group to victory, and therefore seek out a captain who appears to possess the courage and sagacity necessary for the achievement of supremacy. Even in religion this impulse appears. Nietzsche accused Christianity of inculcating a slave-morality, but ultimate triumph was always the goal. "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”

MenFeelsEarthGoalChristianityGroupsVictoryMoralityAchievementUltimateBlessedSlaveTriumphImpulseCaptainsAccusedCompetenceSupremacyMeekSagacity
Book:Power: A New Social Analysis
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“The psychical condition of men's minds may be compared with a set of bells close together, and so arranged that in the ordinary man a bell rings only when one beside it sounds, and the vibration lasts only a moment. In the genius, when a bell sounds it vibrates so strongly that it sets in action the whole series, and remains in action throughout life. The latter kind of movement often gives rise to extraordinary conditions and absurd impulses, that may last for weeks together and that form the basis of the supposed kinship of genius with insanity.”

MenGivingMindKindMayWholeMomentsActionTogetherLastsFormSoundWeekConditionsMovementGeniusOrdinaryBasesRemainsSeriesExtraordinaryRingsAbsurdImpulseInsanityLatterBellsVibrationsKinshipOrdinary ManVibrate
Author:Otto Weininger
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“There is a powerful craving in most of us to see ourselves as instruments in the hands of others and thus free ourselves from the responsibility for acts which are prompted by our own questionable inclinations and impulses. Both the strong and the weak grasp at this alibi. The latter hide their malevolence under the virtue of obedience: they acted dishonorably because they had to obey orders. The strong, too, claim absolution by proclaiming themselves the chosen instrument of a higher power -- God, history, fate, nation, or humanity.”

HandsHumanityOrderStrongNationsPowerfulResponsibilityVirtueFateHigherWeakClaimsInstrumentsChosenObedienceImpulseLatterInclinationCravingHigher PowerQuestionableProclaimingAbsolutionMalevolence
Book:Bruce Lee: Artist of Life
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“Man is an evasive beast, given to cultivating strange notions about himself. He is humiliated by his simian ancestry, and tries to deny his animal nature, to persuade himself that he is not limited by its weaknesses nor concerned in its fate. And this impulse may be harmless, when it is genuine. But what are we to say when we see the formulas of heroic self-deception made use of by unheroic self-indulgence?”

MenTryingMayMadeSelfUseGivenAnimalFateStrangeWeaknessConcernedNotionDenyGenuineDeceptionImpulseBeastFormulasHeroicIndulgenceSelf DeceptionAncestryHumiliatedCultivatingSelf Indulgence
Author:Upton Sinclair
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“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.”

MenMindLightEffortExampleGeniusExcitingBraveEndlessChainsImpulseFlamesDistinctionFacultyAdmirationOne ManLinksImitationSuccessionVigorousAristocracyRough TimesPerpetuating
Book:Self-help: With Illustrations of Character and Conduct
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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.”

MenWorldGivingHas BeensLastsNationsWealthResultsNumbersMiddleCenturyIndustryEnglandRelationProsperityVariousKingdomsImpulseBranchesImmenseHarvestWorld HistoryParallelsIngeniousContinental
Author:Samuel Smiles
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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.”

MenLoveSoulShowsForceEasyAnswersConsciousnessDivineHe ManImpulseAttributesQuestioningGreat LoveMysticRaptureArdentGladnessShrinesWorshippersGrappling
Book:Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated)
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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.”

MenHas BeensIdeasSelfDesireOrderAnimalMoralPrinciplesDutyHigherMereSatisfactionImpressionRecognitionImpulseRisingMasterySelf MasteryBundlesMouldAnimal LifeSubordinationMoral Life
Book:Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated)
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