Quotessence
Home / Topics / Impulse Quotes

Impulse Quotes

Browse 1350 quotes about Impulse.

Related topics

MenIfsThinkingPeopleHumansGivingDesireWantWayCreativeWorldWritingFeelsFirstsKnowsNeedsMaySelfArtSoulTryingHeartMindDoeActionKindMomentsFeelingsInstinctNaturalIdeasPassionReasonWellsMeanPersonsSometimesWholeCharacterFormSeemsBelieveCreativityHas BeensDifferentEmotionLittlesMadeSocialTwoShouldSpiritArtistEndsIndividualImportantReligiousSpiritualStrongChildrenConsciousnessDoneDreamLongBodyInspirationalLifeLoveLyingMightMoralRealityUseDestructiveJoyRealStillsYearsBookCertainEnergyForceGivenResultsValuesWarWould BeEnoughHandsHomePlayPowerfulStatesTogetherYoungAbleBlindCircumstancesLawLightmore

Impulse Quotes

“I go on working for the same reason that a hen goes on laying eggs. There is in every living creature an obscure but powerful impulse to active functioning. Life demands to be lived. Inaction, save as a measure of recuperation between bursts of activity, is painful and dangerous to the healthy organism- in fact, it is almost impossible. Only the dying can be really idle.”

LifeReasonFactsSuccessPowerfulImpossibleDyingDangerousGoes OnHealthyActivityDemandCreaturesPainfulActiveImpulseEggsIdleOrganismsSuccess In LifeObscureInactionLiving CreaturesHensRecuperation
Author:H. L. Mencken
Create image

“Anglers may be divided into almost as many genera and species as the fish they catch, and engage in the sport from as many impulses.”

MaySportsSeaRiversSpeciesFishesBoatImpulseLakesFishingDividedAnglers
Book:The American Angler's Book: Embracing the Natural History of Sporting Fish, and the Art of Taking Them. With Instructions in Fly-fishing, Fly-making, and Rod-making; and Directions for Fish-breeding. To which is Appended, Dies Piscatoriæ: Describing Noted Fishing-places, and the Pleasure of Solitary Fly-fishing
Create image

“Like the panic stricken populace of 'The War of the Worlds' and countless other 1950s invasion movies, the victims are there to provide the human ground over which monster and expert, threat and defender, disordering and ordering impulses can battle it out. Second-class citizens of the genre, they are narratively indispensable because physically entirely disposable. We are only really involved with them in the momentary tension of their capture or demise.”

WorldHumansWarFilmClassCitizensInvolvedBattleHollywoodVictimThreatMonstersImpulseGenreWar Of The WorldsExpertsTensionCapturePanicIndispensableInvasionDefendersMomentaryDemiseDisposableSecond Class Citizens
Author:Andrew Tudor
Create image

“Along with supernature and science, there is one other major source of horror movies disorder: the human psyche, most commonly homicidal psychosis. Unlike 'mad' scientists, horror-movies madmen are not visionary obsessives, glorifying in scientific reason as they single-mindedly purse their researches. They are, rather, victims of overpowering impulses that well up from within; monsters brought forth by the sleep of reason, not by its attractions.”

HumansWellsReasonFilmSleepSourceHorrorMajorsResearchHollywoodScientistVictimMadAttractionMonstersImpulseDisorderVisionariesPursesMadmenPsychosisOverpoweringHuman PsycheHomicidalMad Scientist
Author:Andrew Tudor
Create image

“My chief aim was to combat the view that there can be no true morality without supernatural sanctions. So I argued at length that the social, or altruistic, impulses are the real source of morality, and that an ethic based on these impulses has far more claim on our allegiance than an ethic based on obedience to the commands of a God who created tapeworms and cancer-cells.”

RealSocialViewsAtheismSourceMoralityEthicsClaimsAimCancerPositive AtheismCommandChiefsCellsObedienceImpulseLengthCombatAllegianceSanctions
Author:Margaret E. Knight
Create image

“In Tar Baby, the classic concept of the individual with a solid, coherent identity is eschewed for a model of identity which sees the individual as a kaleidoscope of heterogeneous impulses and desires, constructed from multiple forms of interaction with the world as a play of difference that cannot be completely comprehended.”

WorldPlayFormDesireLiteratureIndividualDifferencesIdentityBabyModelsConceptsImpulseClassicInteractionMultipleKaleidoscope
Author:Toni Morrison
Create image

“There should always be that leeway because if you think of your character as sort of absolutely fixed, then you just try and find actors to come and do exactly that thing, then you're not gonna be working with that actor's own set of internal impulses and who they are, so the best work is always a coming together of the actor and the character.”

IfsThinkingShouldTryingCharacterTogetherActorsImpulseFixedInternalsThink Of YouBest WorkComing Together
Author:Lenny Abrahamson
Create image

“Heroism is no extempore work of transient impulse--a rocket rushing fretfully up to disturb the darkness by which, after a moment's insulting radiance, it is ruthlessly swallowed up,--but a steady fire, which darts forth tongues of flame. It is no sparkling epigram of action, but a luminous epic of character.”

MomentsCharacterActionDarknessFireTongueImpulseFlamesSteadyHeroismEpicRocketsInsultingRushingLuminousTransientRadianceEpigramsSparklingDarts
Author:Edwin Percy Whipple
Create image

“As the grand discordant harmony of the celestial bodies may be explained by the simple principles of gravity and impulse, so also in that more wonderful and complicated microcosm, the heart of man, all the phenomena of morals are perhaps resolvable into one single principle, the pursuit of apparent good; for although customs universally vary, yet man in all climates and countries is essentially the same.”

MenHeartMayCountryBodySimpleMoralPrinciplesWonderfulHarmonyClimateComplicatedPursuitImpulseMotiveCustomsGravityVaryCelestialMicrocosmCelestial Bodies
Book:Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think
Create image

“The impulse which directs to right conduct, and deters from crime, is not only older than the ages of nations and cities, but coeval with that Divine Being who sees and rules both heaven and earth.”

AgeEarthHeavenNationsCitiesCrimeDivineConscienceImpulseHeaven And EarthRight Conduct
Book:Three Books of Offices; Or, Moral Duties: Also His Cato Major, an Essay on Old Age; Laelius, an Essay on Friendship; Paradoxes; Scipio's Dream; and Letter to Quintus on the Duties of a Magistrate. Literally Translated, with Notes, Designed to Exhibit a Comparative View of the Opinions of Cicero, and Those of Modern Moralists and Ethical Philosophers
Create image

“The drama is not a mere copy of nature, not a facsimile. It is the free running hand of genius, under the impression of its liveliest wit or most passionate impulses, a thousand times adorning or feeling all as it goes; and you must read it, as the healthy instinct of audiences almost always does, if the critics will let them alone, with a grain of allowance, and a tendency to go away with as much of it for use as is necessary, and the rest for the luxury of laughter, pity, or poetical admiration.”

IfsDoeUseFeelingsHandsRunningAudienceGeniusHealthyDramaThousandLaughterMereInstinctCriticsPassionateWitImpressionPityTendenciesLuxuryImpulseGoing AwayAdmirationCopiesGrainAllowance
Author:Leigh Hunt
Create image

“Etiquette is about all of human social behavior. Behavior is regulated by law when etiquette breaks down or when the stakes are high - violations of life, limb, property and so on. Barring that, etiquette is a little social contract we make that we will restrain some of our more provocative impulses in return for living more or less harmoniously in a community.”

HumansLittlesLawSocialCommunityBreakReturnBehaviorPropertyMannersImpulseContractsStakesBreaking DownLimbsEtiquetteViolationProvocativeSocial ContractSocial BehaviorLiving More
Author:Judith Martin
Create image

“Tragedy massages the human ego even as comedy deflates it. ... Tragedy pits us against large foes and the trip wire is our own character. ... In comedy we fall afoul of one another. Comedy depends on social life, on our behavior in groups. In tragedy you can observe one human against the gods. In comedy it's one human versus other humans and often one man (or woman if I'm writing it) against her own worst impulses.”

IfsMenWritingHumansCharacterFallSocialComedyGroupsWorstDependsEgoBehaviorTragedyImpulseOne ManVersusFoeWirePitsSocial LifeMassage
Author:Rita Mae Brown
Create image

“Uncontrollable consumerism has become a watchword of our culture despite regular and compelling calls for its end. The United States has more malls than high schools; Americans spend more time shopping than reading. ... Some of the most insightful writing about the American character over the nation's history has been about neither freedom nor democracy but about the crazed impulse to acquire things.”

WritingHas BeensEndsStatesCharacterSchoolCultureReadingNationsUnitedUnited StatesDemocracyHigh SchoolDespiteImpulseAcquireMore TimeInsightfulShoppingCompellingConsumerismMallsUncontrollableAmerican Character
Book:Loud and Clear
Create image

“The impulse to make ourselves safer by making ourselves less free is an old one ... When we are badly frightened, we think we can make ourselves safer by sacrificing some of our liberties. We did it during the McCarthy era out of fear of communism. Less liberty is regularly proposed as a solution to crime, to pornography, to illegal immigration, to abortion, to all kinds of threats.”

ThinkingKindLibertyRightsSacrificeSecurityCrimeSolutionsThreatImmigrationAll KindsCommunismErasImpulseAbortionIllegalFrightenedPornographyIllegal Immigration
Author:Molly Ivins
Create image

“The Indian who fells the tree that he may gather the fruit, and the Arab who plunders the caravans of commerce are actuated by the same impulse of savage nature, and relinquish for momentary rapine the long and secure possession of the most important blessings.”

MayLongImportantTreeBlessingFruitPossessionSecureIndianImpulseCommerceSavagesMomentaryPlunderCaravans
Book:The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
Create image

“The measure of our rationality determines the degree of vividness with which we appreciate the needs of other life, the extent to which we become conscious of the real character of our own motives and impulses, the ability to harmonize conflicting impulses in our own life and in society, and the capacity to choose adequate means for approved ends.”

NeedsMeanRealEndsCharacterAbilityDegreesConsciousCapacityAppreciateDetermineImpulseMotiveRationalityAdequateApprovedNeeds Of OthersReal CharacterVividnessAdequate Means
Book:Reinhold Niebuhr: Major Works on Religion and Politics: (Library of America #263)
Create image

“While it is possible for intelligence to increase the range of benevolent impulse, and thus prompt a human being to consider the needs and rights of other than those to whom he is bound by organic and physical relationship, there are definite limits in the capacity of ordinary mortals which makes it impossible for them to grant to others what they claim for themselves.”

NeedsHumansHuman BeingsRightsImpossibleLimitsOrdinaryCapacityClaimsIncreaseBoundsMortalsImpulseRangeGrantsDefiniteBenevolentPrompts
Book:Reinhold Niebuhr: Major Works on Religion and Politics: (Library of America #263)
Create image