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Inertia Quotes

Browse 221 quotes about Inertia.

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Inertia Quotes

“Many of us, utterly overcome by Tamas, the dark and heavy demon of inertia, are saying nowadays that it is impossible, that India is decayed, bloodless and lifeless, too weak ever to recover; that our race is doomed to extinction. It is a foolish and idle saying. No man or nation need be weak unless he chooses, no man or nation need perish unless he deliberately chooses extinction.”

MenNeedsNationsDarkRaceImpossibleWeakOvercomingIndiaHeavyFoolishDemonIdleDoomedExtinctionSaying NoInertiaLifeless
Author:Sri Aurobindo
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“The essence of religion is inertia; the essence of science is change. It is the function of the one to preserve, it is the function of the other to improve. If, as in Egypt, they are firmly chained together, either science will advance, in which case the religion will be altered, or the religion will preserve its purity, and science will congeal.”

IfsTogetherCasesEssenceFunctionPreservesPurityEgyptAlteredInertiaChained
Book:The Martyrdom of Man
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“Spiritual movements are revolts of thought against inertia, of the few against the many; of those who because they are strong in spirit are strongest alone against those who can express themselves only in the mass and the mob, and who are significant only because they are numerous.”

SpiritualSpiritSpiritualityPoliticsStrongFreedomLibertyPowerDemocracyMovementMassSignificantSocialismStrongestRevoltInertiaDemocracy Freedom
Book:Socialism - An Economic and Sociological Analysis: The Economist
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“We must nevertheless present all possible interpretations for each observation, so that competing theories can be formulated and defended. In science, as elsewhere, intellectual inertia, the fashions of the moment, the weight of institutions, and authoritarianism are always to be feared. Heresies play an essential role by keeping our minds argumentative and alert.”

MindPlayMomentsRolesFashionTheoryEssentialsIntellectualWeightInstitutionsObservationInterpretationElsewhereNeverthelessCompetingHeresyAuthoritarianismInertia
Author:Hubert Reeves
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“The city might be savage, stray dogs might share the streets with grimy urchins whose blank eyes reflected the knowledge that they might soon be covered over, blinded forever, by the same two pennies just begged from some gentleman, and no one in the fuming, fulminous boulevards of trade might know who actually ran Ambergris-or, if anyone ran it at all, but, like a renegade clock, it ran on and wound itself heedless, empowered by the insane weight of its own inertia, the weight of its own citizenry.”

IfsKnowsTwoMightEyeCitiesForeverShareStreetsDogWeightTradeWoundsInsaneClockRanGentlemanCoveredBlankSavagesEmpoweredPenniesBlindedInertiaCitizenryBoulevardRenegadesStray Dogs
Book:City of Saints and Madmen
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“I know, that since life is our most precious gift, and as far as we can be absolutely certain, it's given to us to live but once, let us so live we will not regret years of useless virtue, and inertia, and timidity, and ignorance, and in our last moments we can say: 'All my life, all my conscious energies, have been dedicated to the most noble cause in the world, the liberation of the human mind and spirit - beginning with my own'.”

KnowsWorldYearsMindHumansHas BeensMomentsLastsLife IsSpiritCertainEnergyGivenCausesMy OwnVirtueIgnoranceRegretConsciousNobleLiberationUselessHuman MindDedicatedInertiaTimidityPrecious GiftsNoble Causes
Author:Maya Angelou
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“But my belief is growing that our political and social evils are remediable, if only all of us who want a change for the better just get up and work for it, all the time, with as much knowledge and intelligence as we can muster for it. Half the wrongs of human life exist because of the inertia of people who simply will not use their energies in fighting for what they believe in. And finally the wrongs roll up into world catastrophes and millions of deaths and a terrible set-back for all mankind.”

PeopleIfsWorldWantBelieveHumansUsePoliticalFightingEvilBeliefEnergySocialHalfMillionsGrowingMankindTerribleActivismGet UpHuman LifeCatastropheInactionInertiaChange For The BetterMusterSocial Evils
Book:Letters of Katherine Anne Porter
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“It is so much easier to rest contented with what we have already acquired than to change ever so slightly those routine but profound habits of thought and feeling which govern our life, and by which we live so blissfully. This mental inertia is, perhaps, our greatest enemy. Insidiously it leads us to assume that we can renew our lives without renewing our habits.”

FeelingsEnemyOur LivesHabitEasierAssumingProfoundRoutineInertiaThoughts And Feelings
Author:Nadia Boulanger
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“If the oncoming mutation to interstellar immortality is screwed up by the politicians, it will be because those of us who see the opportunities in modern science are not adroit enough to outmaneuver the forces of inertia, stupidity and greed. Well, if we're not intelligent enough to overcome such obstacles, then we don't deserve to carry off the mutation at this stage of evolution.”

IfsWellsEnoughOpportunityForceModernStageEvolutionPoliticianDeserveOvercomingIntelligentGreedObstaclesStupidityImmortalityInertiaModern ScienceScrewed UpMutationInterstellar
Author:Robert Anton Wilson
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“Progress is slow partly from mere intellectual inertia. In a subject where there is no agreed procedure for knocking out errors, doctrines have a long life. A professor teaches what he was taught, and his pupils, with a proper respect and reverence for teachers, set up a resistance against his critics for no other reason than that it was he whose pupils they were.”

LongReasonTeachTeacherProgressSubjectsTaughtIntellectualErrorsMereCriticsResistanceDoctrineProfessorsReverenceLong LifeProceduresPupilsKnockingInertia
Author:Joan Robinson
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“A conceived thing is doubly a product of mind, more a product of mind, if you will, than an idea, since ideas arise, so to speak,by the mind's inertia and conceptions of things by its activity. Ideas are mental sediment; conceived things are mental growths.”

IfsMindIdeasSpeakGrowthProductsActivityAriseConceptionInertia
Book:The Life of Reason or The Phases of Human Progress: Introduction and Reason in Common Sense, Volume VII, Book One
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“Life cannot be destroyed for good, neithercan history be brought entirely to a halt. A secret streamlet trickles on beneath the heavy lid of inertia and pseudo-events, slowly and inconspicuously undercutting it. It may be a long process, but one day it must happen: the lid will no longer hold and will start to crack. This is the moment when something once more begins visibly to happen, something truly new and uniquesomething truly historical, in the sense that history again demands to be heard.”

MayLongMomentsHappensProcessSecretHeardEventsOne DayDemandHistoricalHeavyDestroyedCracksHaltInertiaPseudo
Author:Vaclav Havel
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“Americans, more than most people, believe that history is the result of individual decisions to implement conscious intentions. For Americans, more than most people, history has been that.... This sense of openness, of possibility and autonomy, has been a national asset as precious as the topsoil of the Middle West. But like topsoil, it is subject to erosion; it requires tending. And it is not bad for Americans to come to terms with the fact that for them too, history is a story of inertia and the unforeseen.”

PeopleBelieveHas BeensFactsStoriesIndividualTermDecisionResultsHistoryMiddleSubjectsPossibilityConsciousIntentionWestAssetsOpennessAutonomyInertiaErosionUnforeseenTopsoil
Author:George Will
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“Just do right. Right may not be expedient, it may not be profitable, but it will satisfy your soul. It brings you the kind of protection that bodyguards can’t give you. So try to live your life in a way that you will not regret years of useless virtue and inertia and timidity. Take up the battle. Take it up. It’s yours. This is your life. This is your world.”

WorldWayGivingTryingYearsKindMaySoulVirtueRegretBattleProtectionYour SoulUselessLive Your LifeProfitableInertiaTimidityBodyguard
Author:Maya Angelou
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“You can't work at a relationship; you can't control it. You have to be lucky and go through your life. If you are not lucky you have to be prepared for some degree of suffering. That's why most relationships are very difficult and have some degree of pain. People stay together because of inertia, they don't have the energy. Because they are frightened of being lonely, or they have children.”

PeopleIfsChildrenPainTogetherSufferingEnergyDifficultLuckyDegreesLonelyPreparedFrightenedBe PreparedInertiaBeing LonelyLucky You
Author:Woody Allen
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“Many of the obstacles for change which have been attributed to human nature are in fact due to the inertia of institutions and to the voluntary desire of powerful classes to maintain the existing status.”

HumansHas BeensFactsDesirePowerfulClassHuman NatureInstitutionsObstaclesDuesInertia
Book:The Later Works of John Dewey, 1925 - 1953: 1931-1932, Essays, Reviews, and Miscellany
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“Some people, in working towards a goal, find themselves seized by inertia when it comes time for action. If this should happen to you, despite the small graduated steps, then it is time to re-examine your goal. Consider how important it actually is and then either discard the goal and replace it with more suitable one or continue the steps with a renewed sense of the value of achieving it.”

PeopleIfsShouldImportantHappensActionValuesGoalStepsAchieveDespiteSuitableInertia
Author:Fitzhugh Dodson
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“When you regularly take continuous action toward your most important goals, you activate the Momentum Principle of success. This principle says that although it may take tremendous amounts of energy to overcome inertia and get started initially, it then takes far less energy to keep going.”

MayImportantActionEnergyGoalPrinciplesAmountOvercomingKeep GoingMomentumInertiaActivate
Book:Eat That Frog!: 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time
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