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Involuntary Quotes

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Involuntary Quotes

“The imagination acquires by custom a certain involuntary, unconscious power of observation and comparison, correcting its own mistakes, and arriving at precision of judgment, just as the outward eye is disciplined to compare, adjust, estimate, measure, the objects reflected on the back of its retina.”

EyeCertainImaginationMistakeObjectsJudgmentObservationCompareAcquireUnconsciousComparisonCustomsPrecisionArrivingCorrectingInvoluntary
Author:Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton
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“PRIMATE, n. The head of a church, especially a State church supported by involuntary contributions. The Primate of England is the Archbishop of Canterbury, an amiable old gentleman, who occupies Lambeth Palace when living and Westminster Abbey when dead. He is commonly dead.”

StatesChurchEnglandGentlemanContributionPalacesAmiableInvoluntaryPrimatesAbbeyWestminsterCanterburyWestminster Abbey
Book:The Devil's Dictionary: The Devil World
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“The text moves like a small crustacean with compound eye and complex nervous system; throbbing, involuted, it becomes a parasite on a different body, animal, using ‘filiform protrusions through which it sucks the vital juices of its host.’ Parasite or creature in mutation on the shore, torrid / delirium: mordant mortality, systematic competition the narrator against the I, leaking gas, a lapse of memory against a promise, an inset in a book. A muscular, involuntary bulging in the breast, circling all its inner surface: mesoblast: visceral.”

BookDifferentBodyEyeMovingMemoriesAnimalPromiseCreaturesCompetitionComplexesSurfaceNervousBreastsGasMortalityShoreHostJuiceCompoundsSystematicNervous SystemParasitesVisceralDeliriumLapsesInvoluntaryNarratorsMutation
Book:The Blue Books: A Book, Turn of a Pang, French Kiss, Or, A Pang's Progress
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“Convictions following the admission into evidence of confessions which are involuntary, i.e., the product of coercion, either physical or psychological, cannot stand. This is so not because such confessions are unlikely to be true but because the methods used to extract them offend an underlying principle in the enforcement of our criminal law: that ours is an accusatorial, and not an inquisitorial, system - a system in which the State must establish guilt by evidence independently and freely secured, and may not, by coercion, prove its charges against an accused out of his own mouth.”

MayStatesLawUsedPrinciplesProductsProveMouthsEvidenceMethodGuiltFollowingConvictionCriminalsPsychologicalBeing TrueConfessionEnforcementAccusedUnlikelyCoercionProve ItAdmissionSecuredInvoluntaryCriminal Law
Author:Felix Frankfurter
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“It is necessary for us to explain the involuntary repugnance we possess for the nature and personality of the Jews. The Jews have never produced a true poet. Heinrich Heine reached the point where he duped himself into a poet, and was rewarded by his versified lies being set to music by our own composers. He was the conscience of Judaism, just as Judaism is the evil conscience of our modern civilization.”

LyingEvilModernPoetPersonalityCivilizationConscienceJewComposerJudaismInvoluntaryModern Civilization
Author:Richard Wagner
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“I would never behave with so little dignity. Nor would I wish to be confronted in such a manner by anyone else. Vampires inspire screams, not squees. Involuntary urination is common, I grant, but it properly flows from a sense of terror, not an ecstatic sense of hero worship.”

LittlesWishCommonInspireHeroWorshipFlowDignityTerrorVampireBehaveGrantsScreamEcstaticInvoluntaryHero Worship
Book:Hammered (with bonus short story): The Iron Druid Chronicles, Book Three
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“Love is said to be an involuntary passion, and it is, therefore, contended that it cannot be resisted. This is true in part only, for like all things else, when nourished and supplied plentifully with ailment, it is rapid in its progress; but let these be withdrawn and it may be stifled in its birth or much stinted in its growth.”

LoveMaySaidPassionGrowthLove IsProgressBirthAll ThingsRapidsInvoluntaryAilments
Book:The real George Washington
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“The abhorrence of society to the use of involuntary confessions does not turn alone on their inherent untrustworthiness. It also turns on the deep-rooted feeling that the police must obey the law while enforcing the law; that, in the end, life and liberty can be as much endangered from illegal methods used to convict those thought to be criminals as from the actual criminals themselves.”

DoeEndsUseFeelingsLawUsedTurnsLibertyPoliceMethodCriminalsIllegalRootedConfessionInherentInvoluntaryConvictsAbhorrence
Author:Earl Warren
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“The fact of the matter is that, since we are determined always to keep our feelings to ourselves, we have never given any thought to the manner in which we should express them. And suddenly there is within us a strange and obscene animal making itself heard, whose tones may inspire as much alarm in the person who receives the involuntary, elliptical and almost irresistible communication of one's defect or vice as would the sudden avowal indirectly and outlandishly proffered by a criminal who can no longer refrain from confessing to a murder of which one had never imagined him to be guilty.”

ShouldMayPersonsMatterFactsFeelingsGivenAnimalEmotionHeardInspireStrangeCommunicationMurderVicesDeterminedCriminalsGuiltyToneDefectsAlarmsIrresistibleRefrainObsceneInvoluntaryConfessing
Book:In Search of Lost Time, Volume III: The Guermantes Way
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“Virtue is voluntary, vice involuntary.”

VirtueVicesInvoluntary
Book:Wit and Wisdom of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle: Being a Treasury of Thousands of Glorious, Inspiring and Imperishable Thoughts, Views and Observations of the Three Great Greek Philosophers, Classified Under about Four Hundred Subjects for Comparative Study
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“I think all these reverend gentlemen who insist on the word 'obey' in the marriage service should be removed for a clear violation of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution, which says there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude within the United States.”

ThinkingShouldStatesUnitedMarriageUnited StatesClearConstitutionSlaveryGentlemanAmendmentsViolationServitudeInvoluntaryReverendsThirteenth Amendment
Book:Elizabeth Cady Stanton: As Revealed in Her Letters & Diary (Abridged)
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“This is part of the involuntary bargain we make with the world just by being alive. We get to experiences the splendor of nature, the beauty of art, the balm of love and the sheer joy of existence, always with the knowledge that illness, injury, natural disaster, or pure evil can end it in an instant for ourselves or someone we love.”

WorldArtEndsJoyEvilNaturalExistenceAlivePureIllnessDisasterInstantInjurySheerBargainsSplendorInvoluntaryNatural DisasterSheer JoyPure Evil
Author:Jeff Greenfield
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“It is that faculty by which we discover and enjoy the beautiful, the picturesque, and the sublime in literature, art, and nature; which recognizes a noble thought, as a virtuous mind welcomes a pure sentiment by a involuntary glow of satisfaction. But while the principle of perception is inherent in the soul, it requires a certain amount of knowledge to draw out and direct it.”

MindArtSoulBeautifulCertainLiteratureEnjoyPrinciplesAmountTastePurePerceptionDrawsDirectSatisfactionNobleFacultySentimentsVirtuousInherentSublimeInvoluntaryPicturesque
Author:Robert Aris Willmott
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“A line is an involuntary combination of people who are simultaneously irritated with one another and focused on a single, common circle of interests and goals. This leads to a mixture of rivalry, hostility, and collective sentiment, a constant readiness to close ranks against a common enemy - anyone who breaks the rules.”

PeopleWaitingGoalInterestLinesCommonEnemyBreakConstantFocusedCirclesCombinationCollectivesSentimentsMixturesHostilityReadinessRivalryIrritatedInvoluntaryCommon Enemy
Author:Lidiya Ginzburg
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“By deriving it's just powers from the governed, government becomes primarily a mechanism for defense against bodily harm, theft, and involuntary servitude. It cannot claim the power to redistribute money or property nor to force reluctant citizens to perform acts of charity against their will. Government is created by the people. No individual possesses the power to take another's wealth or to force others to do good, so no government has the the right to do such things either. The creature cannot exceed the creator.”

PeopleGovernmentIndividualForceWealthCitizensCreaturesClaimsPropertyCharityCreatorHarmDefenseMechanismExceedTheftReluctantServitudeInvoluntaryActs Of Charity
Book:The Constitution: A Heavenly Banner
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“Thus the feeling I sometimes have - which all of us who work closely with aphasiacs have - that one cannot lie to an aphasiac. He cannot grasp your words, and cannot be deceived by them; but what he grasps he grasps with infallible precision, namely the expression that goes with the words, the total, spontaneous, involuntary expressiveness which can never be simulated or faked, as words alone can, too easily.”

SometimesFeelingsLyingExpressionSpontaneousDeceivedPrecisionInfallibleInvoluntary
Author:Oliver Sacks
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“Jesus expressed intense anger toward those who where immoral, such as the self-righteous Pharisees, but he never suggested that they were demonized. Toward the demonized, however, he never expressed anger; rather he exhibited only compassion. As Langton notes, "Pity rather than anger characterizes the attitude of Jesus toward the possessed...He treats them as if they were the victims of an involuntary possession." Indeed, he treats them as though they are casualties of war. For, in his view, this is precisely what they are.”

IfsWarSelfJesusViewsAttitudeCompassionTreatsVictimNotesPossessionIntensePityRighteousPossessedImmoralCasualtiesSelf RighteousInvoluntaryPharisees
Book:God at War: The Bible & Spiritual Conflict
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“Tears may be considered as the natural and involuntary resource of the mind overcome by some sudden and violent emotion, before ithas had time to reconcile its feelings to the change in circumstances: while laughter may be defined to be the same sort of convulsive and involuntary movement, occasioned by mere sur prise or contrast (in the absence of any more serious emotion), before it has time to reconcile its belief to contradictory appearances.”

MindMayFeelingsBeliefNaturalEmotionCryMovementTearsSeriousCircumstancesLaughterResourcesOvercomingMereAppearanceAbsenceViolentDefinedContrastContradictoryReconcileInvoluntary
Book:Lectures on the English Comic Writers
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“Sneezing absorbs all the functions of the soul just as much as the [sexual] act, but we do not draw from it the same conclusions against the greatness of man, because it is involuntary; although we bring it about, we do so involuntarily. It is not for the sake of the thing in itself but for another end, and is therefore not a sign of man's weakness, or his subjection to this act.”

MenSoulEndsSexGreatnessDrawsWeaknessFunctionSakeConclusionInvoluntarySubjectionGreatness Of ManSneezing
Book:Pascal Pensées
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“Wonder is involuntary praise.”

WonderPraiseInvoluntary
Book:Imperium Pelagi, a naval lyric. Epistles to Mr. Pope, concerning the authors of the age. Sea-piece. The foreign address; or the best argument for peace. Epitaph on Lord Aubrey Beauclerk. Reflections on the public situation of the kingdom. An epistle to the right hon. Sir Robert Walpole. The old man's relapse. Resignation. Tragedies. Prose works
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