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Involuntary Quotes

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Involuntary Quotes

“To translate kinesics or paralinguistic messages into words is likely to introduce gross falsification due not merely to the human propensity for trying to falsify statements about "feelings" and relationship and to the distortions which arise whenever the products of one system of coding are dissected onto the premises of another, but especially to the fact that all such translation must give to the more or less unconscious and involuntary message the appearance of conscious intent.”

GivingTryingHumansFactsFeelingsProductsMessagesConsciousAppearanceDuesAriseStatementsUnconsciousIntroducingTranslateGrossTranslationsPremisesDistortionPropensityInvoluntaryFalsification
Author:Greg Bear
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“The luge is the only Olympic event where you could have people competing in it against their will, and it would look exactly the same. Take people off the street, 'Hey, hey, hey, what is this?! I don't wanna be in the luge!' Once you put that helmet on them, 'You're in the luge, buddy!' 'aaaAAAaaaAAAaaaAAA... aaaAAAAA...' World record. Didn't even wanna do it. I'd like to see that next Olympics, the Involuntary Luge.”

PeopleWorldLooksNextRecordsStreetsEventsHeyOlympicsCompetingBuddyHelmetInvoluntaryWorld Records
Author:Jerry Seinfeld
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“In Buddhism, we say reincarnation is the conscious taking of rebirth by a Bodhisattva, or by a high being, whereas rebirth, is what most people do. Rebirth is an involuntary process where they seek traction by finding a new body after their subtle mind loses the old one. There are two things commonly said about this. One- there is no evidence for it and two- if there is evidence, what's the mechanism which carries the consciousness from one life to another.”

PeopleIfsMindSaidTwoBodyProcessLosesConsciousnessBuddhismFindingsConsciousEvidenceTwo ThingsSubtleCarrieMechanismReincarnationRebirthInvoluntaryBodhisattvaTraction
Author:Robert Thurman
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“I have always thought it rather interesting to follow the involuntary movements of fear in clever people. Fools coarsely display their cowardice in all its nakedness, but the others are able to cover it with a veil so delicate, so daintily woven with small plausible lies, that there is some pleasure to be found in contemplating this ingenious work of the human intelligence.”

PeopleHumansAbleLyingFoundPleasureInterestingMovementFoolCleverDelicateCowardiceDisplayContemplatingVeilsWovenIngeniousPlausibleInvoluntaryHuman Intelligence
Book:Recollections
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“Beauty, midnight, vision dies: Let the winds of dawn that blow Softly round your dreaming head Such a day of welcome show Eye and knocking heart may bless, Find our mortal world enough; Noons of dryness find you fed By the involuntary powers, Nights of insult let you pass Watched by every human love.”

WorldHumansHeartMayEnoughShowsDreamEyeNightDiesVisionWindRoundsBlowWelcomeMortalsDawnInsultFedsBlessMidnightNoonKnockingInvoluntaryHuman Love
Author:W. H. Auden
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“We feel that our actions are voluntary when they follow a decision and involuntary when they happen without decision. But if a decision itself were voluntary every decision would have to be preceded by a decision to decide - An infinite regression which fortunately does not occur. Oddly enough, if we had to decide to decide, we would not be free to decide”

IfsFeelsDoeEnoughHappensActionDecisionInfiniteOur ActionsInvoluntaryRegression
Book:The Way of Zen
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“Next time I’ll just send the three of you e-mails. What was I thinking when I decided to have this meeting? (Acheron) Oh, I know. That men who are a couple of thousand years old could actually behave like grownups? (Nick) (Zarek elbowed Nick in the stomach.) Oops. Involuntary arm spasm. (Zarek)”

ThinkingKnowsMenYearsThreeNextArmsCoupleThousandDecidedMeetingsBehaveStomachMailThousand YearsNext TimeGrownupsInvoluntary
Book:Night Pleasures/Night Embrace
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“What was happening was only the working-out of a process that had started years ago. The first step had been a secret, involuntary thought, the second had been the opening of the diary. He had moved from thoughts to words, and now from words to actions. The last step was something that would happen in the Ministry of Love. He had accepted it. The end was contained in the beginning.”

YearsFirstsEndsHappensActionLastsProcessSecretStepsHappeningsYears AgoMovedWork OutAcceptedOpeningFirst StepsMinistryDiariesInvoluntary
Book:Animal Farm and 1984
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“You had this young man with you for... what, six years?" Halt shrugged. "Near enough," he replied. "And did you ever understand a word he was saying?" "Not a lot of the time, no," Halt said. Crowley shook his head in wonder. "It's just as well he didn't go into the Diplomatic Service. We'd be at war with half a dozen countries by now if he was on the loose." Will drew a deep breath to begin talking. He noticed that both men took an involuntary half step backward and he decided he'd better try to keep it as simple as possible.”

IfsMenTryingYearsWellsSaidWarCountryEnoughYoungSimpleHalfTalkingWonderStepsSixDecidedBreathsYoung ManDozenHaltDiplomaticDeep BreathInvoluntary
Author:John Flanagan
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“What had survived - maybe all that had survived of Trism - was Liir's sense of him. A catalog of impressions that arose from time to time, unbidden and often upsetting. From the sandy smell of his sandy hair to the locked grip of his muscles as they had wrestled in sensuous aggression - unwelcome nostalgia. Trism lived in Liir's heart like a full suit of clothes in a wardrobe, dress habillards maybe, hollow and real at once. The involuntary memory of the best of Trism's glinting virtues sometimes kicked up unquietable spasms of longing.”

HeartRealSometimesMemoriesVirtueHairClothesDressesLongingSmellNostalgiaImpressionSuitsUpsetMusclesLockedAggressionSurvivedHollowWardrobeInvoluntarySensuousSandyUnwelcome
Author:Gregory Maguire
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“And leaning out the window, enjoying the day above the varying volume of the entire city, only one thought swells my soul – the intimate will to die, to finish, not to see more light over any city, not to think, not to feel, to leave behind like wrapping paper the course of the sun and the days, to rid myself, at the edge of the grand bed, as of a heavy suit, of the involuntary effort to be.”

ThinkingFeelsSoulLightDiesCoursesEnjoyEffortCitiesBehindsSunBedPaperWindowEdgesHeavySuitsMy SoulIntimateVolumeInvoluntaryWrappingWrapping Paper
Author:Fernando Pessoa
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“We fall in love or stay in love with people who are unsuitable or who no longer love us and, conversely, we feel no love towards people who would be very suitable. Love is involuntary, that's the problem. Our personal histories prepare us to be attracted to people who unconsciously evoke emotions from our childhood or adolescence.”

PeopleFeelsProblemWould BeFallLove IsEmotionChildhoodFalling In LoveAdolescenceSuitableEvokeNo LoveInvoluntaryPersonal History
Book:Hector and the Secrets of Love
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“It’s lovely,” I said, taking an involuntary half step back. “Really, though. I don’t like to handle other people’s cookware.” “That’s the best you can manage? That’s your bright, bold lie?” “Look, lady, I don’t know about you, but I’ve never had somebody corner me on a dark street and try to hand me a frying pan before,” I snapped.”

PeopleKnowsTryingLooksSaidHandsLyingDarkHalfStepsStreetsCornersLovelyHandleManageInvoluntaryFryingFrying PansCookware
Author:Mira Grant
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“The stillness of the calm is awful. His voice begins to grow strange and portentous. He feels it in him like something swallowed too big for the esophagus. It keeps up a sort of involuntary interior humming in him, like a live beetle. His cranium is a dome full of reverberations. The hollows of his very bones are as whispering galleries. He is afraid to speak loud, lest he be stunned; like the man in the bass drum.”

MenFeelsBigsSpeakGrowsVoiceStrangeCalmBonesAwfulLoudStillnessInteriorsBassGalleryLike SomethingWhisperingStunnedInvoluntaryDomesHummingBeetlesReverberation
Book:Mardi: And a Voyage Thither
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“A characteristic of those who are still progressing in blessed mourning is temperance and silence of the lips; and of those who have made progress - freedom from anger and patient endurance of injuries; and of the perfect - humility, thirst for dishonors, voluntary craving for involuntary afflictions, non- condemnation of sinners, compassion even beyond one's strength. The first are acceptable, the second laudable; but blessed are those who hunger for hardship and thirst for dishonor, for they shall be filled with the food whereof there can be no satiety.”

FirstsMadeStillsPerfectSilenceCompassionProgressHumilityBlessedFilledPatientLipsHungerCharacteristicsMourningInjurySinnerEnduranceHardshipAcceptableThirstAfflictionCravingCondemnationTemperanceDishonorInvoluntarySatietyChristian HumilityBlessed Are Those
Book:The Ladder of Divine Ascent
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“In historic events, the so-called great men are labels giving names to events, and like labels they have but the smallest connection with the event itself. Every act of theirs, which appears to them an act of their own will, is in an historical sense involuntary and is related to the whole course of history and predestined from eternity.”

MenGivingWholeCoursesNamesHistoryEventsGreatnessConnectionsEternityHistoricalLabelsRelatedGreat MenSmallestHistoricInvoluntaryPredestined
Author:Leo Tolstoy
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“By its attempt to regulate and govern the private businesses, which are miscalled public accommodations in the bill, this proposal would inject the Government into the most sensitive areas of human contractual relations-agreements for personal services. In so doing, constitutional interpretations of long standing are being swept aside in favor of tortuous rationalizations which studiously ignore the constitutionally-forbidden imposition of involuntary servitude on citizens”

HumansLongGovernmentCitizensAreasStandingRelationBillsFavorsCivil RightsSensitiveAgreementInterpretationForbiddenProposalServitudeInvoluntaryImpositionAccommodations
Author:Strom Thurmond
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“In legal parlance, that is called 'the rational person test,' ... That's where somebody else says, 'Even though we have no idea what this person would want in this circumstance in which they cannot themselves tell us what they want, a 'rational' person - meaning, myself - in that circumstance would want to die.' So you move very quickly from so-called voluntary euthanasia to involuntary euthanasia. These legal and medical developments are not simply hypothetical They're in the courts right now.”

WantPersonsIdeasMovingDiesDevelopmentCircumstancesRight NowTestsCourtMedicalRationalNo IdeaWanting To DieEuthanasiaInvoluntaryHypothetical
Author:Richard John Neuhaus
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“The adoption of the required attitude of mind towards ideas that seem to emerge "of their own free will" and the abandonment of the critical function that is normally in operation against them seem to be hard of achievement for some people. The "involuntary thoughts" are liable to release a most violent resistance, which seeks to prevent their emergence. If we may trust that great poet and philosopher Friedrich Schiller, however, poetic creation must demand an exactly similar attitude.”

PeopleIfsMindMayIdeasHardSeemsAttitudeCreationPoetDemandAchievementFunctionPhilosopherCriticalViolentResistanceCraftsReleaseOperationsFree WillPoeticAdoptionAbandonmentLiableEmergenceGreat PoetInvoluntary
Book:The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud
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“Human beings are compelled to live within a lie, but they can be compelled to do so only because they are in fact capable of living in this way. Therefore not only does the system alienate humanity, but at the same time alienated humanity supports this system as its own involuntary master plan, as a degenerate image of its own degeneration, as a record of people's own failure as individuals.”

PeopleWayHumansDoeFactsLyingHumanityIndividualHuman BeingsSupportRecordsPlansMastersCapableCompelledAlienationDegeneratesInvoluntaryDegeneration
Book:The Power of the Powerless: Citizens Against the State in Central Eastern Europe: Citizens Against the State in Central Eastern Europe
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