Impulse Quotes - page 14
Greatness loves itself, and all healthy instincts decline to flagellate themselves daily with the whip of altruism. What is great must will to do more than its mere duty; it must give, make others happy, and, be it at the cost of itself, its own wellbeing, its own money or life, it must will to pour forth its blessing over others, to the extent even of self-sacrifice-but not, as Christianity demands, from unegoistic motives; the impulse must come from a sense of pleasure, from overflowing energy, from need of bloodletting, so as to unburden the full heart. All acts then derived from conscience and duty, or done with a wry countenance out of obedience to the Categorical Imperative, seem to the great man, from his point of view, through this very fact contemptible, even as he has an unsurmountable prejudice against men and nations who are always prating of those words, conscience and duty.
Oscar Levy
Maybe once, early on, he had convinced himself he could do some good, sometimes even imagined he was a mole, getting close so he could strike a blow. Imagined he was in it to defend Ambergris from the enemies that surrounded it. Imagined he was protecting ordinary citizens.
But the truth was he'd been tired, had stopped caring. Broken down from too much fighting, too many things connected to his past. And when that spark, that impulse, had returned, it was too late: he was trapped.
Jeff VanderMeer
I'm reading a very quaint American book, The Power of Positive Thinking, written, I'd suppose, by a sectarian minister, presumably of Methodist dye. (Norman Vincent Peale)..He's full of stories of prayers heard - and extols the power of prayer.."Before leaving for an important business conference I brace myself with texts like 'If God be for us, who can be against us?'...Then I stalk into the conference room, sure of my victory, and carry off the most marvellous deal.." This, in essence is the burden of the whole book. That's what people call Christian optimism. But it's wasted on us - we've been spoilt for this sort of thing...But isn't it rather self suggestion than authentic religious impulse? It doesn't seem to have dawned on him that suffering, disappointment, defeat or loss might also have some point too, or that God's designs could sometimes be hidden...
Ida Friederike Görres
Fatalism, whose solving word in all crises of behavior is ''All striving is vain,'' will never reign supreme, for the impulse to take life strivingly is indestructible in the race. Moral creeds which speak to that impulse will be widely successful in spite of inconsistency, vagueness, and shadowy determination of expectancy. Man needs a rule for his will, and will invent one if one be not given him.
William James
We understand the notions of both ethnic pride and hyphenated Americanism, but many of us are still bewildered about contradictory impulses: the emotional need to display Mexican decals on cars and hang Mexican flags on houses and businesses - or boo an American team at a soccer match - coupled with equally heated expressions of outrage that anyone might suggest that those who broke American law in coming to the United States would ever have to return where their hearts would "always be.” That paradox is the most disturbing - and ignored - aspect of the immigration debate: the contradictory impulse to fault the United States for a litany of sins (exploitation, racism, xenophobia, nativism) without commensurate attention to why any newcomer would wish to reside in a place that is so clearly culpable...
Victor Davis Hanson
