Impulse Quotes

“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”
― Viktor E. Frankl

“Act
on your impulse,
swallow the bottle,
cut a little deeper,
put the gun to your chest.”
― Ellen Hopkins, Impulse

“...our impulses are too strong for our judgement sometimes”
― Thomas Hardy, Tess of the D’Urbervilles

“The best ideas will eat at you for days, maybe even weeks, until something, some incident, some impulse, triggers you to finally express them.”
― Criss Jami, Killosophy

“There are things you do sometimes, actions that you take by obeying sudden impulses, without stopping for even a fraction of a second to think, and then you spend the rest of your life either lamenting it or thanking yourself for it. They are rare, unique, and perfect moments.”
― Irene González Frei

“People would be so much more at ease if they acted on impulse rather than reason. That’s why drugs are so effective in curing mental illness—because they impair our judgment. Don’t try to think too much.”
― Ottessa Moshfegh, My Year of Rest and Relaxation

“Isn’t it funny how we make rational excuses for being out of alignment?

We say, “Well, this ____ and that ____ happened, so it makes perfect sense for me to be feeling like this ____ and wanting to do this ____.”

Yet, to this day, I have never met a happy person who adheres to those excuses. In fact, each time I – or anyone else – decide to give in to “rational excuses” that justify feeling bad – it’s interesting that only further suffering is the result.

There is never a good enough reason for us to be out of alignment with peace. Sure, we can go there and make choices that dim our lights… and that is fine; there certainly is purpose for it and the contrast gives us lessons to learn… yet if we’re aware of what we are doing and we’re ready to let go of the suffering – then why go there at all? It’s like beating a dead horse. Been there, done that… so why do we keep repeating it?

Pain is going to happen; it’s inevitable in this human experience, yet it is often so brief. When we make those excuses, what happens is: we pick up that pain and begin to carry it with us into the next day… and the next day… into next week… maybe next month… and some of us even carry it for years or to our graves!

Forgive, let it go! It is NOT worth it! It is NEVER worth it. There is never a good enough reason for us to pick up that pain and carry it with us. There is never a good enough reason for us to be out of alignment with peace. Unforgiveness hurts you; it hurts others, so why even go there? Why even promote pain? Why say painful things to yourself or others? Why think pain? Just let it go!

Whenever I look back on painful things or feel pain today, I know it is my EGO that drives me to “go there.” The EGO likes to have the last word, it likes to feel superior, it likes to make others feel less than in hopes that it will make itself (me) feel better about my insecurities. Maybe if I hurt them enough, they will feel the pain I felt over what they did to me. It’s only fair! It’s never my fault; it’s always someone else’s. There is a twisted sense of pleasure I get from feeling this way, and my EGO eats it right up. YET! With awareness that continues to grow and expand each day, I choose to not feed my pain (EGO) or even go there. I still feel it at times, of course, so I simply acknowledge it and then release it.

I HAVE power and choice over my speech and actions. I do not need to ever “go there” again. It’s my choice; it’s your choice. So it’s about damn time we start realizing this. We are not victims of our impulses or emotions; we have the power to control them, and so it’s time to stop acting like we don’t. It’s time to relinquish the excuses.”
― Alaric Hutchinson, Living Peace: Essential Teachings For Enriching Life

“Every impulse of feeling should be guided by reason; and, in my opinion, exertion should always be in proportion to what is required.”
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“One word love: curiosity. You long for freedom. You long to do what you want to do because you want it. To act on selfish impulse. You want to see what it's like. One day you won't be able to resist.”
― Captain Jack Sparrow

“Do not only think about it, but feel about it, also, before taking appropriate action.”
― T.F. Hodge, From Within I Rise: Spiritual Triumph over Death and Conscious Encounters With the Divine Presence

“I hope people don't take kittens on a whim, like they would a toy, then not care for them.”
― Shirley Rousseau Murphy, Cat on the Money

“The poetic impulse is distinct from ideas about things or feelings about things, though it may use these. It's more like a desire to separate a piece of one's experience & set it up on its own, an isolated object never to trouble you again, at least not for a bit. In the absence of this impulse nothing stirs.”
― Philip Larkin, Philip Larkin: Letters to Monica

“Every characteristic absence of spirituality, every piece of common vulgarity, is due to an inability to resist a stimulus - you have to react, you follow every impulse.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, The Anti-Christ, Ecce Homo, Twilight of the Idols, and Other Writings

“I love the way she feels in
the curve of my arm. I love
her unpretentious beauty,
her intelligence, her nerve.
But could I ever love her?
The concept of falling in love
is completely foreign, something
I can’t bring myself to accept.
Her hair pillows my cheek and
her hand on my leg is warm.
I care about you, Conner,
and I hate to see you hurting.
I want to respond but can’t
find the pretty words I need.”
― Ellen Hopkins

“Free will is the cutting edge of Creation, don’t you see? The word spontaneity derives from the Latin sponte, meaning ‘of one’s free will.’ Spontaneity is the impulse, the purest expression of freedom, and the impulse wants to do whatever it wants to do. But you are afraid of what others think, others who are just as afraid of what you think, and so you pussyfoot along the perimeter of the free-will zone, wilting like a wallflower.”
― Tony Vigorito

“But in the depths of his heart, the older he became, and the more intimately he knew his brother, the more and more frequently the thought struck him that this faculty of working for the public good, of which he felt himself utterly devoid, was possibly not so much a quality as a lack of something --not a lack of good, honest, noble desires and tastes, but a lack of vital force, of what is called heart, of that impulse which drives a man to choose someone out of the innumerable paths of life, and to care only for that one. The better he knew his brother, the more he noticed that Sergey Ivanovitch, and many other people who worked for the public welfare, were not led by an impulse of the heart to care for the public good, but reasoned from intellectual considerations that it was a right thing to take interest in public affairs, and consequently took interest in them. Levin was confirmed in this generalization by observing that his brother did not take questions affecting the public welfare or the question of the immortality of the soul a bit more to heart than he did chess problems, or the ingenious construction of a new machine.”
― Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

“Evil is boring. Right? I kinda believe in the banality and mundaneness of evil. Evil is just selfish impulses, which at the end of the day are really easy to understand. It's easy to understand why people do bad things. It's like "Yeah, okay, you're selfish and scared and cruel, I get it." Being good is complex and beautiful and hard.”
― Brennan Lee Mulligan

“... as a convention, you get up and walk to the window to make the audience believe that you're looking out. It's for the audience, not for you! And what it means to you is something emotional [...] If you went to the Actors Studio you'd spend six months seeing the snow before you could say, 'Look at the snow.' This takes a terrible burden away from the actor, who thinks he's got to see the woods and the snow. 'Give me my gun! I see a rabbit! Give me my gun!' "

Meisner sounds thrilled at the possibility of a hunt.

"That happens when you're still sitting there reading. Then when they put in the scenery you move to the window. Isn't that simple? How simple it is to solve the problem of seeing things when you know that it's all in you emotionally, and that walking to the window is only a convention.”
― Sanford Meisner, Sanford Meisner on Acting

“Similarly, the total output of human creativity, in all its kaleidoscopic breadth, pieces together the fabric forming our culture. The underlying intention of our work is the aspect allowing it to fit neatly into this fabric. Rarely if ever do we know the grand intention, yet if we surrender to the creative impulse, our singular piece of the puzzle takes its proper shape.

Intention is all there is. The work is just a reminder.”
― Rick Rubin, The Creative Act: A Way of Being

“We all nurture impulses which promise freedom from the demands of others, even if that freedom means death.”
― Sam Tanenhaus, Literature Unbound

“Fortunately, suppressing an impulse doesn’t always have to decrease your dopamine—it can actually feel good. The key is the prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for pursuing long-term goals and has the ability to modulate dopamine release in the nucleus accumbens. So suppressing an impulse can be rewarding, as long as it’s in service of your larger values.”
― Alex Korb, The Upward Spiral: Using Neuroscience to Reverse the Course of Depression, One Small Change at a Time

“For the great doesn’t happen through impulse alone, and is a succession of little things that are brought together.

What is drawing? How does one get there? It’s working one’s way through an invisible iron wall that seems to stand between what one feels and what one can do. How can one get through that wall? — since hammering on it doesn’t help at all. In my view, one must undermine the wall and grind through it slowly and patiently. And behold, how can one remain dedicated to such a task without allowing oneself to be lured from it or distracted, unless one reflects and organizes one’s life according to principles? And it’s the same with other things as it is with artistic matters. And the great isn’t something accidental; it must be willed.”
― Vincent van Gogh

“If she ever had an impulse to tell Carol, the words dissolved before she began, in fear and in her usual mistrust of her own reactions, the anxiety that her reactions were like no one else's, and that therefore not even Carol could understand them.”
― Patricia Highsmith, The Price of Salt, or Carol

“There are only two reasons for failing: action without thinking or thinking without any action.”
― Debasish Mridha

“It wasn't our bad habits which really scared us; we got too used to them, they only worried others. It was the odd, unpredictable, brutal impulse you fought to restrain, the one that the rest never even saw and hopefully never would.”
― Irvine Welsh, Glue

“...without thinking the follow-up thought that prevents a person from following through with the original, she throws the tea in the mug at the screen and watches it drip down, while now, finally, allowing the follow-up thought to come through, the thought that would have stopped her from throwing the tea at the screen in the first place. She feels two things: recognizable regret and dim, unfamiliar power.”
― Ani Baker, Handsome Vanilla

“En algún lugar he leído que uno puede acostumbrase a todo y que la rutina es el impulso más fuerte de nuestra vida. No lo creo. Eso es sólo una excusa que utilizamos para no tener que pensar en los sufrimientos de los otros, sí, para no tener que pensar ni tan siquiera en nuestro sufrimiento. Es verdad, el ser humano puede soportar muchas cosas, pero no por costumbre, sino porque en él brilla un tenue resplandor con el que alimenta la secreta esperanza de poder romper algún día con la rutina.”
― Marlen Haushofer

“Although it often appears to be the case, retreating to God is not an impulse bred of cowardice. Rather, it is a decision born of the understanding that God fights battles a whole lot better than I do.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“An organization without leadership is like a flash mob, going on impulse and having no sense of vision or direction”
― Dr. Lucas D. Shallua

“...impulses start off potent, and wane as time passes and consideration sets in.”
― Rou Bao Bu Chi Rou, Remnants of Filth: Yuwu (Novel) Vol. 2