Quotes About Impulse

The best way to keep yourself from doing something grossly self-destructive and stupid is to avoid the temptation to do it. For example, it is far easier to fend off inappropriate amorous desires if one runs screaming from the room every time a pretty girl comes in.

My mouth kept running without checking in with my brain. My heart maybe, but not my brain.

People are likely to do the most ridiculously illogical things for the most incomprehensible of reasons.

I know you haven't burned down any buildings in a while, she said, but if you start feeling the need...

Moving before I think is my specialty," I said.

Let's talk about it after we eat something. Everyone's angry when they're hungry. Makes for bad decisions.

The best way to keep yourself from doing something grossly self-destructive and stupid is to avoid the temptation to do it. For example, it is far easier to fend off inappropriate amorous desires if one runs screaming from the room every time a pretty girl comes in. Which sounds silly, I know, but the same principle applies to everything else.

Maybe the process of becoming something horrible wasn't about temptation to sin, forbidden delights, and bad impulse control. Maybe it was about choosing to throw your soul into a meat grinder, over and over again. Until what remained couldn't even be seen as a soul any longer. Maybe the real monsters, the big bad monsters, aren't created. They're forged. Hammered. One blow at a time.

There is an impulse for vengeance among certain men south of the border that leaves even the sturdiest Sicilian gasping for fresh air.

Neither blindness nor ignorance corrupts people and governments. They soon realize where the path they have taken is leading them. But there is an impulse within them, favored by their natures and reinforced by their habits, which they do not resist; it continues to propel them forward as long as they have a remnant of strength. He who overcomes himself is divine. Most see their ruin before their eyes; but they go on into it.1 Leopold von Ranke

The impulse to write things down is a peculiarly compulsive one, inexplicable to those who do not share it, useful only accidentally, only secondarily, in the way that any compulsion tries to justify itself. I suppose that it begins or does not begin in the cradle.

The impulse to write things down is a particularly compulsive one, inexplicable to those who do not share it, useful only accidentally, only secondarily, in the way that any compulsion tries to justify itself.

Why do I keep a notebook at all? It is easy to deceive oneself on all those scores. The impulse to write things down is a peculiarly compulsive one, inexplicable to those who do not share it, useful only accidentally, only secondarily, in the way that any compulsion tries to justify itself. ...... Keepers of private notebooks are a different breed altogether, lonely and resistant rearrangers of things, anxious malcontents, children afflicted apparently at birth with some presentiment of loss

The impulse to write things down is a peculiarly compulsive one, inexplicable to those who do not share it, useful only accidentally, only secondarily, in the way that any compulsion tries to justify itself...Keepers of private notebooks are a different breed altogether, lonely and resistant rearrangers of things, anxious malcontents, children afflicted apparently at birth with some presentiment of loss.

Why did I write it down? In order to remember, of course, but exactly what was it I wanted to remember? How much of it actually happened? Did any of it? Why do I keep a notebook at all? It is easy to deceive oneself on all those scores. The impulse to write things down is a peculiarly compulsive one, inexplicable to those who do not share it, useful only accidentally, only secondarily, in the way that any compulsion tries to justify itself.

Old habits never die. And when you've once been in the business of granting wishes, the impulse never quite leaves you

Sometimes, being told not to do something just makes us want it all the more. Sometimes, a little of what you crave is better than total abstinence.

But I felt at that moment that if ever a place were in need of a little magic . . . Old habits never die. And when you've once been in the business of granting wishes the impulse never quite leaves you.

This was the first time I had not just rushed in and followed my instincts, and it wasn't working out. I was beginning to actively regret it.

I feel like I should really kill someone so that it'll be worthwhile to say that I am being mean ...

What makes resisting temptation difficult for many people is they don't want to discourage it completely.

The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.

Insight doesn't necessarily produce self-control. Sometimes you just see your destructiveness more clearly.

Promises you make when you are happy and decisions you make when you are angry are the worst ones.