Quotes about energy
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Barack Obama photo

“We are boisterous and diverse and full of energy, perpetually young in spirit.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2015, Bloody Sunday Speech (March 2015)
Context: We respect the past, but we don’t pine for the past. We don’t fear the future; we grab for it. America is not some fragile thing. We are large, in the words of Whitman, containing multitudes. We are boisterous and diverse and full of energy, perpetually young in spirit. That’s why someone like John Lewis at the ripe old age of 25 could lead a mighty march. And that’s what the young people here today and listening all across the country must take away from this day. You are America. Unconstrained by habit and convention. Unencumbered by what is, because you’re ready to seize what ought to be. For everywhere in this country, there are first steps to be taken, there’s new ground to cover, there are more bridges to be crossed. And it is you, the young and fearless at heart, the most diverse and educated generation in our history, who the nation is waiting to follow.

Jane Roberts photo

“Translated into simpler terms, each portion of energy is endowed with an inbuilt reach of creativity that seeks to fulfill its own potentials in all possible variations - and in such a way that such a development also furthers the creative potentials of each other portion of reality.”

Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer

Session 884, Page 138
Dreams, Evolution and Value Fulfillment, Volume One (1986)
Context: Value fulfillment itself is most difficult to describe, for it combines the nature of a loving presence - a presence with the innate knowledge of its own divine complexity - with a creative ability of infinite proportions that seeks to bring to fulfillment even the slightest, most distant portion of its own inverted complexity. Translated into simpler terms, each portion of energy is endowed with an inbuilt reach of creativity that seeks to fulfill its own potentials in all possible variations - and in such a way that such a development also furthers the creative potentials of each other portion of reality.

Tim Berners-Lee photo

“We’ve lost a fighter. We’ve lost somebody who put huge energy into righting wrongs.”

Tim Berners-Lee (1955) British computer scientist, inventor of the World Wide Web

Eulogizing Aaron Swartz in "Remember Aaron Swartz" (18 January 2013) http://www.rememberaaronsw.com/memories/We-have-lost-a-fighter.html
Context: We’ve lost a fighter. We’ve lost somebody who put huge energy into righting wrongs. There are people around the world who take it on themselves to just try to fix the world but very few of them do it 24/7 like Aaron. Very few of them are as dedicated. So of the people who are fighting for right, and what he was doing up to the end was fighting for right, we have lost one of our own. … We’ve lost a great person.

Arthur James Balfour photo

“Everything that happened, good or bad, would subtract something from the lessening store of useful energy, till a time arrived when nothing could happen any more, and the universe, frozen into eternal repose, would for ever be as if it were not.”

Arthur James Balfour (1848–1930) British Conservative politician and statesman

Theism and humanism
Context: Everything that happened, good or bad, would subtract something from the lessening store of useful energy, till a time arrived when nothing could happen any more, and the universe, frozen into eternal repose, would for ever be as if it were not. /.../ The physical course of nature does not merely fail to indicate design, it seems loudly to proclaim its absence.

Thucydides photo
Jawaharlal Nehru photo

“Whether we believe in God or not, it is impossible not to believe in something, whether we call it a creative life-giving force, or vital energy inherent in matter which gives it its capacity for self-movement and change and growth, or by some other name, something that is as real, though elusive, as life is real when contrasted with death.”

Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–1964) Indian lawyer, statesman, and writer, first Prime Minister of India

Autobiography (1936; 1949; 1958)
Context: Organised religion allying itself to theology and often more concerned with its vested interests than with the things of the spirit encourages a temper which is the very opposite of science. It produces narrowness and intolerance, credulity and superstition, emotionalism and irrationalism. It tends to close and limit the mind of man and to produce a temper of a dependent, unfree person.
Even if God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him, so Voltaire, said … perhaps that is true, and indeed the mind of man has always been trying to fashion some such mental image or conception which grew with the mind's growth. But there is something also in the reverse proposition: even if God exist, it may be desirable not to look up to Him or to rely upon Him. Too much dependence on supernatural forces may lead, and has often led, to loss of self-reliance in man, and to a blunting of his capacity and creative ability. And yet some faith seems necessary in things of the spirit which are beyond the scope of our physical world, some reliance on moral, spiritual, and idealistic conceptions, or else we have no anchorage, no objectives or purpose in life. Whether we believe in God or not, it is impossible not to believe in something, whether we call it a creative life-giving force, or vital energy inherent in matter which gives it its capacity for self-movement and change and growth, or by some other name, something that is as real, though elusive, as life is real when contrasted with death. <!-- p. 524 (1946)

Lewis Carroll photo
Henri Barbusse photo

“We are all, always, the desire not to die. This desire is as immeasurable and varied as life's complexity, but at bottom this is what it is: To continue to be, to be more and more, to develop and to endure. All the force we have, all our energy and clearness of mind serve to intensify themselves in one way or another. We intensify ourselves with new impressions, new sensations, new ideas. We endeavour to take what we do not have and to add it to ourselves. Humanity is the desire for novelty founded upon the fear of death. That is what it is.”

Henri Barbusse (1873–1935) French novelist

The Inferno (1917), Ch. XIV
Context: What am I? I am the desire not to die. I have always been impelled — not that evening alone — by the need to construct the solid, powerful dream that I shall never leave again. We are all, always, the desire not to die. This desire is as immeasurable and varied as life's complexity, but at bottom this is what it is: To continue to be, to be more and more, to develop and to endure. All the force we have, all our energy and clearness of mind serve to intensify themselves in one way or another. We intensify ourselves with new impressions, new sensations, new ideas. We endeavour to take what we do not have and to add it to ourselves. Humanity is the desire for novelty founded upon the fear of death. That is what it is.

Steven Weinberg photo

“There is one constant that seems to be fine tuned…and that is dark energy.”

Steven Weinberg (1933) American theoretical physicist

The Atheism Tapes (2004)
Context: There is one constant that seems to be fine tuned... and that is dark energy.

Vincent Van Gogh photo

“Life itself, too, is forever turning an infinitely vacant, dispiriting blank side towards man on which nothing appears, any more than it does on a blank canvas. But no matter how vacant and vain, how dead life may appear to be, the man of faith, of energy, of warmth, who knows something, will not be put off so easily.”

Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890) Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890)

1880s, 1884, Letter to Theo (Nuenen, Oct. 1884)
Context: I tell you, if one wants to be active, one must not be afraid of going wrong, one must not be afraid of making mistakes now and then. Many people think that they will become good just by doing no harm - but that's a lie, and you yourself used to call it that. That way lies stagnation, mediocrity.
Just slap anything on when you see a blank canvas staring you in the face like some imbecile. You don't know how paralyzing that is, that stare of a blank canvas is, which says to the painter, You can't do a thing. The canvas has an idiotic stare and mesmerises some painters so much that they turn into idiots themselves. Many painters are afraid in front of the blank canvas, but the blank canvas is afraid of the real, passionate painter who dares and who has broken the spell of 'you can't' once and for all.
Life itself, too, is forever turning an infinitely vacant, dispiriting blank side towards man on which nothing appears, any more than it does on a blank canvas. But no matter how vacant and vain, how dead life may appear to be, the man of faith, of energy, of warmth, who knows something, will not be put off so easily. He wades in and does something and stays with it, in short, he violates, "defiles" - they say. Let them talk, those cold theologians.

Sadhguru photo

“What you call as creation is just (energy). Everything is the same energy.”

Sadhguru (1957) Yogi, mystic, visionary and humanitarian

Isha Insights Magazine, Spring Edition 2009
Sourced from newspapers and magazines
Context: What you call as creation is just (energy). Everything is the same energy. The rock is the same energy. God is also the same energy. This is gross; that is subtle. As you make it more and more subtle, beyond a certain level of subtleness, you call it “Divine.” Below a certain level of grossness, you call it animal; further below that you call it inanimate. It is all the same energy. -Sadhguru

Keanu Reeves photo
Greta Thunberg photo
Steven Weinberg photo
Steven Weinberg photo
Wahiduddin Khan photo
David Foster Wallace photo

“If, by the virtue of charity or the circumstance of desperation, you ever chance to spend a little time around a Substance-recovery halfway facility like Enfield MA’s state-funded Ennet House, you will acquire many exotic new facts…That certain persons simply will not like you no matter what you do. That sleeping can be a form of emotional escape and can with sustained effort be abused. That purposeful sleep-deprivation can also be an abusable escape. That you do not have to like a person in order to learn from him/her/it. That loneliness is not a function of solitude. That logical validity is not a guarantee of truth. That it takes effort to pay attention to any one stimulus for more than a few seconds. That boring activities become, perversely, much less boring if you concentrate intently on them. That if enough people in a silent room are drinking coffee it is possible to make out the sound of steam coming off the coffee. That sometimes human beings have to just sit in one place and, like, hurt. That you will become way less concerned with what other people think of you when you realize how seldom they do. That there is such a thing as raw, unalloyed, agendaless kindness. That it is possible to fall asleep during an anxiety attack. That concentrating intently on anything is very hard work. That 99% of compulsive thinkers’ thinking is about themselves; that 99% of this self-directed thinking consists of imagining and then getting ready for things that are going to happen to them; and then, weirdly, that if they stop to think about it, that 100% of the things they spend 99% of their time and energy imagining and trying to prepare for all the contingencies and consequences of are never good. In short that 99% of the head’s thinking activity consists of trying to scare the everliving shit out of itself. That it is possible to make rather tasty poached eggs in a microwave oven. That some people’s moms never taught them to cover up or turn away when they sneeze. That the people to be the most frightened of are the people who are the most frightened. That it takes great personal courage to let yourself appear weak. That no single, individual moment is in and of itself unendurable. That other people can often see things about you that you yourself cannot see, even if those people are stupid. That having a lot of money does not immunize people from suffering or fear. That trying to dance sober is a whole different kettle of fish. That different people have radically different ideas of basic personal hygiene. That, perversely, it is often more fun to want something than to have it. That if you do something nice for somebody in secret, anonymously, without letting the person you did it for know it was you or anybody else know what it was you did or in any way or form trying to get credit for it, it’s almost its own form of intoxicating buzz. That anonymous generosity, too, can be abused. That it is permissible to want. That everybody is identical in their unspoken belief that way deep down they are different from everyone else. That this isn’t necessarily perverse. That there might not be angels, but there are people who might as well be angels.”

Infinite Jest (1996)

Benjamin Creme photo
Benjamin Creme photo
Manly P. Hall photo
Jawaharlal Nehru photo
Jawaharlal Nehru photo
Nikola Tesla photo
Nikola Tesla photo

“While I have not, as yet, actually effected a transmission of a considerable amount of energy, such as would be of industrial importance, to a great distance by this new method, I have operated several model plants under exactly the same conditions which will exist in a large plant of this kind, and the practicability of the system is thoroughly demonstrated. The experiments have shown conclusively that, with two terminals maintained at an elevation of not more than thirty thousand to thirty-five thousand feet above sea-level, and with an electrical pressure of fifteen to twenty million volts, the energy of thousands of horse-power can be transmitted over distances which may be hundreds and, if necessary, thousands of miles. I am hopeful, however, that I may be able to reduce very considerably the elevation of the terminals now required, and with this object I am following up an idea which promises such a realization. There is, of course, a popular prejudice against using an electrical pressure of millions of volts, which may cause sparks to fly at distances of hundreds of feet, but, paradoxical as it may seem, the system, as I have described it in a technical publication, offers greater personal safety than most of the ordinary distribution circuits now used in the cities. This is, in a measure, borne out by the fact that, although I have carried on such experiments for a number of years, no injury has been sustained either by me or any of my assistants.”

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

The Problem of Increasing Human Energy (1900)

Simone Bittencourt de Oliveira photo
Jeff Buckley photo
Joseph Goebbels photo
Joseph Goebbels photo
Lewis Hamilton photo

“We all wanna feel great. We all wanna look great, have more energy. The most important thing is about having the right fuel in your body. I can't remember feeling this great in my whole 32 years of my life.”

Lewis Hamilton (1985) British racing driver

On his vegan lifestyle. Interview in the documentary-film The Game Changers by Louie Psihoyos, 2018

Benjamin Creme photo
Max Planck photo

“I also knew the formula that expresses the energy distribution in the normal spectrum. A theoretical interpretation therefore had to be found at any cost, no matter how high. It was clear to me that classical physics could offer no solution to this problem, and would have meant that all energy would eventually transfer from matter to radiation. ...This approach was opened to me by maintaining the two laws of thermodynamics. The two laws, it seems to me, must be upheld under all circumstances. For the rest, I was ready to sacrifice every one of my previous convictions about physical laws. ...[One] finds that the continuous loss of energy into radiation can be prevented by assuming that energy is forced at the outset to remain together in certain quanta. This was purely a formal assumption and I really did not give it much thought except that no matter what the cost, I must bring about a positive result.”

Max Planck (1858–1947) German theoretical physicist

Letter to Robert W. Wood (October 7, 1931) in Archive for the History of Quantum Physics, Microfilm 66, 5, as cited in Thomas S. Kuhn, Black-Body Theory and the Quantum Discontinuity, 1894–1912 (1978) pp. 132, 288. Translation of the entire letter, which is follow above is in Armin Hermann, Frühgeschiche der Quantentheorie (1899–1913) Mosbach/Baden: Physik Verlag (1969), transl. Claude W. Nash, p. 23 of the translation; and also in M. S. Longair,Theoretical Concepts in Physics(Cambridge and NewYork: Cambridge University Press, 1984), ch. 6–12, p. 222. All as quoted/cited by Clayton A. Gearhart, "Planck, the Quantum, and the Historians" http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.613.4262&rep=rep1&type=pdf, Physics in Perspective, 4 (2002) 170-215.

Teal Swan photo
Teal Swan photo
Wilhelm Von Humboldt photo
Eckhart Tolle photo
Eckhart Tolle photo
Claude Monet photo

“I am working from morning to evening, brimming with energy.. I'm fencing and wrestling with the sun. And what a sun it is! In order to paint here, one would need gold and precious stones. It is quite remarkable.”

Claude Monet (1840–1926) French impressionist painter

Quote in a letter from Cote d'Azure to sculptor and friend Auguste Rodin, 1 February 1888; as cited in R. Gordon and A. Forge (1983), Monet, p. 123
1870 - 1890

Karl Marx photo
Karl Marx photo
Karl Marx photo
Valter Bitencourt Júnior photo
Thomas Edison photo
Zafar Mirzo photo
Walt Disney photo
Shavkat Mirziyoyev photo

““Every time I communicate with young people, you charge me with your energy, fill my heart with joy. I know very well that each of you is eager to serve our dear Motherland and people. I value you immensely as the greatest wealth, priceless treasure of Uzbekistan.””

Shavkat Mirziyoyev (1957) President of Uzbekistan (2016-present)

From the greeting speech of the President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev on the Youth Forum of Uzbekistan.
Source: https://mirziyo.uz/en/yoshlar-ozbekistonning-eng-katta-boyligi-bebaho-xazinasi/

Neale Donald Walsch photo
Neale Donald Walsch photo
Neale Donald Walsch photo
Neale Donald Walsch photo
Thich Nhat Hanh photo
J. Michael Straczynski photo
Don DeLillo photo
John Muir photo
Meg Rosoff photo
Marianne Williamson photo
Marianne Williamson photo
Dorothy Thompson photo
Gary Zukav photo
Marianne Williamson photo
Ralph Nader photo
Elizabeth Wurtzel photo
Jean Paul Sartre photo

“You know, it's quite a job starting to love somebody. You have to have energy, generosity, blindness. There is even a moment, in the very beginning, when you have to jump across a precipice: if you think about it you don't do it.”

Variant: It's quite an undertaking to start loving somebody. You have to have energy, generosity, blindness. There is even a moment right at the start where you have to jump across an abyss: if you think about it you don't do it.
Source: Nausea (1938)
Context: I know. I know that I shall never again meet anything or anybody who will inspire me with passion. You know, it's quite a job starting to love somebody. You have to have energy, generosity, blindness. There is even a moment, in the very beginning, when you have to jump across a precipice: if you think about it you don't do it. I know I'll never jump again.

“Travel is the only context in which some people ever look around. If we spent half the energy looking at our own neighborhoods, we'd probably learn twice as much.”

Lucy R. Lippard (1937) American art curator

Source: WhiteWalls, Vol. 36-38 (1995), p 45; Cited in: Timothy Oakes, ‎Patricia L. Price (2008). The Cultural Geography Reader. p. 343.
Source: On the Beaten Track: Tourism, Art, and Place

Cassandra Clare photo
Ken Robinson photo

“We have sold ourselves into a fast-food model of education. And it’s impoverishing our spirits and our energies as much as fast food is depleting our physical bodies.”

Ken Robinson (1950) UK writer

TED Conference 2010 TED Conference http://www.ted.com/talks/sir_ken_robinson_bring_on_the_revolution.html (2010)

Sylvia Day photo
Kazuo Ishiguro photo
Nassim Nicholas Taleb photo
Tim Burton photo
Winston S. Churchill photo

“Mr Churchill, to what do you attribute your success in life?

Conservation of energy. Never stand up when you can sit down. And never sit down when you can lie down.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Variant: Mr.Churchill, to what do you attribute your success in life? Conservation of energy. Never stand up when you can sit down. And never sit down when you can lie down.

Martha Graham photo

“There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost.”

Martha Graham (1894–1991) American dancer and choreographer

As quoted in The Life and Work of Martha Graham (1991) by Agnes de Mille, p. 264, <!-- de Mille precedes the Graham quotation with: "The greatest thing she ever said to me was in 1943 after the opening of Oklahoma!, when I suddenly had unexpected, flamboyant success for a work I thought was only fairly good, after years of neglect for work I thought was fine. I was bewildered and worried that my entire scale of values was untrustworthy. I talked to Martha. I remember the conversation well. It was in a Schrafft's restaurant over a soda. I confessed that I had a burning desire to be excellent, but no faith that I could be. Martha said to me, very quietly, ... " -->
Context: There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep yourself open and aware to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open.... No artist is pleased. [There is] no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others.

Robert Musil photo
Augusten Burroughs photo
Ilchi Lee photo

“The energy of life entering and leaving your body flows evenly throughout the universe. With that current, the mind of the cosmos communicates with all things.”

Ilchi Lee (1950) South Korean businessman

Source: LifeParticle Meditation: A Practical Guide to Healing and Transformation

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi photo
Leo Tolstoy photo

“I wanted movement and not a calm course of existence. I wanted excitement and the chance to sacrifice myself for my love. I felt it in myself a superabundance of energy which found no outlet in our quiet life.”

Variant: I want movement, not a calm course of existence. I want excitement and danger and the chance to sacrifice myself for my love. I feel in myself a superabundance of energy which finds no outlet in our quiet life.
Source: Family Happiness

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni photo
Sherrilyn Kenyon photo
Wilhelm Reich photo
Helen Keller photo
Albert Einstein photo
Evelyn Waugh photo

“… for in that city [New York] there is neurosis in the air which the inhabitants mistake for energy.”

Evelyn Waugh (1903–1966) British writer

Source: Brideshead Revisited: The Sacred and Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder

Dan Gutman photo

“Feel the flowing life energy. Can you see the universe unfolding in your mind?”

Dan Gutman (1954) American children's writer

Mrs. Jafee Is Daffy!