Quotes about force
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“A good way to rid one's self of a sense of discomfort is to do something. That uneasy, dissatisfied feeling is actual force vibrating out of order; it may be turned to practical account by giving proper expression to its creative character.”

William Morris (1834–1896) author, designer, and craftsman

Way, Feeling, Sense

“Things are not magical because they've been conjured for us by some outside force. They are magical because we create them.”

David Levithan (1972) American author and editor

Source: Two Boys Kissing

“Discretion prevented me from saying that I thought she was a fiend from the underworld and that mountain lions couldn't force me to enter her service.”

Megan Whalen Turner The Thief

Source: The Thief

Mountain

“The way you look at things is the most powerful force in shaping your life.”

John O'Donohue (1956–2008) Irish writer, priest and philosopher

Source: Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom

Life, Way

“Grace is the most perplexing, powerful force in the universe, and, I believe, the only hope for our twisted, violent planet.”

Philip Yancey (1949) American writer

Hope, Universe

“I believe in only one thing: liberty; but I do not believe in liberty enough to want to force it upon anyone.”

H.L. Mencken (1880–1956) American journalist and writer

"Why Liberty?”, in the Chicago Tribune (30 January 1927)
1920s
Context: I believe that liberty is the only genuinely valuable thing that men have invented, at least in the field of government, in a thousand years. I believe that it is better to be free than to be not free, even when the former is dangerous and the latter safe. I believe that the finest qualities of man can flourish only in free air – that progress made under the shadow of the policeman’s club is false progress, and of no permanent value. I believe that any man who takes the liberty of another into his keeping is bound to become a tyrant, and that any man who yields up his liberty, in however slight the measure, is bound to become a slave.

“Great men are they who see that spiritual is stronger than any material force, that thoughts rule the world. No hope so bright but is the beginning of its own fulfilment.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

Progress of Culture Phi Beta Kappa Address (July 18, 1867) <br class="br">1870s, Society and Solitude (1870), Books, Letters and Social Aims http://www.rwe.org/comm/index.php?option=com_content&task=category&sectionid=5&id=74&Itemid=149 (1876)

Men, World, Hope

“Don’t be stupid, Katra. Never speak in anger and never try to force your will onto someone else. You’ll never find peace in that. (Acheron)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Devil May Cry

Stupidity, Peace, Anger

“When I begin to doubt my ability to work the word, I simply read another writer and know I have nothing to worry about. My contest is only with myself, to do it right, with power, and force, and delight, and gamble.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

Reading

“Insist on yourself; never imitate. Your own gift you can offer with the cumulative force of a whole life's cultivation, but of the adopted talent of another, you have only an extemporaneous, half possession.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

Life

“If you put yourself in a position where you have to stretch outside your comfort zone, then you are forced to expand your consciousness.”

Les Brown (1945) American politician

“You must remember that the common criminal will always join the armed forces for, if nothing else, regular meals and expert training in the use of guns.”

Warren Ellis book Aetheric Mechanics

Source: Aetheric Mechanics

Training

“The names of persons and living creatures demand respect, because when we speak to them we touch their heart and become a part of thier life force.”

Isabel Allende book The Stories of Eva Luna

Source: The Stories of Eva Luna

Life, Heart, Parting, Personality

“Love can't be forced into existence,(…)It won't come simply because you will it to happen”

Judith McNaught (1944) American writer

Source: Once and Always

Love

“if you force yourself to be the same as everyone else. It causes neuroses, psychoses, and paranoia. it's a distortion of nature, it goes against God's laws, for in all the world's woods and forests he did not create a single leaf the same as another.”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

Source: Veronika Decides to Die

God, World, Law, Nature

“Yanking his inner manwhore back to the land of polite conversating, he forced his hands to stop”

Jessica Bird (1969) U.S. novelist

Source: Lover Unleashed

“Using a fetching face to make men do as you wish is no different from a man using muscle to force a woman to his will. Both are base, and both will fail a person as they age.”

Brandon Sanderson book Words of Radiance

Source: Words of Radiance

Men, Age, Personality

“If there is a special Hell for writers it would be in the forced contemplation of their own works”

John Dos Passos (1896–1970) novelist, playwright, poet, journalist, painter

"Looking Back on U.S.A.," New York Times, Oct 25 1959
Context: If there is a special Hell for writers it would be in the forced contemplation of their own works, with all the misconceptions, the omissions, the failures that any finished work of art implies.

Hell

“If you come, you better come in force because I will kill every single one of you. My hand won't shake, my aim won't falter. My face will be the last thing you'll see before you die." I jammed my knife into the table and walked out.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Bleeds

“I have always had the ability to attach my demons to my chariot. And they have been forced to make themselves useful.”

Ingmar Bergman (1918–2007) Swedish filmmaker

Source: Images: My Life in Film

“To be good or bad doesn't count: life out in this world doesn't depend on that. It depends on a relation of forces based on violence. And survival is violence. You'll wear leather shoes because someone has killed a cow and skinned it to make leather.”

Oriana Fallaci book Letter to a Child Never Born

Source: Letter to a Child Never Born

Life, World, Shoe, Dependency

“The Brotherhood was strong, a unit. a powerful force in their world for good. And so too were the females. Strong. A unit. A powerful force for good in their world.”

Jessica Bird book Lover Revealed

Source: Lover Revealed

World, Strong

“This is the biggest mistake I could think would save me. I wanted to give up the idea that I had any control. Shake things up. To be saved by chaos. To see if I could cope, I wanted to force myself to grow again. To explode my comfort zone.”

Chuck Palahniuk (1962) American novelist, essayist

Idea, Thinking

“For always in her there was a dark place full of despair and a great dividing force to make meaning because there was none.”

Anne Rice (1941) American writer

Despair

“In so doing, the idea forces itself upon him that religion is comparable to a childhood neurosis, and he is optimistic enough to suppose that mankind will surmount this neurotic phase, just as so many children grow out of their similar neurosis.”

Sigmund Freud book The Future of an Illusion

Source: 1920s, The Future of an Illusion (1927), Ch. 10

Children, Religion, Idea, Childhood

“See them together and you will feel a force that will take your breath away.”

Melina Marchetta Finnikin of the Rock

Source: Finnikin of the Rock

Feeling

“When I was little, I had this science book. There was a section on 'What would happen to the world if there was no friction?' Answer: 'Everything on earth would fly into space from the centrifugal force of revolution.' That was my mood.”

Haruki Murakami book Dance Dance Dance

Source: Dance Dance Dance

Books, World, Mood, Science

“Well, either you’ve been out fighting the forces of evil or you’ve come from a much wilder party than we have,” Jace said.
“Hello, there, Blackthorns.”

Cassandra Clare book Lady Midnight

Source: Lady Midnight

Evil, Fight

“Give us what belongs to us in peace, and if you don't give it to us in peace, we will take it by force.”

Emma Goldman (1868–1940) anarchist known for her political activism, writing, and speeches

Peace

“I find I am much prouder of the victory I obtain over myself, when, in the very ardor of dispute, I make myself submit to my adversary’s force of reason, than I am pleased with the victory I obtain over him through his weakness.”

Michel De Montaigne (1533–1592) (1533-1592) French-Occitan author, humanistic philosopher, statesman

Source: The Complete Essays

Victory

“A strange, terrific force unlike anything I've ever experienced is sprouting in my heart, taking root there, growing. Shut up behind my rib cage, my warm heart expands and contracts independent of my will--over and over.”

Haruki Murakami book Kafka on the Shore

Source: Kafka on the Shore

Heart

“Forcing him to talk about feelings all the time will not only make you seem needy, it will eventually make him lose respect. And when he loses respect, he’ll pay even less attention to your feelings.”

Sherry Argov (1977) American writer

Source: Why Men Love Bitches: From Doormat to Dreamgirl-A Woman's Guide to Holding Her Own in a Relationship

Feeling, Time

“In art and dream may you proceed with abandon. In life may you proceed with balance and stealth. For nothing is more precious than the life force and may the love of that force guide you as you go.”

Patti Smith (1946) American singer-songwriter, poet and visual artist

Source: Early Work, 1970-1979

Love, Life, Dreams, Art

“Life forces enough final decisions on us. We should have the sense to avoid as many of the unnecessary ones as we can.”

John Irving book Until I Find You

Source: Until I Find You (2005), ch. 25, p. 493

Life, Decision, Sense

“Hope can be bruised and battered. It can be forced underground and even rendered unconscious, but hope cannot be killed.”

Neal Shusterman (1962) American novelist

Source: UnSouled

Hope

“employers sense in me a denial of their values… they fear me. i suspect that they can see that i am forced to function in a century which i loathe.”

John Kennedy Toole A Confederacy of Dunces

Source: A Confederacy of Dunces

Fear, Sense

“Sir Impey Biggs: Time and trouble will tame an advanced young woman, but an advanced old woman is uncontrollable by any earthly force.”

Dorothy L. Sayers book Clouds of Witness

Source: Clouds of Witness (1926)

Time

“Who overcomes
By force, hath overcome but half his foe.”

John Milton book Paradise Lost

Source: Paradise Lost

“Knowing that you love me is not a source of amusement.” Sebastian realized that his hands were shaking with the force of the emotion that was pouring through him. “It is my salvation”

Jayne Ann Krentz (1948) American novelist

Source: Dangerous

Love

“Sincerity and gravity, in Magnus's opinion, were highly overrated, as was being forced to relive unpleasant memories. He would much rather be amused and amusing.”

Cassandra Clare The Bane Chronicles

Source: The Bane Chronicles

Memory, Sincerity

“You ask me what forces me to speak? a strange thing; my conscience.”

Victor Hugo book Les Misérables

Source: Les Misérables

“Only Jace could look cool in pajama bottoms and an old T-shirt, but he pulled it off, probably through sheer force of will.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Bones

Clary about Jace, pg. 329
Source: The Mortal Instruments, City of Bones (2007)

“To be raped is to be sexually violated. For society to force someone, through shame and ostracism, to comply with love and sex that it defines, is nothing but organized rape. That is what homophobia is all about. Organized rape.”

Lee Maracle (1950) Canadian writer

Source: I Am Woman: A Native Perspective on Sociology and Feminism

Love, Sex

“The most powerful single force in the world today is neither Communism nor Capitalism, neither the H-bomb nor the guided missile -- it is man's eternal desire to be free and independent.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

World, Communication

“If we are a metaphor of the universe, the human couple is the metaphor par excellence, the point of intersection of all forces and the seed of all forms.”

Octavio Paz (1914–1998) Mexican writer laureated with the 1990 Nobel Prize for Literature

André Breton or the Quest of the Beginning
Source: Alternating Current (1967)
Context: If we are a metaphor of the universe, the human couple is the metaphor par excellence, the point of intersection of all forces and the seed of all forms. The couple is time recaptured, the return to the time before time.

Universe

“I am like a person whose hands were kept numb, without sensation from the first moment of awareness - until one day the ability to feel is forced into them. And I say "Look! I have no hands!" But the people all around me say: "What are hands?”

Frank Herbert book Dune

Source: Dune

People, Feeling, Personality

“You cannot force commitment, what you can do…You nudge a little here, inspire a little there, and provide a role model. Your primary influence is the environment you create.”

Peter M. Senge (1947) American scientist

“Control in modern times requires more than force, more than law. It requires that a population dangerously concentrated in cities and factories, whose lives are filled with cause for rebellion, be taught that all is right as it is.”

Howard Zinn book A People's History of the United States

Source: A People's History of the United States

Law, Time

“The clans began to bombard the outer force field with rockets, missiles, nukes, and harsh language.”

Ernest Cline book Ready Player One

Source: Ready Player One

“The truth is that most of life will unfold in accordance with forces far outside your control, regardless of what your mind says about it.”

Michael Singer (1945) American landscape architect

Source: The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself

Life, Truth

“The whole series of my life appeared to me as a dream; I sometimes doubted if indeed it were all true, for it never presented itself to my mind with the force of reality.”

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus

Source: Frankenstein

Life, Dreams, Reality, Appearance

“The time will come when you will be forced to make a choice,” Hanalea said. “When that time comes, choose love.”

Cinda Williams Chima (1952) Novelist

Source: The Gray Wolf Throne

Love, Time

“We tend to think of the erotic as an easy, tantalizing sexual arousal. I speak of the erotic as the deepest life force, a force which moves us toward living in a fundamental way.”

Audre Lorde (1934–1992) writer and activist

Life, Way, Thinking

“I am so busy doing nothing… that the idea of doing anything - which as you know, always leads to something - cuts into the nothing and then forces me to have to drop everything.”

Jerry Seinfeld (1954) American comedian and actor

Idea, Business

“Rose, I cheat at cards and buy liquor for minors. But I would never, ever force you into something you don't want.”

Richelle Mead book Spirit Bound

Source: Spirit Bound

Cheating

“If brute force doesn't work, you aren't using enough”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Styxx

“Some men […] choose to seek greatness, while others are forced to it. It is always better to choose than to be forced.
A man who is forced is never completely his own master. He must dance on the strings of those who forced him.”

Robert Jordan The Great Hunt

Source: The Great Hunt

Men, Dance

“Turn," Liz said, trying not to hide her impatience at being forced to read at non-speed-of-light pace.”

Ally Carter book Only the Good Spy Young

Source: Only the Good Spy Young

Light, Reading, Speed

“Life has its own hidden forces which you can only discover by living.”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

Life

“In every generation there is a chosen one. She alone will stand against the vampires the demons and the forces of darkness. She is the slayer.”

Joss Whedon (1964) American director, writer, and producer for television and film

“Actors need a kind of aggression, a kind of inner force. Don't be only one-sided, sweet, nice, good. Get rid of being average. Find the killer in you.”

Stella Adler (1901–1992) American actress and teaching coach

Source: The Art of Acting

“If you're honest, you sooner or later have to confront your values. Then you're forced to separate what is right from what is merely legal.”

Tom Robbins book Still Life with Woodpecker

Source: Still Life with Woodpecker (1980)
Context: If you're honest, you sooner or later have to confront your values. Then you're forced to separate what is right from what is merely legal. This puts you metaphysically on the run. America is full of metaphysical outlaws.

“It is art that makes life, makes interest, makes importance, for our consideration and application of these things, and I know of no substitute whatever for the force and beauty of its process.”

Henry James (1843–1916) American novelist, short story author, and literary critic

Letter to H.G. Wells (10 July 1915).

Life, Beauty, Art

“He sailed through the world guided only by the dim lights of impulse and habit, confident that his course would throw up no obstacles so large that they could not be plowed over with sheer force of momentum.”

Donna Tartt book The Secret History

Source: The Secret History

World, Confidence, Light

“The Rudderless World is not shaped by vague metaphysical Forces. It is not God who kills the Children. Not Fate that butchers them or Destiny that feeds them to the Dogs…. It´s us. Only us.”

Alan Moore book Watchmen

Source: Watchmen

God, Fate, Children, World

“Because there is no greater evil than ignorance and the destruction of genius. Ignorance has been responsible for more death, more bigotry, and more sin than any other force. It is the destroyer of mankind.”

Richelle Mead (1976) American writer

Source: Succubus Shadows

Death, Evil

“If we assume that man actually does resemble God, then we are forced into the impossible theory that God is a coward, an idiot and a bounder.”

H.L. Mencken (1880–1956) American journalist and writer

Variant: If we assume that man actually does resemble God, then we are forced into the impossible theory that God is a coward, an idiot and a bounder.

God

“Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Variant: Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding.

Peace, Understanding, Peaceful

“Have you tried this shrimp? It's freaking amazing.

Would you get away from me? I hate you.

You're so moody. Just because I kidnapped you and tried to force you to be my girlfriend. I thought you would be over that by now.”

Meg Cabot (1967) Novelist

Source: Runaway

Hate

“We all suffer under a curse, the curse that we know more than we can endure, and there is nothing, absolutely nothing we can do about the force and the lure of this knowledge.”

Anne Rice (1941) American writer

Source: Vittorio, The Vampire

Knowledge, Suffering

“At times to be silent is to lie. You will win because you have enough brute force. But you will not convince. For to convince you need to persuade. And in order to persuade you would need what you lack: Reason and Right”

Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936) 19th-20th century Spanish writer and philosopher

Lie, Time

“The will to be stupid is a very powerful force.”

Lois McMaster Bujold book Brothers in Arms

Source: Vorkosigan Saga, Brothers in Arms (1989)

Stupidity

“May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house.”

George Carlin (1937–2008) American stand-up comedian

Way, Evil, Housing, Funny

“What's with what you're wearing?" Griggs asks while we stand outside waiting for the others.
"It's pretty hideous, isn't it?" I say.
"Don't force me to look at it," he says. "It's see-through."

That kills conversation for a couple of seconds.”

Melina Marchetta book On the Jellicoe Road

Source: On the Jellicoe Road

Waiting

“If your workplace was somehow transplanted into the jungle and everyone was forced to survive at a very primitive level, it's safe to say that eventually your boss would rape you.”

Scott Dikkers (1965) American comic writer

Source: You Are Worthless: Depressing Nuggets of Wisdom Sure to Ruin Your Day

“Imagine how they would have mocked you if you proclaimed, 'Not only is the world a sphere, but there is an invisible, mystical force that holds everything to its surface'!”

Dan Brown book The Lost Symbol

Source: The Lost Symbol

World, Imagination

“Man masters nature not by force, but by understanding”

Jacob Bronowski (1908–1974) Polish-born British mathematician

Understanding, Nature

“Is it not possible that we are still living in the Dark Ages, still mocking the suggestion of 'mystical' forces that we cannot see or comprehend.”

Dan Brown book The Lost Symbol

Source: The Lost Symbol

Age

“Ah, Beloved. Of all the things I must bid farewell to, you are the most difficult to lose. Forgive me that I have avoided you. Better, perhaps, that we make a space between us and become accustomed to it before fate forces that upon us.”

Robin Hobb book Fool's Fate

Source: Fool's Fate

Fate, Forgiveness

“Faith is not Desire. Faith is Will. Desires are things that need to be satisfied, whereas Will is a force. Will changes the space around us,…”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

Source: The Witch Of Portobello

Faith, Change

“The more I learn about the universe, the less convinced I am that there's any sort of benevolent force that has anything to do with it, at all.”

Neil deGrasse Tyson (1958) American astrophysicist and science communicator

Learning, Universe

“In order for this to happen, your entire frame of reference will have to change, and you will be forced to surrender many things that you now scarcely know you have.”

James Baldwin book The Fire Next Time

Source: The Fire Next Time

Change

“An empty head is not really empty; it is stuffed with rubbish. Hence the difficulty of forcing anything into an empty head.”

Eric Hoffer (1898–1983) American philosopher

Source: Reflections on the Human Condition (1973), p. 54 of a 1974 edition

“That which is impenetrable to us really exists. Behind the secrets of nature remains something subtle, intangible, and inexplicable. Veneration for this force beyond anything that we can comprehend is my religion.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Source: 1920s, p. 157 London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson
Response to atheist Alfred Kerr in the winter of 1927, who after deriding ideas of God and religion at a dinner party in the home of the publisher Samuel Fischer, had queried him "I hear that you are supposed to be deeply religious" as quoted in The Diary of a Cosmopolitan (1971) by H. G. Kessler
Context: Try and penetrate with our limited means the secrets of nature and you will find that, behind all the discernible concatenations, there remains something subtle, intangible and inexplicable. Veneration for this force beyond anything that we can comprehend is my religion. To that extent I am, in point of fact, religious.

Secret, Religion, Nature

“When you vote, you are exercising political authority, you're using force. And force, my friends, is violence. The supreme authority from which all other authorities are derived.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Starship Troopers

Source: Starship Troopers

Exercises

“A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty. The means of defence against foreign danger have been always the instruments of tyranny at home.”

James Madison (1751–1836) 4th president of the United States (1809 to 1817)

Speech, Constitutional Convention (29 June 1787), from Max Farrand's Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, Vol. I http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llfr&fileName=001/llfr001.db&recNum=494&itemLink=D?hlaw:5:./temp/~ammem_kmli::%230010495&linkText=1 (1911), p. 465 <br class="br">1780s <br class="br">Context: In time of actual war, great discretionary powers are constantly given to the Executive Magistrate. Constant apprehension of War, has the same tendency to render the head too large for the body. A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty. The means of defence against foreign danger have been always the instruments of tyranny at home. Among the Romans it was a standing maxim to excite a war, whenever a revolt was apprehended. Throughout all Europe, the armies kept up under the pretext of defending, have enslaved the people.

Home

“NO! Don't force yourself to be alone! If you're alive, you can meet that person, somewhere, someday! The person that will be glad that you're alive! You can't… you can't want yourself to die!! So… live…”

Yukiru Sugisaki (1974) Manga artist

Personality