Quotes about inhibition

A collection of quotes on the topic of inhibition, other, many, making.

Quotes about inhibition

Rajneesh photo
Hugo Munsterberg photo
Camille Paglia photo
Thomas Mann photo
Theodor W. Adorno photo

“The center of intellectual self-discipline as such is in the process of decomposition. The taboos that constitute a man’s intellectual stature, often sedimented experiences and unarticulated insights, always operate against inner impulses that he has learned to condemn, but which are so strong that only an unquestioning and unquestioned authority can hold them in check. What is true of the instinctual life is no less of the intellectual: the painter or composer forbidding himself as trite this or that combination of colors or chords, the writer wincing at banal or pedantic verbal configurations, reacts so violently because layers of himself are drawn to them. Repudiation of the present cultural morass presupposes sufficient involvement in it to feel it itching in one’s finger-tips, so to speak, but at the same time the strength, drawn from this involvement, to dismiss it. This strength, though manifesting itself as individual resistance, is by no means of a merely individual nature. In the intellectual conscience possessed of it, the social movement is no less present than the moral super-ego. Such conscience grows out of a conception of the good society and its citizens. If this conception dims—and who could still trust blindly in it—the downward urge of the intellect loses its inhibitions and all the detritus dumped in the individual by barbarous culture—half-learning, slackness, heavy familiarity, coarseness—comes to light. Usually it is rationalized as humanity, desire to be understood by others, worldly-wise responsibility. But the sacrifice of intellectual self-discipline comes much too easily to him who makes it for us to believe his assurance that it is one.”

Das Zentrum der geistigen Selbstdisziplin als solcher ist in Zersetzung begriffen. Die Tabus, die den geistigen Rang eines Menschen ausmachen, oftmals sedimentierte Erfahrungen und unartikulierte Erkenntnisse, richten sich stets gegen eigene Regungen, die er verdammen lernte, die aber so stark sind, daß nur eine fraglose und unbefragte Instanz ihnen Einhalt gebieten kann. Was fürs Triebleben gilt, gilt fürs geistige nicht minder: der Maler und Komponist, der diese und jene Farbenzusammenstellung oder Akkordverbindung als kitschig sich untersagt, der Schriftsteller, dem sprachliche Konfigurationen als banal oder pedantisch auf die Nerven gehen, reagiert so heftig gegen sie, weil in ihm selber Schichten sind, die es dorthin lockt. Die Absage ans herrschende Unwesen der Kultur setzt voraus, daß man an diesem selber genug teilhat, um es gleichsam in den eigenen Fingern zucken zu fühlen, daß man aber zugleich aus dieser Teilhabe Kräfte zog, sie zu kündigen. Diese Kräfte, die als solche des individuellen Widerstands in Erscheinung treten, sind darum doch keineswegs selber bloß individueller Art. Das intellektuelle Gewissen, in dem sie sich zusammenfassen, hat ein gesellschaftliches Moment so gut wie das moralische Überich. Es bildet sich an einer Vorstellung von der richtigen Gesellschaft und deren Bürgern. Läßt einmal diese Vorstellung nach—und wer könnte noch blind vertrauend ihr sich überlassen—, so verliert der intellektuelle Drang nach unten seine Hemmung, und aller Unrat, den die barbarische Kultur im Individuum zurückgelassen hat, Halbbildung, sich Gehenlassen, plumpe Vertraulichkeit, Ungeschliffenheit, kommt zum Vorschein. Meist rationalisiert es sich auch noch als Humanität, als den Willen, anderen Menschen sich verständlich zu machen, als welterfahrene Verantwortlichkeit. Aber das Opfer der intellektuellen Selbstdisziplin fällt dem, der es auf sich nimmt, viel zu leicht, als daß man ihm glauben dürfte, daß es eines ist.
E. Jephcott, trans. (1974), § 8
Minima Moralia (1951)

Serge Lang photo
Philip Roth photo
Harper Lee photo
Anaïs Nin photo
Jack Kerouac photo
Sylvia Day photo
Xaviera Hollander photo
Gay Talese photo
Bernard Lewis photo
Victor Villaseñor photo
Alice A. Bailey photo
Camille Paglia photo
Milton Friedman photo
Konrad Lorenz photo
Umberto Veronesi photo
Charles Stross photo
Włodzimierz Ptak photo

“The task of immune cells is to recognize foreignness. And fight with it. An implanted foreign organ, or its fragment, is undoubtedly a foreign body. The immune system therefore begins to fight it. However, now immunopressives – and therefore immunosuppressants – are so effective that rejection of transplants is inhibited.”

Włodzimierz Ptak (1928–2019) immunologist

Mazurek, Maria (7 July 2017): Cudowna armia, która broni naszego ciała http://plus.gazetakrakowska.pl/magazyn/a/cudowna-armia-ktora-broni-naszego-ciala,12271571. Gazeta Krakowska (in Polish), pp. 18–19.

Richard Pipes photo
Wilfred Thesiger photo
Aldo Leopold photo
Karl Marlantes photo
Everett Dean Martin photo
Jane Roberts photo
Elizabeth Loftus photo

“The results were clear: the new environment inhibited recognition.”

Elizabeth Loftus (1944) American cognitive psychologist

Source: Eyewitness Testimony (1979), p. 90

Roy Jenkins photo
Barney Frank photo

“In the debate between those who believe in essentially unregulated markets and others who hold that reasonable regulation diminishes market excesses without inhibiting their basic function, the subprime situation unfortunately provides ammunition for the latter view.”

Barney Frank (1940) American politician, former member of the House of Representatives for Massachusetts

Frank in an op-ed piece "A (sub)prime argument for more regulation" http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a6eeecbe-4eb5-11dc-85e7-0000779fd2ac.html in W:Financial Times (August 2007)

Mary McCarthy photo
Laurent Schwartz photo
J. Doyne Farmer photo

“Our goal is to build a broad-based model of key components of the economy: households, firms, banks and government… The failure to embrace things like simulation has inhibited progress in economics.”

J. Doyne Farmer (1952) American physicist and entrepreneur (b.1952)

As quoted by Stephen Foley, " Physicists and the financial markets http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/8461f5e6-35f5-11e3-952b-00144feab7de.html#axzz2j7a3dBoP" Financial Times Magazine (Oct18, 2013) ref: the CRISIS Project http://www.crisis-economics.eu/.

Aaron Copland photo

“I hope my recordings of my own works won't inhibit other people's performances. The brutal fact is that one doesn't always get the exact tempo one wants, although one improves with experience.”

Aaron Copland (1900–1990) American composer, composition teacher, writer, and conductor

Classic Essays on Twentieth-Century Music, ISBN 0028645812.

Francisco Varela photo
Martin Amis photo

“Once launched into some activity, conceiving of himself as an instrument of God’s will, the ascetic did not stop to ask about the meaning of it all. On the contrary, the more furious his activity, the more the problem of what his activity meant receded from his mind. … To meet the demands of the day was as near as one could come to doing the pious thing, in this—God’s—world. To trouble about meaning was really an impiety and, of course, frivolous, because futile. For the question of meaning, therefore, neither the ascetic nor the therapeutic type feels responsible, if his spiritual discipline has been successful. The recently fashionable religious talk of “ultimate concern” makes no sense either in the ascetic or in the therapeutic mode. To try to relate “ultimate concern” to everyday behavior would be exhausting and nerve-shattering work; indeed, it could effectively inhibit less grandiose kinds of work. Neither the ascetic nor the therapeutic bothers his head about “ultimate concern.” Such a concern is for mystics who cannot otherwise enjoy their leisure. In the workaday world, there are no ultimate concerns, only present ones. Therapy is the respite of every day, during which the importance of the present is learned, and the existence of what in the ascetic tradition came to be called the “ultimate” or “divine” is unlearned.”

Philip Rieff (1922–2006) American sociologist

The Triumph of the Therapeutic (1966)

Aron Ra photo
Jane Roberts photo
Thomas C. Schelling photo
Barbara Hepworth photo
Dwight D. Eisenhower photo
Gabriel García Márquez photo
Benjamín Netanyahu photo
Nadine Gordimer photo
Jane Roberts photo
Derek Walcott photo

“I come from a place that likes grandeur; it likes large gestures; it is not inhibited by flourish; it is a rhetorical society; it is a society of physical performance; it is a society of style.”

Derek Walcott (1930–2017) Saint Lucian–Trinidadian poet and playwright

Interview with Ed Hirsch (1986), Writers at Work: The Paris Review Interviews, Eighth Series (Penguin, 1988)

Jim Butcher photo
Madonna photo
Barbara W. Tuchman photo

“And nothing inhibited fourth-century orators in the assembly and the law-courts from indulging in savage slander, without a touch of humour in it.”

Moses I. Finley (1912–1986) American historian

Source: Democracy Ancient And Modern (Second Edition) (1985), Chapter 5, Censorship in Classical Antiquity, p. 171-172

David Berg photo
Camille Pissarro photo

“[Seurat's pointilist style] Inhibits me and hinders the development of spontaneity of sensation.”

Camille Pissarro (1830–1903) French painter

quote, c. 1888; as quoted in: Arts and Activities. Vol. 81-82, (1977), p. cxxxvii
http://www.artnet.com/auction-houses/lesliehindman-auctioneers/artist-camille-pissarro/
1880's

Harry Connick, Jr. photo

“I was in such a state while I was recovering from this surgery and the pain medication that I was on sort of took all the inhibitions out that I may have had. I found that I was ordering things online; big boxes of stuff would arrive at my house.”

Harry Connick, Jr. (1967) American singer, conductor, pianist, actor, and composer

Late Show with David Letterman TV interview, February 2007 http://www.postchronicle.com/news/entertainment/tittletattle/article_21263069.shtml

Dorothy Thompson photo

“All stress inhibits true and effective learning.”

Michel Thomas (1914–2005) American linguist and language teacher

Speak French with Michel Thomas, Disc 1

Rudolph Rummel photo
Roman Polanski photo
Oswald Spengler photo

“p>Romanticism is no sign of powerful instincts, but, on the contrary, of a weak, self-detesting intellect. They are all infantile, these Romantics; men who remain children too long (or for ever), without the strength to criticize themselves, but with perpetual inhibitions arising from the obscure awareness of their own personal weakness; who are impelled by the morbid idea of reforming society, which is to them too masculine, too healthy, too sober.”

Oswald Spengler (1880–1936) German historian and philosopher

...</p>
<p>And these same everlasting "Youths" are with us again today, immature, destitute of the slightest experience or even real desire for experience, but writing and talking away about politics, fired by uniforms and badges, and clinging fantastically to some theory or other. There is a social Romanticism of sentimental Communists, a political Romanticism which regards election figures and the intoxication of mass-meeting oratory as deeds, and an economic Romanticism which trickles out from behind the gold theories of sick minds that know nothing of the inner forms of modern economics. They can only feel in the mass, where they can deaden the dull sense of their weakness by multiplying themselves. And this they call the Overcoming of Individualism.</p>
The Hour of Decision (1933)

George Washington Carver photo

“My attitude toward life was also my attitude toward science. Jesus said one must be born again, must become as a little child. He must let no laziness, no fear, no stubbornness keep him from his duty. If he were born again he would see life from such a plane he would have the energy not to be impeded in his duty by these various sidetrackers and inhibitions. My work, my life, must be in the spirit of a little child seeking only to know the truth and follow it. My purpose alone must be God's purpose - to increase the welfare and happiness of His people. Nature will not permit a vacuum. It will be filled with something. Human need is really a great spiritual vacuum which God seeks to fill… With one hand in the hand of a fellow man in need and the other in the hand of Christ, He could get across the vacuum and I became an agent. Then the passage, "I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me," came to have real meaning. As I worked on projects which fulfilled a real human need forces were working through me which amazed me. I would often go to sleep with an apparently insoluble problem. When I woke the answer was there. Why, then, should we who believe in Christ be so surprised at what God can do with a willing man in a laboratory? Some things must be baffling to the critic who has never been born again.”

George Washington Carver (1864–1943) botanist

William J. Federer (2003), George Washington Carver: His Life & Faith in His Own Words http://books.google.es/books?id=Uyktcxy4MHkC&printsec=frontcover&hl=es#v=onepage&q&f=false, p. 68.

Mani Madhava Chakyar photo
Lech Kaczyński photo

“Violence and pleasure are reciprocally related, that is, the presence of one inhibits the other”

James W. Prescott (1930) American psychologist

"Before Ethics and Morality" (1972)
Context: The issues of human violence and human pleasure are pivotal to any theory—scientific or religious—of moral behavior. Violence and pleasure are reciprocally related, that is, the presence of one inhibits the other, and certain critical early sensory experiences during the formative periods of development provide the neurobiological substrate and properties for either violence-seeking or pleasure-seeking behaviors.

Christopher Alexander photo
George Will photo

“The theory is that election to Congress is tantamount to being dispatched to Washington on a looting raid for the enrichment of your state or district, and no other ethic need inhibit the feeding frenzy.”

George Will (1941) American newspaper columnist, journalist, and author

Restoration: Congress, Term Limits and the Recovery of Deliberative Democracy, Simon & Schuster (c. 1992), Chapter 1, p. 31 :
Context: Byrd [former Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia] rose to his current eminence from conditions of severe poverty, and he represents a poor state, so perhaps some of his grasping should be forgiven. Some, but not this egregious sort. His career has become a caricature of a particularly crass and cynical theory of representation. The theory is that election to Congress is tantamount to being dispatched to Washington on a looting raid for the enrichment of your state or district, and no other ethic need inhibit the feeding frenzy.

Harish-Chandra photo

“I have often pondered over the roles of knowledge or experience, on the one hand, and imagination or intuition, on the other, in the process of discovery. I believe that there is a certain fundamental conflict between the two, and knowledge, by advocating caution, tends to inhibit the flight of imagination. Therefore, a certain naiveté, unburdened by conventional wisdom, can sometimes be a positive asset.”

Harish-Chandra (1923–1983) Indian American mathematician and physicist (1923–1983)

Harish-Chandra, cited in: Robert Langlands, "Harish-Chandra. 11 October 1923-16 October 1983." http://rsbm.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/31/198, in: Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society of London, 31 (1985), 199-225.

Milton Friedman photo
J. Howard Moore photo
Roy Jenkins photo

“I therefore believe that the politics of the left and centre of this country are frozen in an out-of-date mould which is bad for the political and economic health of Britain and increasingly inhibiting for those who live within the mould. Can it be broken? … There was once a book, more famous for its title than for its contents, called the Strange Death of Liberal England.”

Roy Jenkins (1920–2003) British politician, historian and writer

That death caught people rather unawares. Do not discount the possibility that in a few years time someone may be able to write at least equally convincingly of the strange and rapid revival of liberal social democratic Britain.
Speech to the Parliamentary Press Gallery (9 June 1980), quoted in The Times (10 June 1980), p. 2
1980s

Benjamin Creme photo

“I have long believed that an experimentalist should not be unduely inhibited by theoretical untidyness.”

Robert H. Dicke (1916–1997) American astronomer

If he insists in having every last theoretical T crossed before he starts his research the chances are that he will never do a significant experiment. And the more significant and fundamental the experiment the more theoretical uncertainty may be tolerated. By contrast, the more important and difficult the experiment the more that experimental care is warranted. There is no point in attempting a half-hearted experiment with an inadequate apparatus.
as quoted by [W. Happer, P. J. E. Peebles, and D. T. Wilkinson, Biographical Memoirs, Robert Henry Dicke May 6, 1916 — March 4, 1997, http://www.nap.edu/readingroom/books/biomems/rdicke.html]

Gilles Villeneuve photo

“His death signified the passing of a certain approach. He was the last person who had the totally un-inhibited joy of driving a racing car.”

Gilles Villeneuve (1950–1982) Canadian racecar driver

Alan Henry, motorsport journalist and friend of Villeneuve - Donaldson, pp. 316-317

June Downey photo

“Variation in the amplitude of written characters involves doubtless many important considerations relative to the facilitation and inhibition of movement.”

June Downey (1875–1932) American psychologist

August 1909, Popular Science Monthly Volume 75, Article:"The Varificational Factor in Handwriting", p. 151
about Handwriting

Esmé Weijun Wang photo

“I do want to be careful not to glamorise mental illness when it comes to creativity because more often than not it actually tends to inhibit creativity…”

Esmé Weijun Wang American writer

On avoiding perpetuating stereotypes about mental illness in “Esmé Weijun Wang: ‘I don’t want to glamorise mental illness… it inhibits creativity’” https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/jun/29/esme-weijun-wang-interview-the-collected-schizophrenias in The Guardian (2019 Jun29)

J.B. Priestley photo
John F. Kennedy photo

“The new tax bill should improve both the equity and the simplicity of our present tax system. This means the enactment of long-needed tax reforms, a broadening of the tax base and the elimination or modification of many special tax privileges. These steps are not only needed to recover lost revenue and thus make possible a larger cut in present rates; they are also tied directly to our goal of greater growth. For the present patchwork of special provisions and preferences lightens the tax load of some only at the cost of placing a heavier burden on others. It distorts economic judgments and channels an undue amount of energy into efforts to avoid tax liabilities. It makes certain types of less productive activity more profitable than other more valuable undertakings. All this inhibits our growth and efficiency, as well as considerably complicating the work of both the taxpayer and the Internal Revenue Service. These various exclusions and concessions have been justified in part as a means of overcoming oppressively high rates in the upper brackets--and a sharp reduction in those rates, accompanied by base-broadening, loophole-closing measures, would properly make the new rates not only lower but also more widely applicable. Surely this is more equitable on both counts.”

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

Source: 1962, Address and Question and Answer Period at the Economic Club of New York

F. Scott Fitzgerald photo