Quotes about urge (572 quotes, page 6) | Quotes of famous people

“When I was very young and the urge to be someplace was on me, I was assured by mature people that maturity would cure this itch.”

John Steinbeck (1902–1968) American writer

Pt. 1
Travels With Charley: In Search of America (1962)
Context: When I was very young and the urge to be someplace was on me, I was assured by mature people that maturity would cure this itch. When years described me as mature, the remedy prescribed was middle age. In middle age I was assured that greater age would calm my fever and now that I am fifty-eight perhaps senility will do the job. Nothing has worked.... In other words, I don’t improve, in further words, once a bum always a bum. I fear the disease is incurable.

People

“In his youth he felt an urge to reform the world, but during the latter years of his life he decided that he would be doing rather well if he kept himself out of jail.”

Robert Quillen (1887–1948) American journalist

Self-written "Obituary" (24 March 1932), published 16 years prior to his actual death, as quoted in The Voice of Small-Town America : The Selected Writings of Robert Quillen, 1920-1948 (2008) by John Hammond Moore, p. 181
Context: He was a writer of paragraphs and short editorials. He always hoped to write something of permanent value, but the business of making a living took most of his time and he never got around to it. In his youth he felt an urge to reform the world, but during the latter years of his life he decided that he would be doing rather well if he kept himself out of jail. … When the last clod had fallen, workmen covered the grave with a granite slab bearing the inscription: "Submitted to the Publisher by Robert Quillen."

Life , Youth , World

“I have seen many theoretical objections to democracy, and sometimes urge them with such heat that it probably goes beyond the bound of sound taste, but I am thoroughly convinced, nonetheless, that the democratic nations are happier than any other. The United States today, indeed, is probably the happiest the world has ever seen.”

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

"The Master Illusion" in the The American Mercury (March 1925), p. 319
1920s
Context: I have seen many theoretical objections to democracy, and sometimes urge them with such heat that it probably goes beyond the bound of sound taste, but I am thoroughly convinced, nonetheless, that the democratic nations are happier than any other. The United States today, indeed, is probably the happiest the world has ever seen. Taxes are high, but they are still well within the means of the taxpayer: he could pay twice as much and still survive. The laws are innumerable and idiotic, but only prisoners in the penitentiaries and persons under religious vows ever obey them. The country is governed by rogues, but there is no general dislike of rogues: on the contrary, they are esteemed and envied. Best of all, the people have the pleasant feeling that they can make improvements at any time they want to—... in other words, they are happy. Democrats are always happy. Democracy is a sort of laughing gas. It will not cure anything, perhaps, but it unquestionably stops the pain.

World , Democracy

“All about us we see a world in revolt; but revolt is negative, a mere finishing-off process. In the midst of destruction we carry with us also our creation, our hopes, our strength, our urge to be fulfilled.”

Henry Miller (1891–1980) American novelist

"The Absolute Collective", an essay first published in The Criterion on The Absolute Collective : A Philosophical Attempt to Overcome Our Broken State by Erich Gutkind, as translated by Marjorie Gabain
The Wisdom of the Heart (1941)
Context: All about us we see a world in revolt; but revolt is negative, a mere finishing-off process. In the midst of destruction we carry with us also our creation, our hopes, our strength, our urge to be fulfilled. The climate changes as the wheel turns, and what is true for the sidereal world is true for man. The last two thousand years have brought about a duality in man such as he never experienced before, and yet the man who dominates this whole period was one who stood for wholeness, one who proclaimed the Holy Ghost. No life in the whole history of man has been so misinterpreted, so woefully misunderstood as Christ's. If not a single Man has shown himself capable of following the example of Christ, and doubtless none ever will for we shall no longer have need of Christs, nevertheless this one profound example has altered our climate. Unconsciously we are moving into a new realm of being; what we have brought to perfection, in our zeal to escape the true reality, is a complete arsenal of destruction; when we have rid ourselves of the suicidal mania for a beyond we shall begin the life of here and now which is reality and which is sufficient unto itself. We shall have no need for art or religion because we shall be in ourselves a work of art. This is how I interpret realistically what Gutkind has set forth philosophically; this is the way in which man will overcome his broken state. If my statements are not precisely in accord with the text of Gutkind's thesis, I nevertheless am thoroughly in accord with Gutkind and his view of things. I have felt it my duty not only to set forth his doctrine, but to launch it, and in launching it to augment it, activate it. Any genuine philosophy leads to action and from action back again to wonder, to the enduring fact of mystery. I am one man who can truly say that he has understood and acted upon this profound thought of Gutkind's —“the stupendous fact that we stand in the midst of reality will always be something far more wonderful than anything we do."

World , Hope

“Islam doesn't have to mean blind faith. It can mean what it always meant in your family, a culture, a civilization, as open-minded as your grandfather was, as delightedly disputatious as your father was. … Don't let the zealots make Muslim a terrifying word, I urged myself; remember when it meant family”

Salman Rushdie (1947) British Indian novelist and essayist

Address at Columbia University (1991)
Context: I determined to make my peace with Islam, even at the cost of my pride. Those who were surprised and displeased by what I did perhaps failed to see that … I wanted to make peace between the warring halves of the world, which were also the warring halves of my soul….
The really important conversations I had in this period were with myself.
I said: Salman, you must send a message loud enough to … make ordinary Muslims see that you aren't their enemy, and you must make the West understand a little more of the complexity of Muslim culture …, and start thinking a little less stereotypically…. And I said to myself: Admit it, Salman, the Story of Islam has a deeper meaning for you than any of the other grand narratives. Of course you're no mystic, mister…. No supernaturalism, no literalist orthodoxies … for you. But Islam doesn't have to mean blind faith. It can mean what it always meant in your family, a culture, a civilization, as open-minded as your grandfather was, as delightedly disputatious as your father was. … Don't let the zealots make Muslim a terrifying word, I urged myself; remember when it meant family. …
I reminded myself that I had always argued that it was necessary to develop the nascent concept of the "secular Muslim," who, like the secular Jew, affirmed his membership of the culture while being separate from the theology…. But, Salman, I told myself, you can't argue from outside the debating chamber. You've got to cross the threshold, go inside the room, and then fight for your humanized, historicized, secularized way of being a Muslim.

Family , Faith

“Christians should urge our government to destroy all its atomic bombs”

Kirby Page (1890–1957) American clergyman

What Does God Want Us to Do About Russia? (1948)
Context: We Christians should urge our government to destroy all its atomic bombs, stop making any additional ones, and stop all preparations to wage war with biological weapons. Such actions would... place our government in an advantageous position to plead with all other nations to join with us in an international treaty of disarmament by as rapid stages as possible.

“We are now taught to believe that legerdemain tricks upon paper can produce as solid wealth as hard labor in the earth. It is vain for common sense to urge that nothing can produce nothing”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

Letter to Colonel Charles Yancey http://oll.libertyfund.org/?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=807&chapter=88152&layout=html&Itemid=27 (6 January 1816) ME 14:384
1810s
Context: Like a dropsical man calling out for water, water, our deluded citizens are clamoring for more banks, more banks. The American mind is now in that state of fever which the world has so often seen in the history of other nations. We are under the bank bubble, as England was under the South Sea bubble, France under the Mississippi bubble, and as every nation is liable to be, under whatever bubble, design, or delusion may puff up in moments when off their guard. We are now taught to believe that legerdemain tricks upon paper can produce as solid wealth as hard labor in the earth. It is vain for common sense to urge that nothing can produce nothing; that it is an idle dream to believe in a philosopher’s stone which is to turn everything into gold, and to redeem man from the original sentence of his Maker, “in the sweat of his brow shall he eat his bread.”

Sense , Wealth

“This idea, though not incorporated in the constitution, was the prevailing idea at that time. The constitution, it is true, secured every essential guarantee to the institution while it should last, and hence no argument can be justly urged against the constitutional guarantees thus secured, because of the common sentiment of the day. Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error.”

Alexander H. Stephens (1812–1883) Vice President of the Confederate States (in office from 1861 to 1865)

The Cornerstone Speech (1861)
Context: This idea, though not incorporated in the constitution, was the prevailing idea at that time. The constitution, it is true, secured every essential guarantee to the institution while it should last, and hence no argument can be justly urged against the constitutional guarantees thus secured, because of the common sentiment of the day. Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the government built upon it fell when the 'storm came and the wind blew'.

Error , Idea , Time

“It's an alethiometer. It's one of only six that were ever made. Lyra, I urge you again: keep it private.”

Philip Pullman His Dark Materials trilogy

The Master and Lyra, in Ch. 4 : The Alethiometer
His Dark Materials, The Golden Compass (1995)
Context: "Lyra, I'm going to give you something, and you must promise to keep it private. Will you swear to that?"
"Yes," Lyra said.
He crossed to the desk and took from a drawer a small package wrapped in black velvet. When he unfolded the cloth, Lyra saw something like a large watch or a small clock: a thick disk of gold and crystal. It might have been a compass or something of the sort.
"What is it?" she said.
"It's an alethiometer. It's one of only six that were ever made. Lyra, I urge you again: keep it private. It would be better if Mrs. Coulter didn't know about it. Your uncle — "
"But what does it do?"
"It tells you the truth. As for how to read it, you'll have to learn by yourself. Now go — it's getting lighter — hurry back to your room before anyone sees you."

“Virility of one kind or another is so important if you are to feel like a man. You have to be able to perform stunts. You have to be able to show off in front of your woman, do things she urges you not to do because they look dangerous.”

Geoff Dyer (1958) English writer

Source: Yoga For People Who Can't Be Bothered To Do It (1993), p. 64

Feeling

“Can we believe that God ever really modifies His action in response to the suggestions of men? For infinite wisdom does not need telling what is best, and infinite goodness needs no urging to do it.”

Clive Staples Lewis (1898–1963) Christian apologist, novelist, and Medievalist

The Efficacy of Prayer (1958)
Context: Petitionary prayer is, nonetheless, both allowed and commanded to us: “Give us our daily bread.” And no doubt it raises a theoretical problem. Can we believe that God ever really modifies His action in response to the suggestions of men? For infinite wisdom does not need telling what is best, and infinite goodness needs no urging to do it. But neither does God need any of those things that are done by finite agents, whether living or inanimate. He could, if He chose, repair our bodies miraculously without food; or give us food without the aid of farmers, bakers, and butchers; or knowledge without the aid of learned men; or convert the heathen without missionaries. Instead, He allows soils and weather and animals and the muscles, minds, and wills of men to co-operate in the execution of His will. “God,” said Pascal, “instituted prayer in order to lend to His creatures the dignity of causality.” But not only prayer; whenever we act at all He lends us that dignity. It is not really stranger, nor less strange, that my prayers should affect the course of events than that my other actions should do so. They have not advised or changed God's mind—that is, His over-all purpose. But that purpose will be realized in different ways according to the actions, including the prayers, of His creatures.

Wisdom , Men , God

“Of course I have no right whatsoever to write down the truth about my life involving as it naturally does the lives of so many other people, but I do so urged by a necessity of truth-telling, because there is no living soul who knows the complete truth”

Vita Sackville-West (1892–1962) English writer and gardener

Autobiographical sketch (23 July 1920), published in Portrait of a Marriage : Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson (1998), p. 3
Context: Of course I have no right whatsoever to write down the truth about my life involving as it naturally does the lives of so many other people, but I do so urged by a necessity of truth-telling, because there is no living soul who knows the complete truth; here, may be one who knows a section; and there, one who knows another section: but to the whole picture not one is initiated.

Life , People , Truth , Soul

“Mr. Madison was not a little surprised to hear this implicit confidence urged by a member who, on all occasions, had inculcated so strongly the political depravity of men, and the necessity of checking one vice and interest by opposing to them another vice and interest.”

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

Madison's notes (11 July 1787) http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/debates_711.asp
Variants:
1780s, The Debates in the Federal Convention (1787)
Context: Two objections had been raised against leaving the adjustment of the representation, from time to time, to the discretion of the Legislature. The first was, they would be unwilling to revise it at all. The second, that, by referring to wealth, they would be bound by a rule which, if willing, they would be unable to execute. The first objection distrusts their fidelity. But if their duty, their honor, and their oaths, will not bind them, let us not put into their hands our liberty, and all our other great interests; let us have no government at all. In the second place, if these ties will bind them we need not distrust the practicability of the rule. It was followed in part by the Committee in the apportionment of Representatives yesterday reported to the House. The best course that could be taken would be to leave the interests of the people to the representatives of the people.
Mr. Madison was not a little surprised to hear this implicit confidence urged by a member who, on all occasions, had inculcated so strongly the political depravity of men, and the necessity of checking one vice and interest by opposing to them another vice and interest. If the representatives of the people would be bound by the ties he had mentioned, what need was there of a Senate? What of a revisionary power? But his reasoning was not only inconsistent with his former reasoning, but with itself. At the same time that he recommended this implicit confidence to the Southern States in the Northern majority, he was still more zealous in exhorting all to a jealousy of a western majority. To reconcile the gentleman with himself, it must be imagined that he determined the human character by the points of the compass. The truth was, that all men having power ought to be distrusted, to a certain degree. The case of Pennsylvania had been mentioned, where it was admitted that those who were possessed of the power in the original settlement never admitted the new settlements to a due share of it. England was a still more striking example.

Men , Confidence

“All religions urge us to follow Dharma, to always speak the truth and not to torment others.”

Ganapathy Sachchidananda Swamiji (1942) Indian guru

Jaya Jaya Bhuvi Divi Manava (2002)
Context: The almighty being praised in the Holy Bible, the Holy Koran, and the Holy Bhagavata is one and the same. We are all one. Flowers are many, but Puja is one. Cows are many, but milk is one. Languages are many, but feeling is one. All great men have preached the same message. These saints, noble and enlightened persons have been guiding us. They always say, "Take any religion, the fundamental essence is the same. All religions urge us to follow Dharma, to always speak the truth and not to torment others. The Almighty has given us this wonderful human birth. To whichever religion you are born, be in that religion and strive to become a better person. Become a more religious person. If you are a Christian, become a better Christian. If you are a Muslim, become a better Muslim. If you are a Hindu, become a better Hindu.

Truth , Religion

“But it may be urged, on the other side, that Liberty is not the sum or substitute for of all things men ought to live for... to be real it must be circumscribed... advancing civilisation invests the state with increased rights and duties, and imposes increased burdens and constraints on the subject... a highly instructed and intelligent community may perceive the benefit of compulsory obligations which, at a lower stage, would be thought unbearable... liberal progress is not vague or indefinite, but aims at a point where the public is subject to no restrictions but those of which it feels the advantage... a free country may be less capable of doing much for the advancement of religion, the prevention of vice, or the relief of suffering, than one that does not shrink from confronting great emergencies by some sacrifice of individual rights, and some concentration of power... the supreme political object ought to be sometimes postponed to still higher moral objects. My argument involves no collision with these qualifying reflections. We are dealing, not with the effects of freedom, but with its causes. ...influences which brought arbitrary government under control, either by the diffusion of power, or to an appeal to an authority which transcends all government, and among these influences the greatest philosophers of Greece have no claim to be reckoned.”

John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton (1834–1902) British politician and historian

The History of Freedom in Antiquity (1877)

Religion , Country , Freedom , Intelligence

“There are some people who do not desire to draw any conclusions at all. I see, for instance, the other day that the president of the League of Nations Union issued a circular to its members in which he...urged them to commence a campaign of pressure upon members of Parliament and members of the Government with the idea that if we were to pursue the policy of sanctions and even to intensify it, it was still possible to preserve the independence of Abyssinia. That seems to me the very midsummer of madness.”

Neville Chamberlain (1869–1940) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech to the 1900 Club at Grosvenor House, London (10 June 1936) on the Italo-Abyssinian War, quoted in The Times (11 June 1936), p. 10
Chancellor of the Exchequer

Idea , Drawing , Madness , People

“It is unquestionably the peacefulness and calm of the Spinozist system which particularly produces the idea of its depth, and which, with hidden but irresistible charm, has attracted so many minds. The Spinozist system will also always remain in a certain sense a model. A system of freedom — but with just as great contours, with the same simplicity, as a perfect counter-image (Gegenbild) of the Spinozist system — this would really be the highest system. This is why Spinozism, despite the many attacks on it, and the many supposed refutations, has never really become something truly past, never been really overcome up to now, and no one can hope to progress to the true and the complete in philosophy who has not at least once in his life lost himself in the abyss of Spinozism. Nobody who wishes to arrive at his own firm conviction should leave unread the main work of Spinoza, his Ethics (for he presented his system under this title), and I should like to urge everyone who is seriously concerned with his education not only to study assiduously on his own, which no teacher can replace, but to be most conscientious and careful in the choice of what he reads.”

Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) Dutch philosopher

Friedrich Wilhelm Schelling, On the History of Modern Philosophy (1833) [Translated from the German by Andrew Bowie]
S - Z

Peace , Study , Reading , Freedom

“What we may call a blind struggle for betterment in the atoms, becomes in man a self-conscious yearning to grow, to become ever more the divinity within himself, arising in a recognition, now quasi-conscious, that man is a son of the gods. This same urge becomes in the gods a divine knowledge that they are inseparable parts of the universe, and are growing to take a vaster self-conscious part in the universal labor.”

Gottfried de Purucker (1874–1942) Author, Theosophist

Source: The Esoteric Tradition (1935), Chapter 6

God , Knowledge , Self-confidence , Universe

“The urge behind evolution, and the objective which this urge is impelling us toward, is simply the divine hunger in the universe to grow greater. It is innate in the universe. Why this is so, no one can say. Perhaps the gods do not know. All we men can aver is that it is so.”

Gottfried de Purucker (1874–1942) Author, Theosophist

Source: The Esoteric Tradition (1935), Chapter 6

Universe , Hunger , God , Men

“Brooklyn born, Bronx bred… I felt like the dreamer/day tripper of the neighborhood with a vivid imagination and a longing to transcend the mundane through my love of the arts. My mother inspired me a lot. I can remember growing up hearing her voice in the background on the phone urging others to stop putting up with abuse and to stand up for themselves in order to better their lot in life. She was always helping people – mostly other women – liberate themselves from oppressive relationships whether it was at home or work.”

Esai Morales (1962) American actor

On how activism was present in his upbringing in “Mr. Morales is currently running for SAG-AFTRA President” https://www.latinheat.com/spotlight-news/the-essential-esai-morales-interview/ in Latin Heat Entertainment (2013 Jul 31)

Home , Imagination , People , Help

“The issue over there being classes seems more a question of convenient conceptual scheme; the issue over there being centaurs, or brick houses on Elm Street, seems more a question of fact. But I have been urging that this difference is only one of degree, and that it turns upon our vaguely pragmatic inclination to adjust one strand of the fabric of science rather than another in accommodating some particular recalcitrant experience. Conservatism figures in such choices, and so does the quest for simplicity.”

Willard van Orman Quine Two Dogmas of Empiricism

"Two Dogmas of Empiricism"
From a Logical Point of View: Nine Logico-Philosophical Essays (1953)

Science , Housing , Question

“When we appreciate how natural it is for man to strive to be a hero, how deeply it goes in his evolutionary and organismic constitution, how openly he shows it as a child, then it is all the more curious how ignorant most of us are, consciously, of what we really want and need. In our culture anyway, especially in modern times, the heroic seems too big for us, or we too small for it. Tell a young man that he is entitled to be a hero and he will blush. We disguise our struggle by piling up figures in a bank book to reflect privately our sense of heroic worth. Or by having only a little better home in the neighborhood, a bigger car, brighter children. But underneath throbs the ache of cosmic specialness, no matter how we mask it in concerns of smaller scope. Occasionally someone admits that he takes his heroism seriously, which gives most of us a chill, as did U.S. Congressman Mendel Rivers, who fed appropriations to the military machine and said he was the most powerful man since Julius Caesar. We may shudder at the crassness of earthly heroism, of both Caesar and his imitators, but the fault is not theirs, it is in the way society sets up its hero system and in the people it allows to fill its roles. The urge to heroism is natural, and to admit it honest. For everyone to admit it would probably release such pent-up force as to be devastating to societies as they now are.”

Ernest Becker book The Denial of Death

The Recasting of Some Basic Psychoanalytic Ideas
The Denial of Death (1973)

Home , Time , Children , People

“Turning those revelations into art was a whole other thing…I did it, though — and that helped me realize my power, beyond the pain. Being able to illustrate those experiences for readers was a triumph, because it took everything to resist all the urges I have as a human being to present myself as good, or healed, or undamaged. I had to work against myself to make the memoir, and I ended up more empowered than I ever thought I could be.”

Terese Marie Mailhot (1983) First Nation Canadian writer, journalist, memoirist, teacher

On writing about her ordeals in “Why 'Heart Berries' Author Terese Marie Mailhot Doesn't Use The Word ‘Resilient’" https://www.bustle.com/p/why-heart-berries-author-terese-marie-mailhot-doesnt-use-the-word-resilient-8134108 in Bustle Magazine (2018 Feb 7)

Pain , Making love , Help , Art

“I have seen many theoretical objections to democracy, and sometimes urge them with such heat that it probably goes beyond the bound of sound taste, but I am thoroughly convinced, nonetheless, that the democratic nations are happier than any other. The United States today, indeed, is probably the happiest the world has ever seen. Taxes are high, but they are still well within the means of the taxpayer: he could pay twice as much and still survive. The laws are innumerable and idiotic, but only prisoners in the penitentiaries and persons under religious vows ever obey them. The country is governed by rogues, but there is no general dislike of rogues: on the contrary, they are esteemed and envied. Best of all, the people have the pleasant feeling that they can make improvements at any time they want to—... in other words, they are happy. Democrats are always happy. Democracy is a sort of laughing gas. It will not cure anything, perhaps, but it unquestionably stops the pain.”

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

"The Master Illusion" in the The American Mercury (March 1925), p. 319
1920s

Democracy , Pain , Time , Law

“My ambition was to liquidate communism, the dictatorship over all the people. Supporting me and urging me on in this mission was my wife, who was of this opinion long before I was. I knew that I could only do this if I was the leading functionary. In this my wife urged me to climb to the top post. While I actually became acquainted with the West, my mind was made up forever. I decided that I must destroy the whole apparatus of the CPSU and the USSR. Also, I must do this in all of the other socialist countries. My ideal is the path of social democracy. Only this system shall benefit all the people. This quest I decided I must fulfil.”

Mikhail Gorbachev (1931) General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

Purportedly from an interview in Ankara, Turkey where he was a guest at a seminar at the American University. (February 2000) http://www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/rdv6n1/gorbach.htm However, the actual source is unverifiable and appears to have occurred with different interviewers https://books.google.ru/books?id=xjMVCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA90.
Misattributed

Democracy , Country , Support , People

“Perestroika did not give the people prosperity, something they expected of me, as head of state, based on an ingrained, traditional feeling of dependence. But I did not promise that. I urged people to use this new-found freedom to create prosperity, personal and social prosperity, with their own hands and minds, according to the abilities of each.”

Mikhail Gorbachev (1931) General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

1990s, Memoirs (1995)

Dependency , Freedom , Personality , People

“I’m still wearing my shoes, I realize. And I’m still wearing this fucking suit. I didn’t even take it off for the flight—I must be turning into a manager or something. I have a sudden urge to wash compulsively. At least the tie’s snaked off to wherever the horrid things live when they’re not throttling their victims.”

Charles Stross The Laundry Files

Source: The Laundry Files, The Jennifer Morgue (2006), Chapter 5, “High Society” (pp. 100-101)

Shoe

“Man is not advised to sit down and fold his hands and roll his eyes piously toward the traditional source of good, and allow himself to be eaten up by tigers and ticks. And no one who reads honestly what has gone before can come to any such conclusion. Anything can be misrepresented if the one who attempts it is ingenious and determined enough. It is recognised that this is not an ideal world, and that it is impossible for any being to act among the evil as he would be able to act among the good. It is simply insisted that man shall ignore the urgings of his lower nature and do the best he can in the circumstances. Men do not and cannot act ideally toward their fellow-men, but they think they act nobly when they do the best they can. And, oh, if man would only try to be just to his fellow-races, what a different world he could make of it! If one is disposed to be wayward, it is astonishing what an array of excuses even the simpleton can scrape up in defence of himself. But if one is resolved on that higher life, ever held up to us by the better elements of our nature, it is also surprising how successful one can be, even among adverse conditions.”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

Source: The New Ethics (1907), The Perils of Over-population, pp. 161–162

Reading , Success , Nature , Thinking

“I am an unhappy man. I am haunted by my inability to express the inexpressible, to come to terms with the unknown. The pursuit of beauty is, of course, a major psychological drive. It its various guises—which is to say, the urge to perfection, the yearning to merge with the eternal, the explorer’s restlessness, the realization of an Absolute created by ourselves, yet larger than our totality—it is perhaps the most important human thrust.”

Jack Vance Demon Princes

Source: Demon Princes (1964-1981), The Palace of Love (1967), Chapter 6 (p. 346)

Perfection , Beauty

“It is not some malevolent quirk of international bankers which makes the balance of payments surplus necessary. It is the hard facts of life. Quite a few of the resolutions mention the need to get rid of the shackles of international finance. These shackles can be exaggerated. If you want less to do with bankers and fewer International Monetary Fund visits the answer is straightforward: Help us to get out of debt. It is no good urging independence and denying policies to that end.”

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

Speech to the Labour Party Conference in Blackpool (30 September 1968), quoted in The Times (1 October 1968), p. 6
1960s

Life , Making love , Help

“We are in process of passing from one religious age into another. The spiritual trends of today are steadily becoming more defined. The hearts of men have never been more open to spiritual impression than they are at this time, and the door into the very centre of reality stands wide open. Paralleling, however, this significant development is a trend in the counter direction, and materialistic philosophies and doctrines of negation are becoming increasingly prevalent. To many, the whole question of the validity of the Christian religion remains to be determined. Claims are made that Christianity has failed and that man does not need the Gospel story with its implications of divinity and its urge to service and sacrifice.”

Alice A. Bailey (1880–1949) esoteric, theosophist, writer

Source: From Bethlehem to Calvary (1937), Chapter One

Religion , Time , Question , Heart

“The Pax Americana has gone the way of the Pax Britannica. … The implication for us in Europe is twofold. First, we shall no longer be able to enjoy the luxury of urging the Americans to put right anything of which we disapprove anywhere in the world and then of criticizing them for the way they do it; and secondly, we shall have to undertake a proper share of the burden of Western defence if American support for the Western Alliance is to be sustained. That share can be underpinned only by a strong and expanding European economy.”

Edward Heath (1916–2005) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1970–1974)

Speech to the Conservative Political Centre in Blackpool (12 October 1977), quoted in The Times (13 October 1977), p. 6
Post-Prime Ministerial

World , Support , Way , Strong

“So it was biased, but it was the true feelings which I had experienced, and I would rather be honest than be balanced, and plus it was much more fun to write. He did urge me to write something balanced next time, and I could see he was a true advocator of that, having purely positive pandering of students, covering the walls of the school and in every yearbook. And then when someone like me writes something negative, you then say I should be balanced. Actually, since the school has published everything that is positive for several years, and I wrote a long post that is purely negative, I have actually helped garnered a balanced view of the school haven’t I?”

Amos Yee (1998) blogger

Tumblr postings

School , Help , Time , Feeling

“He wrote an open letter to the Prime Minister urging her to convene a second Constituent Assembly to have a fresh look at the constitution in view of the changed situation and also suggested her the formation of a national government under her leadership to overcome the immediate problems.”

V. V. Giri (1894–1980) Indian politician and 4th president of India

Source: Presidents of India, 1950-2003, P.80

Problem , Change

“Gerrard will fit in with any club in the world. He’s one of the players in the world that have all what it takes to play for Real Madrid. I want to urge Gerrard to join Real Madrid. If you don’t play for Real Madrid you always feel that something is missing. There is nothing better than wearing Real Madrid’s jersey. This is a big opportunity for Gerrard. I’m not talking money wise, but victories wise. I’m sure that Gerrard has alot of respect towards Mourinho. Steven signing for Real Madrid will be perfect for him.”

Steven Gerrard (1980) English footballer

Kaka on Steven Gerrard, (August 2010)

Money , Victory , Perfection , World

“The evolutionary urge drives man to seek for intenser forms of fulfillment, since his basic urge is for more life, more consciousness, and this contentment has an air of stagnation that the healthy mind rejects.”

Colin Wilson (1931–2013) author

This recognition lies at the centre of my own 'outsider theory': that there are human beings to whom comfort means nothing, but whose happiness consists in following an obscure inner-drive, an 'appetite for reality'.
Source: Tree By Tolkien (1974), p. 32

Life

“In other words, Alan Keyes was an ideal opponent; all I had to do was keep my mouth shut and start planning my swearing-in ceremony. And yet, as the campaign progressed, I found him getting under my skin in a way that few people ever have. When our paths crossed during the campaign, I often had to suppress the rather uncharitable urge to either taunt him or wring his neck.”

Alan Keyes (1950) American politician

Barack Obama. Quoted in The Audacity of Hope - Page 211 - by Barack Obama.

Way , People

“I am a believer in liberty. That is my religion — to give to every other human being every right that I claim for myself, and I grant to every other human being, not the right — because it is his right — but instead of granting I declare that it is his right, to attack every doctrine that I maintain, to answer every argument that I may urge — in other words, he must have absolute freedom of speech.”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

The trial of Charles B. Reynolds for blasphemy (1887)

Religion , Freedom

“The combination of these two — the inner urge, the drive, and a fit and appropriate environment or field— means the evolving, the coming out into manifestation, the expression, of those inner forces or powers.As is evident, this includes a far wider and vaster conception of evolution than any that has hitherto been entertained in the ranks of scientific researchers.”

Gottfried de Purucker (1874–1942) Author, Theosophist

Source: Man in Evolution (1941), Chapter 10

“People may point to all of this as evidence that we humans are becoming more honest and truthful, but human nature does not change within a few generations. People have become more obvious and forthright not out of some deep moral calling but out of increasing self-absorption and overall laziness. It requires no effort to simply be oneself or to blast one’s message. And the lack of effort simply results in a lack of effect on other people’s psychology. It means that people’s interest in you will be paper thin. Their attention will quickly move on and you will not see the reason for this. Do not swallow the easy moralism of the day, which urges honesty at the expense of desirability. Go in the opposite direction. With so few people out there who understand the art of desirability, it affords you endless opportunities to shine and exploit people’s repressed fantasies.”

Robert Greene (1959) American author

Chap. 5 : Become an Elusive Object of Desire
The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

Understanding , People , Art , Nature

“When we are victimized, we feel the urge to victimize those who have hurt us in return. This is natural. It is a compulsion to force them to connect with us through empathy.”

Teal Swan (1984) American spiritual teacher

Hurt , Feeling , Nature

“Under the chilling effects generated by Beijing and Hong Kong governments, we are strongly aware how they arrest activists no matter whether they behave progressively or moderately...All we ask for is just to urge Beijing and Hong Kong governments to withdraw the bill, stop police brutality and respond to our calls for a free election.”

Joshua Wong (1996) Hong Kong activist, Secretary-general of Demosistō

August 30, 2019 Hong Kong activists arrested including Joshua Wong in crackdown on protests https://www.reuters.com/article/us-hongkong-protests/hong-kong-activists-arrested-including-joshua-wong-in-crackdown-on-protests-idUSKCN1VK02X?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2FtopNews+%28News+%2F+US+%2F+Top+News%29

“the government did not fulfil the urge in their hearts and felt that the public wished to see me openly revealing my sympathy for our kinsmen; how could I as the head of state!”

Wilhelmina of the Netherlands (1880–1962) Queen of the Netherlands 1898 - 1948

Heart

“The demon of avarice, it seems to me, is extraordinarily complex and is baffling in his deceits. Often, when frustrated by the strictness of our renunciation, he immediately pretends to be a steward and a lover of the poor; he urges us to prepare a welcome for strangers who have not yet arrived or to send provisions for absent brethren. He makes us mentally visit prisons in the city and ransom those on sale as slaves. He suggests that we should attach ourselves to wealthy women, and advises us to be obsequious to others who have a full purse. And so, after deceiving the soul, little by little he engulfs it in avaricious thoughts and then hands it over to the demon of self-esteem.”

Evagrius Ponticus (345–399) Christian monk

On Discrimination, vol. 1, p. 51
The Philokalia

Soul , Self-confidence , Lovers , Making love

“I am aware that many object to the severity of my language; but is there not cause for severity? I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice. On this subject, I do not wish to think, or to speak, or write, with moderation. No! no! Tell a man whose house is on fire to give a moderate alarm; tell him to moderately rescue his wife from the hands of the ravisher; tell the mother to gradually extricate her babe from the fire into which it has fallen; — but urge me not to use moderation in a cause like the present. I am in earnest — I will not equivocate — I will not excuse — I will not retreat a single inch — AND I WILL BE HEARD. The apathy of the people is enough to make every statue leap from its pedestal, and to hasten the resurrection of the dead.”

William Lloyd Garrison (1805–1879) American journalist

"To the Public", No. 1 (1 January 1831) http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h2928t.html, quoted in [Todras, Ellen H., Angelina Grimké: Voice of Abolition, https://books.google.com/books?id=-S8ZAQAAMAAJ, 1999, Linnet, 978-0-208-02485-5, 46]
The Liberator (1831 - 1866)

Housing , Justice , Dead , People

“Life is agid. Life is fulgid. Life is a burgeoning, a quickening of the dim primordial urge in the murky wastes of time. Life is what the least of us make most of us feel the least of us make the most of.”

Willard van Orman Quine (1908–2000) American philosopher and logician

Quine's response in 1988 when asked his philosophy of life. (He invented the word "agid".) It makes up the entire Chapter 54 in Quine in Dialogue (2008).
1980s and later

Life , Making love , Feeling , Time

“Within a few short years, without a shot's being fired, the concept of holistic health has been legitimized by federal and state programs, endorsed by politicians, urged and underwritten by insurance companies, co-opted in terminology (if not always in practice) by many physicians, and adopted by medical students. Consumers demand "holistic health," a whole new assortment of entrepreneurs promise it, and medical groups look for speakers to explain it.”

Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) American writer

Source: The Aquarian Conspiracy (1980), Chapter Eight, Healing Ourselves, p. 242

Health

“In the Spring of 1926 I made some toy animals of curtain rods, broom handles, etc., and wire. Later, a few dolls, which I animated.... In the Winter of 1927–1928 I made some more toys for a friend to take home as gifts, and having shown them to De Creeft a Spanish sculptor with a very acute sense of humor, I was urged by him to make some more toys and to expose them at the Salon des Humoristes. I did this and then began to make more elaborate toys, with articulation, in which the movements got more and more realistic, always adhering to the same basic materials. In this way I have developed quite an elaborate circus of which animation is one of the chief characteristics....”

Alexander Calder (1898–1976) American artist

1920s, Excerpt, Statement on Wire Sculpture (1929)

Home , Spring , Animals , Way

“Young man! Deny yourself satisfaction (of amusement, of debauchery, of love, etc.), not with the Stoical intention of complete abstinence, but with the refined Epicurean intention of having in view an ever-growing pleasure. This stinginess with the cash of your vital urge makes you definitely richer through the postponement of pleasure, even if you should, for the most part, renounce the indulgence of it until the end of your life. The awareness of having pleasure under your control is, like everything idealistic, more fruitful and more abundant than everything that satisfies the sense through indulgence because it is thereby simultaneously consumed and consequently lost from the aggregate of totality.”

Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) German philosopher

Kant, Immanuel (1996), page 54.
Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View (1798)

Pleasure , Sense , Love , Life

“I am no citizen of the world. It is quite enough for me to think about what is best for England, Ireland and Scotland. I do not like those whose philanthropy is so enlarged as to look, as Rousseau said, to Tartary for objects of affection and commiseration, while their own countrymen are starving, or existing on sea-weed and nettles. I do not approve of any efforts to urge our Government to interfere at all in the affairs even of Poland: it is too distant, too out of the way of our affairs, that we should take one single meal from a weaver or a ploughman for the sake of doing good to the Poles.”

William Cobbett (1763–1835) English pamphleteer, farmer and journalist

‘Belgium and Poland’, Political Register (20 August 1831), p. 496
1830s

Distant , Way , Thinking , World

“Some think that we are approaching a critical moment in the history of Liberalism. ... We hear of a divergence of old Liberalism and new. ... The terrible new school, we hear, are for beginning operations by dethroning Gladstonian finance. They are for laying hands on the sacred ark. But did any one suppose that the fiscal structure which was reared in 1853 was to last for ever, incapable of improvement, and guaranteed to need no repair? ... Another heresy is imputed to this new school which fixes a deep gulf between the wicked new Liberals and the virtuous old. We are adjured to try freedom first before we try interference of the State. That is a captivating formula, but it puzzles me to find that the eminent statesman who urges us to lay this lesson to heart is strongly in favour of maintaining the control of the State over the Church? But is State interference an innovation? I thought that for 30 years past Liberals had been as much in favour as other people of this protective legislation. ... [O]ther countries have tried freedom and it is just because we have decided that freedom in such a case is only a fine name for neglect, and have tried State supervision, that we have saved our industrial population from the waste, destruction, destitution, and degradation that would otherwise have overtaken them. ... In short, gentlemen, I am not prepared to allow that the Liberty and the Property Defence League are the only people with a real grasp of Liberal principles, that Lord Bramwell and the Earl of Wemyss are the only Abdiels of the Liberal Party.”

John Morley, 1st Viscount Morley of Blackburn (1838–1923) British Liberal statesman, writer and newspaper editor

Annual presidential address to the Junior Liberal Association of Glasgow (10 February 1885), quoted in 'Mr. John Morley At Glasgow', The Times (11 February 1885), p. 10
1880s

School , History , Freedom , Country

“Behind of the words a silent ocean of desires
and a coiled knowledge lies in wait,
listen a restless voice in our heart endlessly urging us onward to break the limits of fear and to embrace of our longing.”

alexis karpouzos

Knowledge , Fear , Waiting , Heart

“An artist is the magician put among men to gratify — capriciously — their urge for immortality. The temples are built and brought down around him, continuously and contiguously, from Troy to the fields of Flanders. If there is any meaning in any of it, it is in what survives as art, yes even in the celebration of tyrants, yes even in the celebration of nonentities. What now of the Trojan War if it had been passed over by the artist's touch? Dust. A forgotten expedition prompted by Greek merchants looking for new markets. A minor redistribution of broken pots. But it is we who stand enriched, by a tale of heroes, of a golden apple, a wooden horse, a face that launched a thousand ships — and above all, of Ulysses, the wanderer, the most human, the most complete of all heroes — husband, father, son, lover, farmer, soldier, pacifist, politician, inventor and adventurer.”

Tom Stoppard Travesties

Joyce, Act I
Stoppard called this "the most important" speech in the play
Source: Travesties (1974)

War , Art , Horse , Relation ships

“Finally, our greatest asset in this struggle is the American people--their willingness to pay the price for these programs--to understand and accept a long struggle--to share their resources with other less fortunate people-to meet the tax levels and close the tax loopholes I have requested--to exercise self-restraint instead of pushing up wages or prices, or over-producing certain crops, or spreading military secrets, or urging unessential expenditures or improper monopolies or harmful work stoppages--to serve in the Peace Corps or the Armed Services or the Federal Civil Service or the Congress--to strive for excellence in their schools, in their cities and in their physical fitness and that of their children--to take part in Civil Defense-to pay higher postal rates, and higher payroll taxes and higher teachers' salaries, in order to strengthen our society--to show friendship to students and visitors from other lands who visit us and go back in many cases to be the future leaders, with an image of America--and I want that image, and I know you do, to be affirmative and positive-and, finally, to practice democracy at home, in all States, with all races, to respect each other and to protect the Constitutional rights of all citizens.”

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

Source: 1961, Speech to Special Joint Session of Congress

School , Democracy , Peace , Home

“O may I join the choir invisible
Of those immortal dead who live again
In minds made better by their presence; live
In pulses stirred to generosity,
In deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn
For miserable aims that end with self,
In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars,
And with their mild persistence urge men's search
To vaster issues.”

George Eliot (1819–1880) English novelist, journalist and translator

O May I Join the Choir Invisible (1867)

Night , Dead , Search , Star

“For it may be very plausibly urged on their behalf, that it is impossible to extinguish evil until the origin thereof has been discovered and destroyed. This great river of human Time (rivers were expressly created to feed metaphors, allegories, and navigable canals) which comes flowing down thick with filth and blood from the immemorial past surely cannot be thoroughly cleansed by any purifying process applied to it here in the present for the pollution, if not in its very source (supposing it has a source), or deriving from unimaginable remotenesses of eternity indefinitely beyond its source, at any rate interfused with it countless ages back, and is perennial as the river itself. This immense poison-tree of Life, with its leaves of illusion, blossoms of delirium, apples of destruction, surely cannot be made wholesome and sweet by anything we may do to the branchlets and twigs on which, poor insects, we find ourselves crawling, or to the leaves and fruit on which we must fain feed; for the venom is drawn up in the sap by the taproots plunged in abysmal depths of the past. This toppling and sinking house wherein we dwell cannot be firmly re-established, save by re-establishing from its lowest foundation upwards.”

James Thomson (B.V.) (1834–1882) Scottish writer (1834-1882)

"The Speedy Extinction of Evil and Misery", part VIII, pp. 93–94
Essays and Phantasies (1881)

Tree , Time , Housing , Past

“We defer to authority figures because they are supposed to know more than we do. If a mistake is made, it's easy to lay the blame at their feet. Ultimately, however, we are responsible for choosing the authority figure we defer to. Choosing to defer to one who urges aggression against others still puts the responsibility on us.””

Mary Ruwart (1949) American scientist and libertarian activist

Source: Healing Our World: In An Age of Aggression, (2003), p. 10

“The will to win, the desire to succeed, the urge to reach your full potential... these are the keys that will unlock the door to personal excellence.”

Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher

Personality

“I really love being the person who in the end gets to make the decisions and have it become the way you want it to be and that urge is an overpowering urge that I have that makes me want to make films.”

Joan Micklin Silver (1935–2020) American film director

NYWIFT Archive - Interview by Norma Davidoff - at 43 Min 29 Sec - Remembering Joan Micklin Silver, Director & NYWIFT Advisory Board Member https://www.nywift.org/remembering-joan-micklin-silver/ - Original Interview from 5 April 2006 - Published 15 January 2021 - Youtube Link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYFKZK7svpY - Archive https://web.archive.org/web/20210911143358/https://www.nywift.org/remembering-joan-micklin-silver/

Personality , Decision , Way , Love

“Perhaps some deep-rooted atavism urges the wanderer back to lands which his ancestors left in the dim beginnings of history.”

W. Somerset Maugham book The Moon and Sixpence

Source: http://glimmertrain.com/documents/pdfs/MaughamQuote.pdf
Source: The Moon and Sixpence (1919), Ch. 50, p. 1??

History

“The urge to control others is very strong, but the desire for freedom and the ability to show compassion will always survive. Darkness is everywhere, but the Light still appears.”

John Twelve Hawks book The Traveler

Source: Fourth Realm Trilogy (2005-2009), The Traveler (2005), Ch. 26

Freedom , Light , Strong , Appearance

“As tempers rose, a compromise was urged by certain moderates, whom everyone ignored.”

Bruce Sterling (1954) American writer, speaker, futurist, and design instructor

Short fiction, The Peak of Eternal Light (2012)

“All growth and unfoldment from atom to sun is based upon this law of soul urge. What you earnestly desire and persistently affirm will be yours, if you "faint not."”

Charles Fillmore (1854–1948) American mystic

Source: Teach Us to Pray with Cora Fillmore (1941)

Soul , Law , Sun

“There are hundreds of other [Koranic] psalms and hadiths urging Muslims to value war and to fight. Does all that mean that Islam is a religion that prevents men from waging war? I spit upon those foolish souls who make such a claim.”

Ruhollah Khomeini (1902–1989) Religious leader, politician

Source: Excerpted from "Islam Is Not a Religion of Pacifists" (1942), English translation in Barry Rubin and Judith Colp Rubin, Anti-American Terrorism and the Middle East (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), pp. 29, 32-36.

Soul , War , Religion , Fight

“We urge the US to stick to the 'one China' principle and the three joint communiques.”

Zhu Fenglian (1977)

Source: "Biden administration invites Taiwan to its 'Summit for Democracy,' infuriating Beijing" in CNN https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/23/asia/biden-taiwan-summit-for-democracy-intl-hnk/index.html (24 November 2021)

“The modern historian of India must approach her as a living entity with a central continuous urge, of which the apparent life is a mere expression. Without such an outlook, it is impossible to understand India, which…stands today strong…determined not to be untrue to its ancient self.”

Kanaiyalal Maneklal Munshi (1887–1971) Indian independence movement activist, politician, writer and educationist (1887-1971)

Source: quoted in https://www.dharmadispatch.in/culture/revisiting-km-munshis-majestic-vision-for-writing-indias-history https://www.esamskriti.com/e/National-Affairs/For-The-Followers-Of-Dharma/History-Writing-And-Nationalism-1.aspx http://www.eng.vedanta.ru/library/prabuddha_bharata/August2005_editorial.php

Strong , Understanding , Life

“We have twenty thousand sites where people can go, and I urge people to, you can Google it or go onto any search engine and find out where free testing and the free testing site is available
..”

Kamala Harris (1964) United States Senator from California

2022, January 2022

Search , People

“It may possibly be urged the shape of a culture—its mores, evaluations, family organizations, eating habits, living patterns, pedagogical methods, institutions, forms of government, and so forth—arise from the economic necessities of its technology.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Waldo

Waldo (p. 134)
Short fiction, The Fantasies of Robert A. Heinlein (1999)

Family

“Most people neither hear nor understand God speaking in their hearts: they listen to the urging of passion, which inhabits the soul and with its clamour drowns the still small voice of God.”

Sophrony (Sakharov) (1896–1993) Russian monk, theologian and writer

Source: Saint Silouan the Athonite (1991), p. 79

Soul , God , Understanding , People

“I urge [the] Congress to move promptly on the COVID funding bill. This virus knows no borders; we must continue to save lives here at home and around the world.”

Joe Biden (1942) 47th Vice President of the United States (in office from 2009 to 2017)

2022, May 2022
Source: Statement by President Joe Biden on Funding for COVID-⁠19 and Ukraine https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/05/09/statement-by-president-joe-biden-on-funding-for-covid-19-and-ukraine/

Home , World

“We are all disciples of Jesus, we are urged not to consider ourselves the owners, dominators of the faith of others. We are servants for the sake of Jesus.”

Gianfranco Gallone (1963) Italian Catholic Archbishop

President of the Bishops' Conference: "It is time Zambia became a fully-fledged missionary Church" http://www.fides.org/en/news/66379-AFRICA_ZAMBIA_President_of_the_Bishops_Conference_It_is_time_Zambia_became_a_fully_fledged_missionary_Church (18 July 2019)

Faith

“The urge to excel and the urge to lead aren’t the same. Sometimes I think they may be opposites.”

Kim Stanley Robinson (1952) American science fiction writer

Source: Red Mars (1992), Chapter 2, “The Voyage Out” (p. 67)

Thinking

Quotes about urge page 6

Quotes about urge
page 6