"Impulsiveness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... is written about "Oriental passion and impulsiveness" is exaggerated and compiled at second-hand, but a little of it is true; and when an Englishman finds that little, it is quite as startling as any passion in his own proper life. Bisesa raged and stormed, ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... plenty of work. Various superstitions were invoked to promote the consumption of it. Thus the failure to finish a piece already broken off was alleged to result in the transfer of all one's strength to the actual consumer of the piece left behind. Keith was a docile child in spite of his impulsiveness and he did he was told and believed what he heard, but he often wondered why the rules so strictly enforced himself did not apply to ...
— The Soul of a Child • Edwin Bjorkman
... saw was so great, the face that was turned to him so quiet, that, with a new fear upon him, he would have preferred the savage eyes and reckless mien of the old Mornie whom he hated. With his habitual impulsiveness he tried to say something that should express that fact not unkindly, but faltered, and awkwardly sank into the chair ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... each other and laughed. "She only needs Jungbluth to be perfect," thought Trudi; and with her usual impulsiveness began immediately ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp
... labor in settling their room was something to be expected of them. For a moment Foster glanced quizzically at his friend as if he was puzzled to account for his unexpected proffer, but knowing Will's impulsiveness as he did he was quick to respond, and in a brief time the few belongings of Peter John and his room-mate were unpacked and the beds were set up, the shades at the windows, and the few scanty belongings ...
— Winning His "W" - A Story of Freshman Year at College • Everett Titsworth Tomlinson
... with him. He was successful enough in the world of finance to have become four or five times a millionaire, and he had fared so well in love that twice he had been a widower. Rodney Grimes was starting out to win Barbara with the same dash and impulsiveness that overcame Mary Farrell, the cook in the mining-camp, and Jane Boothroyd, the school-teacher, who came to California ready to marry the first man who asked her. He was a penniless prospector when he married Mary, and when he led Jane to the altar she ...
— Brewster's Millions • George Barr McCutcheon
... irritable mood, and his voice sounded as though he were ready to quarrel with anyone on the smallest pretext. It was therefore with an exclamation of impatience that he realized that Henri, with quick impulsiveness, had gripped him by the arm and ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... of her impulsiveness that Helen Messiter curbed the swift condemnation that leaped to her lips when she knew that the man sitting beside her was the notorious bandit of the Shoshone fastnesses. She was not in the least afraid. A sure instinct told her he was not the kind of ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine
... defects, all ingratitude. Wayward children they might be,—children uninstructed in the cult of goodness, happiness, serenity,—but outside the pale of human consideration they could not be. The greater their fault the greater their need. Kate was learning, in spite of her native impatience and impulsiveness, to be very patient. She was becoming the defender of those who stumbled, the explainer of those who themselves lacked explanations or who were too defiant ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
... on to his devotions in no very charitable frame of mind, as was easily to be seen from his clouded brow and compressed lips. He knew his late favourite well, her impulsiveness, her audacity, her lack of all restraint when thwarted or opposed. She was capable of making a hideous scandal, of turning against him that bitter tongue which had so often made him laugh at the expense of others, perhaps even of making some public exposure which would leave ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... have much to say to each but their eyes often met, and at times, in his frank impulsiveness, he looked at her so earnestly and sympathetically that she turned away to hide her heightened color. She was becoming conscious, with a secret wonder, that he, as no man ever before, had the power to cause her blood to ebb and flow in ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... about Oriental passion and impulsiveness is exaggerated and compiled at second-hand, but a little of it is true; and when an Englishman finds that little, it is quite as startling as any passion in his own proper life. Bisesa raged and stormed, and finally threatened ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... infirmity of noble minds." For the very concentration of life upon doing and being carries with it the danger of staking happiness upon the success of the doing, the attainment of the ideals. We must count even the stupidity and impulsiveness of our own mental make-up as among the materials we have to work with, and not allow remorse for our own part in past failures to interfere with the joyful earnestness with which we attack the problems of the eternal present. We may, indeed, often ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... while the work fever would grip him. It had gripped him a few days before Hank's visit. An idea for a picture had come to him, and he had set to work upon it with his usual impulsiveness. ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse
... good many points against him of late. His anger was redoubled when he reflected that he ought not to have told Andrey Semyonovitch about the result of yesterday's interview. That was the second mistake he had made in temper, through impulsiveness and irritability.... Moreover, all that morning one unpleasantness followed another. He even found a hitch awaiting him in his legal case in the senate. He was particularly irritated by the owner of the flat which had been taken in view of his approaching marriage ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... she faltered, "that I haven't asked you before, but—but—" then, with the impulsiveness which was one of her characteristics, and to her guardian her great charm, she looked him full in the face and added, "but I hoped you would understand that—that I understood a little better. I should like to have your ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln
... breathless. She had perhaps intended to express her idea with more dignity, art and naturalness, but her speech was too hurried and crude. It was full of youthful impulsiveness, it betrayed that she was still smarting from yesterday's insult, and that her pride craved satisfaction. She felt this herself. Her face suddenly darkened, an unpleasant look came into her eyes. Alyosha at once saw it and felt a pang ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... heroic refusal of unlawful obedience. We shall probably not do injustice to John if we suppose that Peter was spokesman. If so, the contrast of the tone of his answer with all previously recorded utterances of his is remarkable. Warm-hearted impulsiveness, often wrong-headed and sometimes illogical, had been their mark; but here we have calm, fixed determination, which, as is usually its manner, wastes no words, but in its very brevity impresses the hearers as being immovable. Whence did this man get the power to lay down once for ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... trait is closely allied with the last: unenduring emotions are emotions which sway the conduct now this way and now that, without any consistency. The trait of impulsiveness may, however, be fitly dealt with separately, because it has other implications than mere lack of persistence. Comparisons of the lower human races with the higher, appear generally to show that, along with brevity of the passions, there ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... honor—he said the HONOR—of his acquaintance. And when he came out of his stateroom in dry clothes, this infatuated old gentleman was waiting for him, and took him and introduced him to his wife and daughter; and the daughter said, with tears in her eyes, and a perfectly intoxicating impulsiveness, that it was the grandest and the most heroic and the noblest thing that she had ever seen, and she should always be a better girl for having seen it. Excuse me, Miss Galbraith, for troubling you with these facts of a personal history, which, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... for a moment. It was on the tip of his tongue to reply that he attached no importance to the butler's statement, but professional habits of caution checked his natural impulsiveness. ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... Graciella Treadwell possessed a fine complexion, a clear eye, and an elastic spirit. She was also well endowed with certain other characteristics of youth; among them ingenuousness, which, if it be a fault, experience is sure to correct; and impulsiveness, which even the school of hard knocks is not always able to eradicate, though it may chasten. To the good points of Graciella, could be added an untroubled conscience, at least up to that period when Colonel ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt
... be held in the court-room, just under our office, and through a trap-door, made there when the building was used for a store-house, we could hear everything that was said in the hall below. One night there was a discussion in which E. D. Baker took part. He was a fiery fellow, and when his impulsiveness was let loose among the rough element that composed his audience there was a fair prospect of trouble at any moment. Lincoln was lying on the bed, apparently paying no attention to what was going on. Lamborn was talking, and we suddenly heard Baker interrupting him with a sharp remark, ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... They mentioned that if the size was not correct the gloves could be changed, and at once took seats in the corner of the room, whence they surveyed the company with a critical air, sighing in unison, as though regretting deeply their mad impulsiveness in accepting the invitation. On this, other presents were offered; Bulpert said his memento would come later on. One of his friends sat on the music-stool, and Sarah, the charwoman's daughter, entering at the first ...
— Love at Paddington • W. Pett Ridge
... 'No, Gillian's impulsiveness, just like her mother's, began it, as a little assertion of modern independence; but while she was away that little step from brook to river brought her to the sense that she had been a goose, and had used me rather ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... between Turkey and Russia, when the Emperor Nicholas, feeling that Turkey was weakened and exhausted, sought to grasp the prize which he had long coveted, even the possessions of the "sick man." Nicholas was the opposite of his brother Alexander, having neither his gentleness, his impulsiveness, his generosity, nor his indecision. He was a hard despot of the "blood-and-iron" stamp, ambitious for aggrandizement, indifferent to the sufferings of others, and withal a religious bigot. The Greek rebellion, as we have seen, gave him the occasion to pick a quarrel with the Sultan. ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord
... practice she can sit stiller, and look more impassive, and move with less motion, than any other created woman. We have that confidence in her ability and adaptability. It is a question whether it is worth while to do this; to sacrifice the vivacity and charm native to her, and the natural impulsiveness and generous gift of herself which belong to a new race in a new land, which is walking always ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... And my impulsiveness urged me to accept the story of this Professor Vose—as related by Captain Tugg—as something of vital importance to myself. Here I was at Buenos Ayres, not many weeks' sail from the place where the mysterious Professor was to be found. ...
— Swept Out to Sea - Clint Webb Among the Whalers • W. Bertram Foster
... very bright. She winked hard a few times, choking back the rush of tears. Then with an impulsiveness she did not often show, she lifted her father's hand and kissed ...
— Prudence Says So • Ethel Hueston
... illuminating moment of understanding; he was impersonal with her; but each day their relationship was less of a mechanical routine, more of a personal friendship. She felt that he really depended on her steady carefulness; she knew that through the wild tangle of his impulsiveness she saw ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... He knelt down close to her; she yielded her hand to him and he with his usual impulsiveness covered it with kisses into which he tried to infuse the fervour of a ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... but with that impulsiveness which is so characteristic of her, Mary Anderson insists upon our paying a visit to the stables to see her favorite mare, Maggie Logan. Poor Maggie is now blind with age, but in her palmy days she could carry her mistress, who is a splendid horsewoman, in a flight of five ...
— Mary Anderson • J. M. Farrar |
