Actualising Tendency Quotes

Movement away from defensive destructiveness and towards greater social responsibility is a characteristic of this [actualising] tendency. The political implication of this position is that we do not need to be controlled by authority. We, individually and collectively, not only have the right to self-determination and group determination but, given the necessary conditions, can be trusted to use our power responsibly. ~ Rose Cameron

There is no heaven with a little hell in it - no plan to retain this or that of the devil in our hearts or our pockets. Out Satan must go, every hair and feather! ... There is no clothing in a robe of imputed righteousness, the poorest of legal cobwebs spun by spiritual spiders. ... Christ is our righteousness, not that we should escape punishment, still less escape being righteous, but as the live potent Creator of righteousness in us, so that we, with our wills receiving His spirit, shall like Him resist unto blood, striving against sin; shall know in ourselves, as He knows, what a lovely thing is righteousness, what a mean, ugly, unnatural thing is unrighteousness. He is our righteousness, and that righteousness is no fiction, no pretense, no imputation. ... Any system which tends to persuade men that there is any salvation but that of becoming righteous even as Jesus is righteous; that a man can be made good, as a good dog is good, without his own willed share in the making; that a man is saved by having his sins hidden under a robe of imputed righteousness - that system, so far this tendency, is of the devil and not of God. Thank God, not even error shall injure the true of heart. They grow in truth, and as love casts out fear, so truth casts out falsehood. ~ George MacDonald

The human tendency to regard little things as important has produced very many great things. ~ Georg C. Lichtenberg

Ressentiment is a self-poisoning of the mind which has quite definite causes and consequences. It is a lasting mental attitude, caused by the systematic repression of certain emotions and affects which, as such are normal components of human nature. Their repression leads to the constant tendency to indulge in certain kinds of value delusions and corresponding value judgments. The emotions and affects primarily concerned are revenge, hatred, malice, envy, the impulse to detract, and spite. ~ Max Scheler

There is a serious tendency towards capitalism among the well-to-do peasants. This tendency will become rampant if we in the slightest way neglect political work among the peasants during the co-operative movement and for a very long period after. ~ Mao Zedong

The integrative powers of life are manifested in the phenomena of symbiosis between organelles, in the varied forms of partnership within the same species or between different species; in the phenomena of regeneration, in lower species, of complete individuals from their fragments; in the re-formation of scrambled embryonic organs, etc. The self-assertive tendency is equally ubiquitous in the competitive struggle for life. ~ Arthur Koestler

However, let us give ourselves to the study of the word, and to prayer; and may the great Teacher make every scriptural truth food to our souls. I desire to grow in knowledge, but I want nothing which bears that name that has not a direct tendency to make sin more hateful, Jesus more precious to my soul; and at the same time to animate me to a diligent use of every appointed means, and an unreserved regard to every branch of duty. ~ John Newton

Polarization (is) a tendency for groups to form judgments that are more extreme than individuals' personal opinions. ~ Alexandra Robbins

Would it not be better if they spent more money on wholesome things like oranges and wholemeal bread or if they even, like the writer of the letter to the New Statesman, saved on fuel and ate their carrots raw? Yes, it would, but the point is that no ordinary human being is ever going to do such a thing. The ordinary human being would sooner starve than live on brown bread and raw carrots. And the peculiar evil is this, that the less money you have, the less inclined you feel to spend it on wholesome food. A millionaire may enjoy breakfasting off orange juice and Ryvita biscuits; an unemployed man doesn't. Here the tendency of which I spoke at the end of the last chapter comes into play. When you are unemployed, which is to say when you are underfed, harassed, bored, and miserable, you don't want to eat dull wholesome food. You want something a little bit 'tasty'. There is always some cheaply pleasant thing to tempt you. ~ George Orwell

One can, then, conceive the production, by purely mineral means, of all natural hydrocarbons. The intervention of heat, of water, and of alkaline metals - lastly, the tendency of hydrocarbons to unite together to form the more condensed material - suffice to account for the formation of these curious compounds. Moreover, this formation will be continuous because the reactions which started it are renewed incessantly. ~ Marcellin Berthelot

People are funny
they are able to project personality onto anything. I remember as a kid I spent a $ 5 bill once and felt so bad because the other $ 5 bill was now going to be lonely without all the other bills I had in my wallet, you just invest these dead things with life and that is our tendency as people. So animation takes advantage of that, grabs on to it, and runs with it. ~ Pete Docter

On our track to success, we have to fight the tendency to look at others and see how far they've come. The only thing that counts is how we use the potential we possess and that we run our race to the best of our abilities. ~ Denis Waitley

A general State education is a mere contrivance for moulding people to be exactly like one another; and as the mould in which it casts them is that which pleases the dominant power in the government, whether this be a monarch, an aristocracy, or a majority of the existing generation; in proportion as it is efficient and successful, it establishes a despotism over the mind, leading by a natural tendency to one over the body. ~ John Stuart Mill

In every mind where there is a strong tendency to fear there is a strong capacity to hate. Those who dwell in fear dwell nest door to hate; and I think it is the cowardice of women which makes them such intense haters. ~ Anna Brownell Jameson

I just want to say this. I want to say it gently but I want to say it firmly: There is a tendency for the world to say to America, 'the big problems of the world are yours, you go and sort them out,' and then to worry when America wants to sort them out. ~ Tony Blair

I have made tremendous efforts to work in a darker register and express the sinister and tragic quality of the place, given my natural tendency to work in light and pale tones. ~ Claude Monet

It is a curious fact that of all the illusions that beset mankind none is quite so curious as that tendency to suppose that we are mentally and morally superior to those who differ from us in opinion. ~ Elbert Hubbard

God's use of the ordinary to bring about the extraordinary is as much in evidence here in the early events of Exodus as anywhere in Scripture. His tendency to bring about his will through ordinary items, ordinary people, and ordinary events is no less at work today than it was in Jochebed's. ~ Ann Spangler

The problem with all of this, as historians advise us, is that the institutionalization of the systems that produce the values upon which a civilization depends, ultimately bring about the destruction of that civilization. Arnold Toynbee observed that a civilization begins to break down when there is "a loss of creative power in the souls of creative individuals," and, in time, the "differentiation and diversity" that characterized a dynamic civilization, is replaced by "a tendency towards standardization and uniformity." The emergence of a "universal state," and increased militarism, represent later stages in the disintegration of a civilization. ~ Butler Shaffer

No religion ever appeared in the world whose natural tendency was so much directed to promote the peace and happiness of mankind. It makes right reason a law in every possible definition of the word. And therefore, even supposing it to have been purely a human invention, it had been the most amiable and the most useful invention that was ever imposed on mankind for their good. ~ Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke

There must ... be in our very nature a very radical and widespread tendency to observe beauty, and to value it. No account of the principles of the mind can be at all adequate that passes over so conspicuous a faculty. ~ George Santayana

Life begins at 40 - but so do fallen arches, rheumatism, faulty eyesight, and the tendency to tell a story to the same person, three or four times. ~ William Feather

I'm struck by the insidious, computer-driven tendency to take things out of the domain of muscular activity and put them into the domain of mental activity. ~ Brian Eno

When you have kids, there's a tendency to put the marriage stew on the back burner and give it a quick stir now and then. But it's important to remember why you had children with this person. ~ Allison Pearson

I have a tendency, after a play of mine is produced, to look back on it disparagingly, seeing only its faults; before production, I see only its virtues. ~ William Inge

I like the Americans for a great many reasons. I like them because even the modern thing called industrialism has not entirely destroyed in them the very ancient thing called democracy. I like them because they have a respect for work which really curbs the human tendency to snobbishness. ~ Gilbert K. Chesterton

And, finally, groups have never thirsted after
truth. They demand illusions, and cannot do without them. They constantly give what is unreal precedence
over what is real; they are almost as strongly influenced
by what is untrue as by what is true. They
have an evident tendency not to distinguish between
the two. ~ Sigmund Freud

Whatever the reason for any one individual's tendency to gain weight, the only way to lose the weight is to eat less and exercise more. ~ Robin Marantz Henig

As long as he retains externally the habits of a Christian he can still be made to think of himself as one who has adopted a few new friends and amusements but whose spiritual state is much the same...And while he thinks that, we do not have to contend with the explicit repentance of a definite, fully recognised, sin, but only with his vague, though uneasy, feeling that he hasn't been doing very well lately. This dim uneasiness needs careful handling. If it gets too strong it may wake him up...if you suppress it entirely...we lose an element in the situation which can be turned to good account. If such a feeling is allowed to live, but not allowed to become irresistible and flower into real repentance, it has one invaluable tendency. It increases the patient's reluctance to think about the Enemy. All humans at nearly all times have some such reluctance; but when thinking of Him involves facing and intensifying a whole vague cloud of half-conscious guilt, this reluctance is increased tenfold...In this state your patient will not omit, but he will increasingly dislike, his religious duties...He will want his prayers to be unreal, for he will dread nothing so much as effective contact with the Enemy. ~ C.S. Lewis

I have a tendency, especially when I'm playing with great players, to try and get them the ball. ~ Steve Nash

Our human tendency is to be impatient with the person who cannot see the truth that is so plain to us. We must be careful that our impatience is not interpreted as condemnation or rejection. ~ Henry B. Eyring

What you must first understand is the very nature of the Verity. Humans have a tendency for darkness and light. To choose good or evil. But no such mixture exists for the Verity or the Void. The Void houses no light. The Verity embraces no darkness. So when the Verity seeks a new vessel, it always searches out the purest heart--the person least likely to be swayed by darkness. A heart so true has the capacity to love like no other. And a love like that? It changes a person. ~ Sara Ella

And so the liberal tendency became a habit with Stepan Arkadyich, and he liked his newspaper, as he liked a cigar after dinner, for the slight haze it produced in his head. ~ Leo Tolstoy

I have a tendency when I feel myself getting stuck, my impulse is to go to my cupboard and find chips to eat. ~ Sara Bareilles

Government has within it a tendency to abuse its powers. ~ John C. Calhoun

One of the problems I have with a lot of movies these days is that everything is too well lit. In the world of digital creations there is a tendency to show too much. ~ Bill Sienkiewicz

She suspected that she was quite like Helena Kraft in that she was capable and ambitious and wanted to get a pat on the back from her superiors. That was not necessarily always a good thing though. With that tendency, if you operate in an unhealthy culture you risk becoming just as unhealthy yourself and - who knows, perhaps it is the will to please that leads people to crime just as often as evil or greed. ~ David Lagercrantz

The increasing tendency towards seeing people in terms of one dominant 'identity' ('this is your duty as an American', 'you must commit these acts as a Muslim', or 'as a Chinese you should give priority to this national engagement') is not only an imposition of an external and arbitrary priority, but also the denial of an important liberty of a person who can decide on their respective loyalties to different groups (to all of which he or she belongs). ~ Amartya Sen

My father used to tell me stories before I fell asleep. When the children would gather, at a certain point, I had a tendency to make up my own elementary variations on stories I had heard, or to invent totally new ones. ~ Wole Soyinka

All information will come in by super-realistic television and other electronic devices as yet in the planning stage or barely imagined. In one way this will enable the individual to extend himself anywhere without moving his body - even to distant regions of space. But this will be a new kind of individual - an individual with a colossal external nervous system reaching out and out into infinity. And this electronic nervous system will be so interconnected that all individuals plugged in will tend to share the same thoughts, the same feelings, and the same experiences. There may be specialized types, just as there are specialized cells and organs in our bodies. For the tendency will be for all individuals to coalesce into a single bio-electronic body. ~ Alan W. Watts

Education, like everything else, goes in fads, and has the normal human tendency to put up with something bad for just so long, and then rush to the other extreme. ~ Anthony Standen

The failure to read good books both enfeebles the vision and strengthens our most fatal tendency
the belief that the here and now is all there is. ~ Allan Bloom