27 Constraint Quotes

The impulse to think, to philosophize and spin beauty and brilliance out of mind and soul, is somehow the offspring of resistance - of an effort to overcome an apparently insurmountable obstacle. Hence cultural creativeness is more likely to flourish in an atmosphere of restriction, of an imposed pattern of thought and behavior, than in one of total freedom.

In every cry of every Man, In every Infant's cry of fear, In every voice, in every ban, The mind-forg'd manacles I hear.

When Christianity becomes conscious of its innermost nature, it realizes that it is godliness rising our of inward constraint. The highest knowledge is to know that we are surrounded by mystery. Neither knowledge nor hope for the future can be the pivot of our life or determine its direction. It is intended to be solely determined by our allowing ourselves to be gripped by the ethical God, who reveals Himself in us, and by our yielding our will to His.

A painter must compensate the natural deficiencies of his art. He has but one sentence to utter, but one moment to exhibit. He cannot, like the poet or historian, expatiate.

I am restless. I am athirst for faraway things. My soul goes out in a longing to touch the skirt of the dim distance. O Great Beyond, O the keen call of thy flute! I forget, I ever forget, that I have no wings to fly, that I am bound in this spot evermore. ~ 5

'I am like a wild animal born in captivity, in a zoo. But where a beast would have claws, I was born with talent.'

When you put the corset on it gives you a glimpse into what those women's lives must have been like, a little bit. Just the fact that they did that to themselves to look a certain way gives you an idea of how important it was to be a proper young lady in those times, to kind of fit the mold of what they were trying to accomplish socially. The director, Jay Russell told me to use the corset as a device to remind myself that not only physically, but emotionally, she was trapped in her surroundings and wanted desperately to get out. It was definitely a reminder because the thing is so tight!

How should I avoid to be her slave, Whose subtle art invisibly can wreath My fetters of the very air I breath?

This statement expresses my feelings perfectly: 'In memory of a once fluid man, crammed and distorted by the classical mess.'

A rabbi's dog could score pork chops in the streets of Tel Aviv easier than Bernard could acquire tequila in King County Jail.

In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men the great difficulty lies in this: You must first enable the government to control the governed, and in the next place, oblige it to control itself.

If I could act like This was my real life, And not some cage where I've been placed, Well then, I could tell you The truth like I used to And not be afraid of sounding fake.

A narrow compass! and yet there Dwelt all that 's good, and all that 's fair; Give me but what this riband bound, Take all the rest the sun goes round.

No great idea in its beginning can ever be within the law. How can it be within the law? The law is stationary. The law is fixed. The law is a chariot wheel which binds us all regardless of conditions or place or time.

Changing from the ghosts of faith to the spectres of reason is just changing cells.

Jack Benny: Does it have to be both?

Now we are in a fix. Peace has been declared.

Freedom means you're free to do just whatever pleases you; --if, of course that is to say, what you please is what you may.

The society in which each man lives is at once the basis for, and the nemesis of, that fulness of life which each man seeks.