"Will power" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... glimpses of dusky forms passing and repassing the entrance, showing that the enemy was already astir. He expected each time that he returned from the further end of the mine to be confronted by some burly savage, and became so nervous at the prospect that the utmost exercise of his will power was required to enable him to complete his task. At length it was finished. All the kegs were removed to their new position and piled about the one whose open head admitted the fuse. The other end of this reached half way to the new ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... property in that house in Clapham that has escaped my lamentable improvidence, but there are one or two things—the iron-bound chest, the bureau with a broken hinge, and the large air pump—distinctly pawnable if only you can contrive to get them to a pawnshop. You have more Will power than I—I never could get the confounded things downstairs. That iron-bound box was originally mine, before I married your mother-in-law, so that I am not altogether regardless of your welfare and the necessity of giving some equivalent. ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... this "majority report" in spite of the protests of Moses. It is probable that the life in Egypt, with something of ease and luxury for a time, and then so many years of slavery, had sapped their courage and will power. At any rate, after a brief encounter with some of the tribesmen nearby, they fled in ...
— Hebrew Life and Times • Harold B. Hunting
... lusts of the flesh. In spite of this educational advance, courses of study in many public and private schools are still prepared exactly as if educators had never known that at fifteen or sixteen years of age, the will power being still weak, the bodily desires are keen and insistent. The head master of Eton, Mr. Lyttleton, who has given much thought to this gap in the education of youth says, "The certain result of leaving an enormous majority of boys unguided ...
— A New Conscience And An Ancient Evil • Jane Addams
... Russian armies to victory does not encourage familiarity. Next to him I notice Janushkewitch, the Chief of the Great General Staff, with the gentle, almost youthful face of a thinker. But everything is ruled by the personality of the Grand Duke, which, with its mixture of will power and of gracious majesty, ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... is just the point," insisted the magistrate, "in the seventy unimportant words you did remember and you did answer practically the same words both times, your memory only failed in the thirty important words. Besides, in spite of your will power, the test reveals ...
— Through the Wall • Cleveland Moffett
... when the aim has become exact the additional pressure required to release the point of the sear can be given almost insensibly and without causing any deflection of the rifle. Put absolutely all your mind and will power into holding the rifle steady and squeezing the trigger off without disturbing the aim. Practice squeezing the trigger in this way every time you have your rifle in your hand until you can surely and quickly do it without ...
— Manual for Noncommissioned Officers and Privates of Infantry • War Department
... this fine volunteer crew had been gotten together. The boat, with such a force behind it of will power, would, I believe, have gone through anything. And, after seeing the heavy breakers through which we were guided, loaded with their heavy ice battering-rams, when at last we ran through the harbor-mouth with the boat on our return, I knew well what wives and ...
— Adrift on an Ice-Pan • Wilfred T. Grenfell
... "five-miles-an-hour-easy" boots. We ought to temper our contempt for what it is with respect for what it was. All the parts of it are there and recognisable, even to the muscles that should move it, but we have lost control of them. I believe anyone could regain that by persevering exercise of his will power for a time—that is, if he has any. I have a friend who, if you treat him with disrespect, shrivels you up with a sarcastic wag ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)
... an unusually cultivated banker or surprisingly adroit solicitor. Here the hair, retreating from the great forehead, begins to curl and roll with a distinguished wildness; here the long mouth, like a slit in the face, losing itself at each end in whisker, is a symbol of concentrated will power, a drawer in some bureau, containing ...
— Henrik Ibsen • Edmund Gosse
... so long about it," said the girl gleefully, "that now it's only two hours and forty minutes to the next refreshment station. I expect I can keep on living till then if I use all my will power." ...
— Red Pepper's Patients - With an Account of Anne Linton's Case in Particular • Grace S. Richmond
... touch with the great vital currents when it is in motion, and unites with other brooks to help make the river. In motion it soon leaves all mud and sediment behind. Do not proper work and the exercise of will power have the same effect ...
— Time and Change • John Burroughs
... ingratitude and treachery, foreign to every sentiment within her heart, cowardly, abject, the unconscious outcome of this strange magnetism which emanated from him and had cast a spell over her, transforming her individuality and will power, and making of her an unconscious ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... of regaining command of his threshing passions all at once. He did not have to let them thresh themselves out, as is the case with weaker men; but he gripped them, full-blooded, to quiet, by sheer will power and a turn of thought. The force of mastery was strong in Black Dennis Nolan's wild nature. When he wished it he could master himself as well as others. Now he sat down quietly beside his fire and lit his ...
— The Harbor Master • Theodore Goodridge Roberts
... she should have can do so if she will, but her inclination to indolence and indulgence must be overcome—by herself, not by anything anyone else can do for her—and she must make up her mind that she has a real task before her, and one that calls for all her will power and stern determination. And she must be patient, for in her case results are apt to be slow. But let her be encouraged: Some of the most admired women of the stage have experienced her same difficulty with too abundant flesh and have perfected themselves ...
— The Art of Stage Dancing - The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession • Ned Wayburn
... summoned every bit of strength and will power she had left. Like a bullet shot from the muzzle of a gun (bees can fly faster than most insects), she darted through the purpling dawn in a lightning beeline for the woods, where she knew she would be safe for the moment and could hide herself away should the hornet regret having let her ...
— The Adventures of Maya the Bee • Waldemar Bonsels
... emphasizes its binding power. Most people in talking and thinking of habit regard it as something primarily mental in nature and therefore believe all that is necessary to break any habit is the sufficient exercise of will power. But will power, however strong, cannot break actual physical connections, and it is such connections that bind us to a certain line of activity instead of any other, when once the habit is formed. It is just as logical to ...
— How to Teach • George Drayton Strayer and Naomi Norsworthy
... took advantage of all the windings of the streets in order to cut these recommendations short with his kisses. She advanced limply as though towed by him with no will power of her own, as though she were walking in her sleep. A voice was singing with diabolic satisfaction ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... psychical matters, and followed carefully all the proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research. I had also at that time,—in Oxford,—made some experiments with my college friends, chiefly in connection with will power. My influence seemed to be specially strong. But I need not go into all that. After leaving Oxford and taking orders, for a long time I gave such matters up. I feared, if I showed my strong interest in psychical ...
— The Dweller on the Threshold • Robert Smythe Hichens
... features from readers, magazines have offered prizes for the best short articles on such topics as, "The Best Thing Experience has Taught Me," "How I Overcame My Greatest Fault," "The Day of My Great Temptation," "What Will Power Did for Me." ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... your strokes and your tennis play will gradually improve. To concentrate is simply to attend to one thing, and attend to nothing else. If you find that you cannot do that, there is something wrong—attend to that first. Remove the cause and the symptom will disappear. Read the chapter on "Will Power." Cultivate your will by willing and then doing, at all costs. Concentrate—and ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... "what is stubbornness in you has become will power in me. You will never dominate me — NEVER! You should study heredity; it's ...
— Hermione and Her Little Group of Serious Thinkers • Don Marquis
... and helpfulness. Miss Hargrove was more truly his counterpart. She could supplement the weaknesses and defects of his character more successfully than Amy, and in a vague way he felt this. With all the former's vivacity there was much reserve strength and magnetism. She was unusually gifted with will power, and having once gained an influence over a person, she would have, as agents to maintain it, not only her beauty, but tact, keen insight and a very quick intelligence. Although true herself, she was by no means unsophisticated, and having once ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... call. Emil Crawford, his face drawn with pain, had struggled up on one elbow. The old man was obviously fighting off complete collapse by sheer will power. ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... spoken, never even hinted of his feelings until this instant. Now, however, they are forced into expression. He begins reluctantly, frightened at the thing which makes him speak, then when she responds the dam breaks and his love over-rides his will power, his loyalty, his lifelong principles; it sweeps him onward and it takes her with him. The truth appals them both. They recognize its certain consequences and yet they respond freely, fiercely. You can't ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... because I'm married to such a weak fish! Men are nice to you because of me—and there isn't a woman I've met that I have not made afraid of me. Beatrice hasn't the will power of a slug; you can hand her flattery in chunks as big as boulders and she swallows them without choking. It's her husband who ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley
... was particularly strong among the girls of the Sixth Form, who leaned towards its intellectual and scientific aspects. They despised vulgar apparitions, but discussed such abstruse problems as phantasms of the living, thought transference, will power, hypnotism, and clairvoyance. Meta Wright dabbled a little in palmistry, and examined the hands of her schoolmates, prophesying startling events in their future careers. Lois Barlow sent half-a-crown to a ladies' newspaper to have her horoscope ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... confess that you have not the will power to refuse and stick to it. Can't you see that your ...
— Frank Merriwell's Pursuit - How to Win • Burt L. Standish
... risen to his feet, and was looking down upon his daughter. He was a powerfully-built man, of more than ordinary height. The northern winter was in his thick hair and heavy moustache, while his steady light-blue eyes and firm, well-built chin betokened a strong will power of unyielding determination. Glen had often expressed her unbounded admiration for her father, and believed him to be the most handsome man in the world. But now he seemed like an avenging god, about to visit upon her the force of his wrath. For the first time ...
— Glen of the High North • H. A. Cody
... nourished by his own substance, like some torpid creature which hibernates in caves. Solitude had reacted upon his brain like a narcotic. After having strained and enervated it, his mind had fallen victim to a sluggishness which annihilated his plans, broke his will power and invoked a cortege of vague reveries to which he ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... send him adrift, this was his endeavor. But would he reach the city—alive? Was he dying? He could not see... Yet again he shut his jaws and drew on his entire strength. He was keeping in the saddle by will power alone. If the horse faltered he was lost. To Gertrude; she could use them. And after all he loved her. If he died she ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... greatly to the glory of the family of Jonathan Edwards. The oldest son, Dr. Timothy Dwight, president of Yale, said with much tenderness and force, "All that I am and all that I shall be, I owe to my mother." She was a woman of remarkable will power and intellectual vigor. She was but seventeen when her first child was born and was the mother of ...
— Jukes-Edwards - A Study in Education and Heredity • A. E. Winship
... I am not good at moving in society. Be merciful. You do not understand me; I live in the woods by choice—that is my happiness. Here, where I am all alone, it can hurt no one that I am as I am; but when I go among others, I have to use all my will power to be as I should. For two years now I have been so little ...
— Pan • Knut Hamsun
... unseen, crushing it between material fabrications which are tokens of their passage over the earth, weighting it down with their thoughts, which fill the atmosphere, and are taken advantage of by all those who are born without will power to invent ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... given Eleanor "The Master Builder" to read, himself being a believer in the strange theory of will power. He is much upset by Quamina's story, bewildered at the mystery shrouding this evil demon. His life is becoming a purgatory on earth; he goes in daily dread of some fresh disaster. He says little to Eleanor, but she notices he does not sit out in the verandah, preferring the shelter of four walls, ...
— When the Birds Begin to Sing • Winifred Graham
... control, cool-headedness. This he can get only by actual practice. He must, by custom and repeated exercise of self-mastery, get his nerves thoroughly under control. This is largely a matter of habit, in the sense of repeated effort and repeated exercise of will power. If the man has the right stuff in him, his will grows stronger and stronger with each exercise of it—and if he has not the right stuff in him he had better keep clear of dangerous game hunting, or indeed of any other form of sport or work in which ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... great connecting link between the physical and the psychical through which all abnormal conditions can be corrected, and this is will power. When this power of will is broken, the life must become a manifestation of error, according to the generally accepted idea of ...
— Freedom Talks No. II • Julia Seton, M.D.
... thing that was borne in upon him was the fact that he was clinging to a tree, and that he could not let go. His arms encircled the rough bark like bands of iron; they had divorced themselves from his will power, they held him there despite himself, not from muscular rigidity or spasm, but just because they refused to let go. They were doing the business of clinging to safety on their own account, and he had to think himself free. There was no use in ordering ...
— The Pools of Silence • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... remembrances of past pleasures that poison the enjoyments within my reach; once I should have been satisfied with them, now it is too late. Oh, dear Eve, no one can think more hardly of me than I do myself; my condemnation is absolute and pitiless. The struggle in Paris demands steady effort; my will power is spasmodic, my brain works intermittently. The future is so appalling that I do not care to face it, and the ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... confounding the action of the mind upon the brain with the mind itself. Every effect must have a cause. When I make a special mental effort what is the cause lying behind the effort? Is it the molecular action of the brain? I will to make the effort, and do it. Then will power lies behind brain action. But power is a manifest energy; there is something lying behind it to which it belongs as an attribute; what is it? Answer, will. But, where there is a will there must of a necessity be that which wills. What is it that wills to make a special mental ...
— The Christian Foundation, April, 1880 |
