#compulsion

The Andrians were the first of the islanders to refuse Themistocles' demand for money. He had put it to them that they would be unable to avoid paying, because the Athenians had the support of two powerful deities, one called Persuasion and the other Compulsion. The Andrians had replied that Athens was lucky to have two such useful gods, who were obviously responsible for her wealth and greatness; unfortunately, they themselves, in their small & inadequate land, had two utterly useless deities, who refused to leave the island and insisted on staying; and their names were Poverty and Inability. ↗

— Herodotus

#athenians #compulsion #persuasion #poverty #money

I found myself compelled - like this weird, shameful compulsion - to draw cute animals. ↗

— Lynda Barry

#compulsion #cute #draw #found #i

One of our theories is that one can offset this excessive compulsion toward the spectacular with a return to simplicity. ↗

— Rem Koolhaas

#excessive #offset #our #return #simplicity

The modern West has been deeply split about freedom and responsibility. On the one hand, it has championed human freedom in many forms - human rights, sexual freedom, political liberty, freedom to choose in many spheres. On the other hand, many of its most intelligent members have not believed that people are free at all, and have devoted great efforts to show that really we are the product of our genes, our unconscious drives, our education, economic pressures, or other forms of conditioning. ↗

— David F. Ford

#freedom #modernity #paradox #education

Only work which is the product of inner compulsion can have spiritual meaning. ↗

— Walter Gropius

#inner #meaning #only #product #spiritual

I started off like everyone else does, slogging but having a compulsion to put words on paper. I didn't write or read horror or fantasy, other than children's fantasy, until I was in my teens. ↗

— Laurell K. Hamilton

#compulsion #does #else #everyone #fantasy

It became clear that Keisha Blake could not start something without finishing it. If she climbed onto the boundary wall of Caldwell, she was compelled to walk the entire wall, no matter the obstructions in her path (beer cans, branches). This compulsion, applied to other fields, manifested itself as "intelligence." Every unknown word sent her to a dictionary--in search of something like "completion"--and every book led to another book, a process that, of course, could never be completed. This route through early life gave her no small portion of joy, and, indeed, it seemed at first that her desires and her capacities were basically aligned. She wanted to read things--could not resist wanting to read things--and reading was easily done, and relatively inexpensive. On the other hand, that she should receive any praise for such reflexive habits baffled the girl, for she knew herself to be fantastically stupid about many things. Wasn't it possible that what others mistook for intelligence was in fact only a sort of mutation of the will? ↗

— Zadie Smith

#compulsion #desires #finishing #intelligence #joy

Every compulsion is put upon writers to become safe, polite, obedient, and sterile. ↗

— Sinclair Lewis

#compulsion #every #obedient #polite #put

Where there is a will there is a way. And this must be the way not of compulsion but of cooperation... No government and no plan can succeed without it. ↗

— Lionel K. Murphy

#cooperation #government #must #plan #succeed

Bodily exercise, when compulsory, does no harm to the body; but knowledge which is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind. ↗

— Plato

#education #knowledge #learning #teaching #education