Nervous As A Quotes & Sayings

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

Do you think that sometimes, there are those that are meant to be together?" he asked, not breaking his gaze.
I thought for a moment. "I don't know, maybe." I shrugged.
"What if, there are two parts that were once a whole. Not here on earth, but," he looked skyward, then at me again with those searing golden eyes. A slight, nervous smile crept up my right cheek. He continued, "And those two parts weren't what made them whole, but the parts of them did."
"You've lost me now," I said, as I loosened my grip on his embrace, shaking my head.
"I'm talking about soul mates. Split aparts. It's a theory of Plato's. Except, what if the split aparts were never one, but each split apart was a part of one that was once whole? — Tania Penn

I started to get nervous when people began posting, on the public newsgroups, plot suggestions for future books and speculation about how characters would develop. The Net is still new, and it is big and it is public, and has brought with it new perceptions and problems. (One minor one is that people are out driving their language on a worldwide highway without passing a test. Take the word plagiarize. I know what it means. You know what it means. Lawyers certainly know what it means. But I have seen it repeatedly used as a synonym for research, parody, and reference, as — Anonymous

Well, it's not so much a trembling,' was the answer - 'though they do quiver - as a complete derangement of the nervous system. They can't sign their names to the book; sometimes can't even hold the pen; look about 'em without appearing to know why, or where they are; and sometimes get up and sit down again, twenty times in a minute. This is when they're in the office, where they are taken with the hood on, as they were brought in. When they get outside the gate, they stop, and look first one way and then the other; not knowing which to take. Sometimes they stagger as if they were drunk, and sometimes are forced to lean against the fence, they're so bad: - but they clear off in course of time. — Charles Dickens

The shy man does have some slight revenge upon society for the torture it inflicts upon him. He is able, to a certain extent, to communicate his misery. He frightens other people as much as they frighten him. He acts like a damper upon the whole room, and the most jovial spirits become, in his presence, depressed and nervous. — Jerome K. Jerome

Tiger Woods, Larry Bird, Wayne Gretzky, a pitcher just before a game, I would imagine they all have nervous energy. But as you perform, the nervous energy dissipates and you start to relax and you start to do what you do best. — Randy Johnson

The postures are only the "skin" of yoga. Hidden behind them are the "flesh and blood" of breath control and mental techniques that are still more difficult to learn, as well as moral practices that require a lifetime of consistent application and that correspond to the skeletal structure of the body. The higher practices of concentration, meditation and unitive ecstasy(samadhi) are analogous to the circulatory and nervous system." Georg Feuerstein The Deeper Dimension of Yoga — Georg Feuerstein

A meditator cannot smoke, for the simple reason that he never feels nervous, in anxiety, in tension. Smoking helps - on a momentary basis - to forget about your anxieties, your tensions, your nervousness. Other things can do the same - chewing gum can do the same, but smoking does it the best. In your deep unconscious, smoking is related with sucking milk from your mother's breast. And as civilization has grown, no woman wants the child to be brought up by breast-feeding - naturally; he will destroy the breast. The breast will lose its roundness, its beauty. — Rajneesh

Renegade scientists and totalitarian loonies are not the folks most likely to abuse genetic engineering. You and I are-not because we are bad but because we want to do good. In a world dominated by competition, parents understandably want to give their kids every advantage ... The most likely way for eugenics to enter into our lives is through the front door as nervous parents ... will fall over one another to be first to give Junior a better set of genes. — Arthur Caplan

The Japanese have five different ways to say 'thank you' - and every one of them translates literally as resentment, in various degrees. Would that English had the same built-in honesty on this point! Instead, English is capable of defining sentiments that the human nervous system is quite incapable of experiencing. 'Gratitude,' for example. — Robert A. Heinlein

Still, he should be forgiven what we all want: forgetting within the fuck. Love is a nervous habit. Haven't many said so? Snacking. Smoking. Talking. Joking. Alike as light bulbs. Drinking. Drugging. Frigging. Fucking. — William H Gass

But I have no idea what I did last night as - as that creature." Her voice shook. Abby was sure she was suffering a nervous breakdown. They would haul her to the insane asylum and wrap her in a nice white jacket then throw her in one of those pillow rooms - until they decided to strap her to a chair and make her sizzle as if she were a bug in a zapper. Oh my God. — Bonnie Gill

It was in reading Tristam Shandy that I noticed how it is primarily men who gravitate towards the game-playing self-reflexive style. There is an alienation from emotion in it, a Nervous Nelly fear of letting go and being "exposed." As an attitude towards life, it betrays a perpetual adolescence. Those who hurled themselves after Derrida were not the most sophisticated but the most pretentious, and least creative members of my generation of academics. — Camille Paglia

The hallucinogenic world, in environmental terms, can be considered as a forlorn effort of man to match the speed of power of hisextended nervous system (which we call the "electronic world") by intensifying the activity of his inner nervous system. — Marshall McLuhan

A rush of cold air blew against his face as he left her bakery. While he walked, Kaden tried to convince himself the date wasn't a big deal, but it was. The nervous energy swirling in his stomach gave him away. He'd never been on a date. Ever. He had met his wife the day they were bonded. He wasn't even sure of the proper protocol for a human date. His brothers had one-night stands, not dates. There was no way he could ask them. They'd never let him live it down. Perhaps he could find the answer on Google?
With all he had learned since his arrival, he was confident he could figure this out. Besides, this was a date with Annabelle - the one human he had made a connection with. After everything they had been through, taking her out on a date should be easy.
What could possibly go wrong? — Stacey O'Neale

Boys [should be] inured from childhood to trifling risks and slight dangers of every possible description, such as tumbling into ponds and off of trees, etc., in order to strengthen their nervous system ... They ought to practice leaping off heights into deep water. They ought never to hesitate to cross a stream over a narrow unsafe plank for fear of a ducking. They ought never to decline to climb up a tree, to pull fruit merely because there is a possibility of their falling off and breaking their necks. I firmly believe that boys were intended to encounter all kinds of risks, in order to prepare them to meet and grapple with risks and dangers incident to man's career with cool, cautious self-possession ... — R.M. Ballantyne

Before the general use of these instruments of precision in time, there was a wider margin for all appointments; a longer period was required and prepared for, especially in travelling--- coaches of the olden period were not expected to start like steamers or trains, on the instant--- men judged of the time by probabilities, by looking at the sun, and needed not, as a rule, to be nervous about the loss of a moment, and had incomparable fewer experiences wherein a delay of a few minutes might destroy the hopes of a lifetime. A nervous man cannot take out his watch and look at it when the time for an appointment or train is near, without affecting his pulse, and the effect on that pulse, if we could but measure and weigh it, would be found to be correlated to a loss to the nervous system. — George Miller Beard

During my sixteen years as a teacher of writing, I removed many adverbs and adverbial phrases from students' writing. I decided long ago that a writer who needlessly modifies words is either a nervous writer who does not believe in the worth of what they are writing or a vain writer who wants to be seen as discriminating and sensitive to nuances or meaning. — Gerald Murnane

Beautiful." "And scary," Sara said. "It's not scary at all," said Artham with a laugh. He ran to the edge of the cliff and jumped. The others gasped and then fell into nervous laughter as he spread his wings and soared out over the water. — Andrew Peterson

As I stared at him, elation,excitement, and lust began exploding within me like a fireworks display, rising within and bursting with a range of exquisite emotion that I had never known existed, let alone experienced, leaving me breathless, nervous, and excited. — Bindu Adai

Although we tend to think of the brain as a discrete organ - a lump of squidgy tissue - it is better to think of it as part of an elaborate network of nervous tissue that reaches out to every single part of the body. — Tim Birkhead

I feel like a pink worm in the core of this green room, as though I have eaten my way in and should be working on becoming a butterfly, or something. I'm not real awake, here, at the moment. I hear somebody coughing. I hear my heart beating and the high-pitched sound which is my nervous system doing its thing. Oh, God, let today be a normal day. Let me be normally befuddled, normally nervous; get me to the church on time, in time. Let me not startle anyone, especially myself. Let me get through our wedding day as best I can, with no special effects. Deliver Clare from unpleasant scenes. Amen. — Audrey Niffenegger

Because we put ourselves in a movie or on TV, then it must mean we want to be completely open to the world. Sometimes, people will run up to you as if this is Disneyland and I'm a character. I understand their point of view, but it's difficult to explain how terrified it makes me. I'm so nervous. — Brie Larson

The Doctor put his finger to his lips and Martha nodded and followed him as quietly as she could. Wet leaves squelched under her feet. There was movement up ahead: two teenagers, a pale boy and a nervous girl, walked into a clearing. The sun broke through the clouds and the boy started to sparkle.
Martha felt the Doctor's eyes on her and she blushed. 'Do not judge me.'
'Judging is for later,' he said, and they continued on, giving the young lovers a wide berth. — Derek Landy

Please," she eventually said, "you must forgive me. I'm far too shy. I must work harder to overcome it. When I behave that way, it has nothing at all to do with disgust. The truth is, I'm nervous with you. Because..." A deep flush worked up from the high neck of her dress to the edge of her hairline. "Because you're very attractive," she continued awkwardly, "and worldly, and I don't wish for you to think me foolish. As for the other day, that... that was my first kiss. I didn't know what to do, and I felt... quite overwhelmed. — Lisa Kleypas

Hi."
"Hi." I shrug, as though to say "Whatever."
In my peripheral vision I can see Magnus exhale. He looks a teeny bit nervous.
"So."
"So." I can play this game too.
"Poppy."
"Poppy. I mean, Magnus." I scowl. He caught me out. — Sophie Kinsella

When I get on a plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous. — Juan Williams

It's natural to feel jittery around new people. But sometimes you can get over your jitters if you make a joke. So when the Swedish housekeeper brought her breakfast on a tray, Charity said something cheeky about eating Lady Margaret out of house and home. But the big red-faced woman took no notice at all. So then Charity had to look totally relaxed and unconcerned as she enjoyed her breakfast in bed, which was easy enough after the first bite. The spooky Swedish housekeeper really was a fabulous cook. And Charity believed believed in looking for the best in people. — Elizabeth Jane Howard

If you can actually get someone to sit on the edge of their seat and feel nervous if there's a knock at the door, then you've done something pretty terrific as a writer. — Joanne Harris

Marguerite sighed, some of her tension leaving. "Yes, well he appears to have a strong mind."
Lissianna nodded. "I noticed. I couldn't get into his thoughts to calm him. Not at all. That's why I was feeding on him. I thought it might allow me to merge with his mind and soothe him," Lissianna explained.
"That seems to have worked well," Thomas commented with amusement. "Although I wouldn't say he was soothed exactly."
Lissianna followed his gaze to the man's groin, where an erection was pressing his dress pants upward. Even as she peered at it, the tent in his trousers slowly deflated.
"Not a cucumber then," Thomas commented lightly, and Lissianna had to bite her lip on a nervous giggle.
-Marguerite, Lissianna, & Thomas — Lynsay Sands

When I started singing as a freshman, I didn't sing for anybody - my parents or my friends. By the time I was a senior, the teacher asked me if I wanted to audition for a solo at my graduation. I was really nervous but I got it. — Toby Lightman

I stopped getting nervous a long time ago, so any time I do get nervous, which is rare - about work, anyway - I always take that as a really good sign. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

David furrowed his brow. "I ... I don't understand half of what goes on around me. I don't get jokes or sunsets or poetry, but I know metal." His fingers flexed unconsciously as if he were physically grasping for words. "Beauty was your armor. Fragile stuff, all show. But what's inside you? That's steel. It's brave and unbreakable. And it doesn't need fixing." He drew in a deep breath then awkwardly stepped forward. He took her face in his hands and kissed her.
Genya went regid. I thought she'd push him away. But then she threw her arms around him and kissed him back. Emphatically.
Mal cleared his throat, and Tamar gave a low whistle. I had to bite my lip to stifle a nervous laugh.
They broke apart. David was blushing furiously. Genya's grin was so dazzling it made my heart twist in my chest. — Leigh Bardugo

The only problem with the Angels' new image was that the outlaws themselves didn't understand it. It puzzled them to be treated as symbolic heroes by people with whom they had almost nothing in common. Yet they were gaining access to a whole reservoir of women, booze, drugs and new action
which they were eager to get their hands on, and symbolism be damned. But they could never get the hang of the role they were expected to play, and insisted on ad-libbing the lines. This fouled their channels of communication, which made them nervous ... and after a brief whirl on the hipster party circuit, all but a few decided it was both cheaper and easier, in the long run, to buy their own booze and hustle a less complicated breed of pussy. — Hunter S. Thompson

Surprise jolted through me. He only called me Ryan when he was taunting me. And right now he was taunting me about sucking his dick. Jesus. My bravado faltered, just for a second. Until I saw his pulse hammering in the hollow of his throat, and realized he was as nervous and excited as I was. I took a breath and lowered my head. Then I closed my mouth over his swollen tip and sucked. Jamie's hips snapped up instantly, his breath leaving his throat on a ragged shudder. "Oh Jesus. — Sarina Bowen

It's your turn," she says.
Oh. I go still, wondering exactly what she has in mind. Inside, my body claps like a damn seal, but outside I'm suddenly too nervous to move. She leans forward and kisses under my ear. Ah, yes. That's nice. She kisses my neck and I reach for her hip, pulling her closer.
"My sweet little vixen."
She licks my earlobe, and a bolt of arousal forces me on top of her.
Anna is naked underneath me. All mine.
But she tsks and makes a little uh-uh-uuh sound, as if I've got it all wrong. — Wendy Higgins

Caroline Caldwell gets out of Rosie using the cockpit door rather than the midsection door. The midsection door still has the airlock attached and her hungry specimen jammed into it. She walks twenty paces forward. That's as far as she can go, more or less. She stares at the grey wall for a long time. For whole minutes, probably, although she doesn't really trust her time sense any more. Her wounded mouth throbs in time with her heartbeat, but her nervous system is like a flooded carburettor; the engine doesn't catch, the confused signals don't coalesce into pain. Caldwell — M.R. Carey

It is of course no secret to contemporary philosophers and psychologists that man himself is changing in our violent century, under the influence, of course, not only of war and revolution, but also of practically everything else that lays claim to being "modern" and "progressive." We have already cited the most striking forms of Nihilist Vitalism, whose cumulative effect has been to uproot, disintegrate, and "mobilize" the individual, to substitute for his normal stability and rootedness a senseless quest for power and movement, and to replace normal human feeling by a nervous excitability. The work of Nihilist Realism, in practice as in theory, has been parallel and complementary to that of Vitalism: a work of standardization, specialization, simplification, mechanization, dehumanization; its effect has been to "reduce" the individual to the most "Primitive" and basic level, to make him in fact the slave of his environment, the perfect workman in Lenin's worldwide "factory. — Seraphim Rose

I tell you, I was as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a roomful of rockers! — Tennessee Ernie Ford

Alex was late. I was grateful. I was also incredibly nervous and I'd gotten mascara in my eye. I blinked a lot as I did a last check. — Melissa Jensen

You don't have half such a hard time as I do," said Jo. "How would you like to be shut up for hours with a nervous, fussy old lady, who keeps you trotting, is never satisfied, and worries you till you're ready to fly out the window or cry? — Louisa May Alcott

As soon as we finished filming, I felt like I had been woken up from a magical dream and had to pinch myself to remember that it was real. Every scene is now a blur. I feel like I will be watching it for the first time with the rest of the world. I am nervous. But excited. — Lucy Fry

No, he mustn't think about it, or indeed about anything, and especially not about heroin, because heroin was the one thing that really worked, the only thing that stopped him scampering around in a hamster's wheel of unanswerable questions. Heroin was the cavalry. Heroin was the missing chair leg, made with such precision that it matched every splinter of the break. Heroin landed purring at the base of his skull, and wrapped itself darkly around his nervous system, like a black cat curling up on its favourite cushion. It was as soft and rich as the throat of a wood pigeon, or the splash of sealing wax onto a page, or a handful of gems slipping from palm to palm. — Edward St. Aubyn

I'd be worried about myself as a human if I hadn't been nervous. — Allison Williams

Each person in the group said something except for me. My silence became noticed. About halfway through the meeting I started to think, I've got to talk. Today, I've got to talk. Fear racked me so bad that sweat ran down my sides. I thought, After the curly-haired woman stops talking I'll raise my hand. A man with a cocky smile told the curly woman that her story was nothing compared to his, he'd been passed out cold from heroin and God knows what, and I wanted to tell him to quit glorifying hinself. I was just about to say the words, a few faces turned toward me as if they could sense my imminent speech, when a man across the circle interrupted.
The opportunity passed; what I wanted to say wouldn't fit now. I tilted on the back two legs of the chair and waited for my desire to speak and be noticed and be part of the group to travel back through my nervous system. Up the synapses condemnation rushed: Why couldn't I spit something out like a normal person? — Daphne Scholinski

- pity is a confoundedly two-edged business. Anyone who doesn't know how to deal with it should keep his hands, and, above all, his heart, off it. It is only at first that pity, like morphia, is a solace to the invalid, a remedy, a drug, but unless you know the correct dosage and when to stop, it becomes a virulent poison. The first few injections do good, they soothe, they deaden the pain. But the devil of it is that the organism, the body, just like the soul, has an uncanny capacity for adaptation. Just as the nervous system cries out for more and more morphia, so do the emotions cry out for more and more pity, in the end more than one can give. Inevitably there comes a moment when one has to say 'No', and then one must not mind the other person's hating one more for this ultimate refusal than if one had never helped him at all. — Stefan Zweig

When anger is not trampling roughshod through our nervous system, it is sitting sullenly in some unspecified internal organ. "She's got a lot of anger in her," people will say (it nestles, presumably, somewhere in the gut), or, "He's a deeply angry man" (as opposed, presumably, to a superficially angry one). If anger isn't released, it "turns inward" and metamorphoses into another creature altogether. — Carol Tavris

...that's what a book should do. It should tie you up, it should work you up, make you think, make you see, make you feel extra happy and sorrowful, extra nervous and bold. It must be dream laden, scheme sodden, soul shaking. And it must do all of this as mysteriously as a left-handed curveball coming at your head, twisting and spinning and making you duck until, at the very end, it magically crosses home plate, with such grace and command that it humbles, crumbles, and amazes you. — John H. Ritter

The brain, which operates on electromagnetic impulses, is as much an activity of the universe as are the electromagnetic storms in the atmosphere or on a distant star. Therefore science is one form of electromagnetism that spends it time studying another form ... science is god explaining god through a human nervous system ... isn't spirituality the same thing? — Deepak Chopra

So you're really going to the dance?"
I nodded as I sipped from the mug.
"Alone?"
"Not technically.There should be other people there too."
He raised his eyebrows. "Did my sullen daughter just make a joke?" I smiled as he gave a chuckle. "You always used to make jokes when you were nervous," he said. His smile disappeared and he put a hand on my arm. "Are you nervous?"
He knew me better than I thought. "A little."
"Then why are you doing? I mean, won't most everyone there have dates?" He cleared his throat. "Because Tommy and I have a mean game of Uno planned."
I hugged him. "Thanks,Dad. Wish me luck. — Brodi Ashton

I become a better actor after I step on a stage in front of, like, 500 people when it's just me, a microphone and my guitar. You don't get as nervous walking into a room in front of 3 or 4 people and to do a scene or to walk on a set. You gain confidence. — Bryan Greenberg

Our environmental problems originate in the hubris of imagining ourselves as the central nervous system or the brain of nature. We're not the brain, we are a cancer on nature. — David Foreman

As the original Mary Poppins budget of five million dollars continued to grow, I never saw a sad face around the entire Studio. And this made me nervous. I knew the picture would have to gross 10 million dollars for us to break even. But still there was no negative head-shaking. No prophets of doom. Even Roy was happy. He didn't even ask me to show the unfinished picture to a banker. The horrible thought struck me - suppose the staff had finally conceded that I knew what I was doing. — Walt Disney

When anxiety becomes problematic, most people try vainly to think their way out of trouble. But worry has its roots in the reptilian brain, minimally responsive to will. As a wise psychoanalyst once remarked of the autonomic nervous system (which carries the outgoing fear messages from the reptilian brain), "It's so far from the head it doesn't even know there is a head." (49) — Thomas Lewis

The study a posteriori of the distribution of consciousness shows it to be exactly such as we might expect in an organ added for the sake of steering a nervous system grown too complex to regulate itself. — William James

I get so nervous. I happen to be socially awkward and shy. I spent a lot of my time as an adult not going places. — Christina Ricci

A nervous, undernourished girl who continually looked down the front of her gown as though there was some sort of construction project going on under her clothes. — Philip Roth

My inspiration is endless; I can't define it. It is a constant flow and evolution. In general, I'm taking it from everywhere. People get nervous when they walk with me, as I'll see something and suddenly have to text it to myself. — Raf Simons

...even in her current nervous state Penelope recognized them as Mineola ferns, native to a long island whose name she could not quite recall" -Penelope — Maryrose Wood

One stifling summer afternoon last August, in the attic of a tiny stone house in Pennsylvania, I made a most interesting discovery: the shortest, cheapest method of inducing a nervous breakdown ever perfected. In this technique ... , the subject is placed in a sharply sloping attic heated to 340 F and given a mothproof closet known as the Jiffy-Cloz to assemble. — S.J Perelman

Well, if I were you, I'd leave him. I'd find someone with a more normal way of looking at things and live happily ever after. There's no way in hell you can be happy with him. The way he lives, it never crosses his mind to try to make himself happy or to make others happy. Staying with him will only wreck your nervous system. To me, it's already a miracle that you've been with him three years. Of course, I'm very fond of him in my own way. He's fun, and he has lots of great qualities.
He has strengths and abilities that I could never hope to match. But in the end, his ideas about things and the way he lives his life are not normal. Sometimes, when I'm talking to him, I feel as if I'm going
around and around in circles. The same process that takes him higher and higher leaves me going around in circles. It makes me feel so empty! Finally, our very systems are totally different. Do you see what I'm saying? — Haruki Murakami

We no longer see the evolution of the nervous system, but that of a certain individual. The role of the memory is very important but ... not as important as we believe. Most of the important things that we do don't depend on memory. To hear, to see, to touch, to feel happiness and pain; these are functions which are independent of memory; it is an a priori thing. Thus, for me, what memory does is to modify that a priori thing, and this it does in a very profound way. — Rodolfo Llinas

Squandering time is a luxury of profligate youth, when the years are to us as dollars are to billionaires. Doing the same thing in middle age just makes you nervous, not with vague puritan guilt but the more urgent worry that you're running out of time, a deadline you can feel in your cells. — Tim Kreider

My observation of the Universe convinces me that there are beings of intelligence and power of a far higher quality than anything we can conceive of as human; that they are not necessarily based on the cerebral and nervous structures that we know, and that the one and only chance for mankind to advance as a whole is for individuals to make contact with such beings. — Aleister Crowley

All you ought to be worrying about now is order (not about how to impose it on chaos, wish is the opposite of art, but about how to bring it out of chaos, which is art itself). And your worrying about this ought not to be a tortured thing - God knows there's enough torture growing wild in everybody's life so that nobody in his right mind needs to cultivate it - but a serene thing. Don't, in other words, jazz yourself up into a nervous wreck. Be quiet, be as sane as you can, and let the work come out of you. If it's to come, it will; if it's not, no amount of self-induced frenzy is going to hep it along.
One final piece of solemn, teacherly advice, and I do mean this: Try to like yourself a little better. — Blake Bailey

Fear not, my doves!" Thorn jumped as someone flung an arm around her shoulders. The strange woman who had watched Thorn fight Brand a few days before thrust her gray-stubbled skull between her and her mother. "For the wise Father Yarvi has placed your daughter's education in my dextrous hands."
Thorn hadn't thought her spirits could drop any lower, but the gods had found a way. "Education?"
The woman hugged them tighter, her smell a heady mix of sweat, incense, herbs and piss. "It's where I teach and you learn."
"And who ... " Thorn's mother gave the ragged woman a nervous look, "or what ... are you?"
"Lately, a thief." When that sharpened nervousness into alarm she added brightly, "but also an experienced killer! — Joe Abercrombie

It is true that technical progress in modern times has linked men together like a complex nervous system. The means of travel are numerous and communication is instantaneous - we are joined together materially like the cells of a single body, but this body has as yet no soul. This organism is not yet aware of its unity as a whole. — Antoine De Saint-Exupery

The doctrine of evolution implies the passage from the most organised to the least organised, or, in other terms, from the most general to the most special. Roughly, we say that there is a gradual 'adding on' of the more and more special, a continual adding on of new organisations. But this 'adding on' is at the same time a 'keeping down'. The higher nervous arrangements evolved out of the lower keep down those lower, just as a government evolved out of a nation controls as well as directs that nation. — John Hughlings Jackson

Frank turned to look down at me, and he was right there, so close. Hi, he said.
I looked up at him.Now that the moment was here, it didn't feel scary. What would happen would happen, and I couldn't know or control it. But I was ready for it to begin. Hey, I said.
In a well-ordered universe, he said, and I could hear how nervous he was, I'd be able to do this. He leaned his head down and kissed me softly, then pulled back, making sure this was okay.
I smiled at him. Then we must be in one, I said. And as the sun rose behind us and he bent his head down to kiss me again, I leaned forward.
Toward him, and to whatever came next. — Morgan Matson

Six nervous wives at the sink, each quiet as a queen on a chessboard. — Genie Frisbee

It's like the frog that tried to outdo the cow...see, the consequences are reflected in each of us as individuals. A people so oppressed by the West have no mental leisure, they can't do anything worthwhile. They get an education that's stripped to the bare bone, and they're driven with their noses to the grindstone until they're dizzy -- that's why they all end up with nervous breakdowns. Try talking to them -- they're usually stupid. They haven't thought about a thing beyond themselves, that day, that very instant. They're too exhausted to think about anything else; it's not their fault. Unfortunately, exhaustion of the spirit and deterioration of the body come hand-in-hand. And that's not all. The decline of morality has set in too. Look where you will in this country, you won't find one square inch of brightness. It's all pitch black. So what difference would it make... — Soseki Natsume

Processionalism is primary - how you get from one place to another, the relationships and effects of spaces as you move about in them. That's worked out awfully well in the State Theater. I'm a 'straight-in' man myself; I'm too nervous, I like to know where I am. I also like to know where I'm going. — Philip Johnson

From time to time you'll see documentaries about low-ranked wolves who somehow rise to the top of the pack - an omega that earns a position as an alpha. Frankly, I don't buy it. I think that, in actuality, those documentary makers have misidentified the wolf in the first place. For example, an alpha personality, to the man on the street, is usually considered bold and take-charge and forceful. In the wolf world, though that describes the beta rank. Likewise, an omega wolf - a bottom-ranking, timid, nervous animal - can often be confused with a wolf who hangs behind the others, wary, protecting himself, trying to figure out the Big Picture.
Or in other words: There are no fairy tales in the wild, no Cinderella stories. The lowly wolf that seems to rise to the top of the pack was really an alpha all along. — Jodi Picoult

When my father first came home from college, he sat my grandparents down to tell them some very serious news. They followed him quizzically into the living room, and from the bantam couch stared up at their nervous, pacing son.
"I'm gay," he announced.
They sat stunned for a moment, and just as his mother started to cry he said,
"Just kidding. I smoke. — Sarah Silverman

He looked at people as if they were things. A nervous young man across from him ... came to hate him for that look. The young man lit a cigarette from his, tried talking to him, and even jostled him, to let him feel that he was not a thing but a human being, but Vronsky went on looking at him as at a lampost, and the young man grimaced, feeling that he was losing his self-possession under the pressure of this non-recognition of himself as a human being ... — Leo Tolstoy

The college dreamed on
awake. He felt a nervous excitement that might have been the very throb of its slow heart. It was a stream where he was to throw a stone whose faint ripple would be vanishing almost as it left his hand. As yet he had nothing, he had taken nothing. — F Scott Fitzgerald

brain and other nerve-related problems such as headaches from concussions, vascular dementia (dementia caused by blood vessel problems in the brain), migraines, Bell's palsy (a paralysis of the facial nerve), and tinnitus (ringing of the ears). He emphasized he was influenced by research that had been done in Israel on light therapy and the brain. Dr. Shimon Rochkind, a neurosurgeon at Tel Aviv University, originally pioneered work using lasers to treat injuries in the peripheral nervous system, that is, all the nerves in the body except those in the brain and spinal cord. Injury to peripheral nerves can lead to problems sensing or moving. — Norman Doidge

The bar staff and croupiers all wore black with the same green triangle logo emblazoned on their shirts, and contact lenses which made their eyes shine an eerie, vibrant green. The bar optics glowed with the same green light, the intensity of which was linked to the music. As the bartender walked away to fetch the drinks, a breakdown in the techno track commenced and the bottles began to palpitate. The bartender's eyes glowed with a hallucinatory felinity that made Mangle feel nervous. — R.D. Ronald

My patient was one of those singular and unfortunate people who regard their heart ("a hollow, muscular organ," according to the gruesome definition in Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary, which Pnin's orphaned bag contained) with a queasy dread, a nervous repulsion, a sick hate, as if it were some strong slimy untouchable monster that one had to be parasitized with, alas. — Vladimir Nabokov

that in modern life we overuse the "fight, flight, or freeze" response, because we respond to many situations as if they are life-threatening when they are not. As a result, our nervous systems don't have time to recover, because we are activating this response too frequently. — Linda Lantieri

I think the world divides neatly into those who are excited by the managed induction of terror and those who are not. I do not find terror exciting. I find it terrifying. One of my basic goals is to subject my nervous system to as little total terror as possible. The cruel paradox of course is that this kind of makeup usually goes hand in hand with a delicate nervous system that's extremely easy to terrify. — David Foster Wallace

Every morning she pulled a delicate cup from its brass hook and filled it, hoping that it would be dark and deep and secret as a forest, and each morning it cooled too fast, had too much milk, stained the cup, made her nervous. — Catherynne M Valente

His eyes shone, and his cheek was flushed with the exhilaration of the master workman who sees his work lie ready before him. A very different Holmes, this active, alert man, from the introspective and pallid dreamer of Baker Street. I felt, as I looked upon that supple, figure, alive with nervous energy, that it was indeed a strenuous day that awaited us. — Arthur Conan Doyle

You're like Marilyn Monroe,' Ken tells me, which I take as a compliment and say a nervous "Thank You". Interrupting, he adds, 'You're all velvet and Velcro. Men want you because you're sexy and broken and when it gets too rough they can say "Hey! This toy is broken!" and toss you aside without feeling bad. — Emma Forrest

A man of my acquaintance once wrote a poem called "The Road Less Traveled", describing a journey he took through the woods along a path most travelers never used. The poet found that the road less traveled was peaceful but quite lonely, and he was probably a bit nervous as he went along, because if anything happened on the road less traveled, the other travelers would be on the road more frequently traveled and so couldn't hear him as he cried for help. Sure enough, that poet is dead. — Lemony Snicket

When you get ill do not get nervous about it and try as much as possible to be hopeful. — Hazrat Ali Ibn Abu-Talib A.S

Well said our Lord, "Judge not,
that you be not judged." Especially judge not the sons and
daughters of sorrow. Allow no ungenerous suspicions of the afflicted, the poor and the despondent
. Do not hastily say
they ought to be more brave and exhibit a greater faith.
Ask not why are they so nervous
and so absurdly
fearful? No, in this you speak as one of the foolish women speaks. I beseech you, remember that you understand not your fellow man.

sermon "Man unknown to man — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

An associate of mine named William Congreve once wrote a very sad play that begins with the line 'Music has charms to sooth a savage beast,' a sentence which here means that if you are nervous or upset, you might listen to some music to calm you down or cheer you up. For instance, as I crouch here behind the alter of the Cathedral of the Alleged Virgin, a friend of mine is playing a sonata on the pipe organ, to calm me down and so that the sounds of my typewriter will not be heard by the worshipers sitting in the pews. The mournful melody of the sonata reminds me of a tune my father used to sing when he did the dishes, and as I listen to it I can temporarily forget six or seven of my troubles. — Lemony Snicket

Rush? not in the least. I take it uncommon easy." "Ah I'm bound to say you do!" Mrs. Nettlepoint returned with inconsequence. I guessed at a certain tension between the pair and a want of consideration on the young man's part, arising perhaps from selfishness. His mother was nervous, in suspense, wanting to be at rest as to whether she should have his company on the voyage or be obliged to struggle alone. But as he stood there smiling and slowly moving his fan he struck me somehow as a person on whom this fact wouldn't sit too heavily. He was of the type of those whom other people worry about, not of those who worry about other people. Tall and strong, — Henry James

Every fact of science was once damned. Every invention was considered impossible. Every discovery was a nervous shock to some orthodoxy. Every artistic innovation was denounced as fraud and folly. The entire web of culture and 'progress,' everything on earth that is man-made and not given to us by nature, is the concrete manifestation of some man's refusal to bow to Authority. We would own no more, know no more, and be no more than the first apelike hominids if it were not for the rebellious, the recalcitrant, and the intransigent. As Oscar Wilde truly said, 'Disobedience was man's Original Virtue. — Robert Anton Wilson

As soon as one of my records goes on, it makes a vast portion of the public nervous. They get spooked by it. To some people who have ears to hear, it's a delightful, refreshing change. But to most of the public, it's a load of homemade-sounding nonsense. — Nick Lowe

When I walk into a screening, I'm nervous in a different way than I am as an actor. But the response is ultimately I know how I feel about it and that's what matters to me the most. — Jake Gyllenhaal

[Hank] dumped the saddle on the ground as he set the sawhorse down. "Am I makin' you nervous?"
"Not you so much as your unusual ... supplies."
That damnably alluring grin appeared again. "Ah, hell, darlin'. It ain't nothin'. We're just gonna have ourselves a private rodeo."
"Let me guess. Instead of bulls and broncs, you're gonna be ridin' me. — Lorelei James

With the arrival of electric technology, man has extended, or set outside himself, a live model of the central nervous system itself. To the degree that this is so, it is a development that suggests a desperate suicidal autoamputation, as if the central nervous system could no longer depend on the physical organs to be protective buffers against the slings and arrows of outrageous mechanism. — Marshall McLuhan

AGATHA, an old Labradoodle ATHENA, a brown teacup Poodle ATTICUS, an imposing Neapolitan Mastiff, with cascading jowls BELLA, a Great Dane, Athena's closest pack mate BENJY, a resourceful and conniving Beagle BOBBIE, an unfortunate Duck Toller DOUGIE, a Schnauzer, friend to Benjy FRICK, a Labrador Retriever FRACK, a Labrador Retriever, Frick's litter mate LYDIA, a Whippet and Weimaraner cross, tormented and nervous MAJNOUN, a black Poodle, briefly referred to as 'Lord Jim' or simply 'Jim' MAX, a mutt who detests poetry PRINCE, a mutt who composes poetry, also called Russell or Elvis RONALDINHO, a mutt who deplores the condescension of humans ROSIE, — Andre Alexis

Scientists are cautiously beginning to question the view that the brain is the sole and absolute ruler over the body. The gut not only possesses an unimaginable number of nerves, those nerves are also unimaginably different from those of the rest of the body. The gut commands an entire fleet of signaling substances, nerve-insulation materials, and ways of connecting. There is only one other organ in the body that can compete with the gut for diversity - the brain. The gut's network of nerves is called the "gut brain" because it is just as large and chemically complex as the gray matter in our heads. Were the gut solely responsible for transporting food and producing the occasional burp, such a sophisticated nervous system would be an odd waste of energy. Nobody would create such a neural network just to enable us to break wind. There must be more to it than that. — Giulia Enders

Any young boy can nowadays explain human flight - mechanistically: " ... and to climb you shove the throttle all the way forward and pull back just a little on the stick ... " One might as well explain music by saying that the further over to the right you hit the piano the higher it will sound. The makings of a flight are not in the levers, wheels, and pedals but in the nervous system of the pilot: physical sensations, bits of textbook, deep-rooted instincts, burnt-child memories of trouble aloft, hangar talk. — Wolfgang Langewiesche

... as I attempt to release her, she squeezes my hand and offers a shy smile. Something within me shifts. No, I don't get nervous, but Brenna transports me to all sorts of new places. It's not her physical proximity getting to me, it's the fact that she makes me feel. — Katie McGarry

Human beings have evolved to be extremely good at identifying other individual humans. The race's survival depends on it. A guard lets the wrong person through the gate, and a whole settlement is wiped out. There are a million ways to tell two human beings apart. Not just appearance, either. Gait, odor, pheromones, speech patterns, dialect, nervous habits... even the way people breathe. Even parents of identical twins have little difficulty telling them apart, despite the fact that they are genetically identical and were raised in exactly the same environment, because of tiny differences in appearance and behavior that accrue as the result of differing experiences. The ability of one human to recognize another by appearance is especially acute when it comes to heterosexual males observing nubile females. There is nothing on Earth men pay more attention to than the appearance of sexually attractive young women. — Robert Kroese

Alongside of the physical symptoms of hysteria, a number of psychical disturbances are to be observed, in which at some future time the changes characteristic of hysteria will no doubt be found but the analysis of which has hitherto scarcely been begun. These are changes in the passage and in the association of ideas, inhibitions of the activity of the will, magnification and suppression of feelings, etc.
which may be summarized as "changes in the normal distribution over the nervous system of the stable amounts of excitation". — Sigmund Freud