Overwhelms Quotes & Sayings

Ignorance. In this root sense, ignorance is an act of will, a choice that one makes over and over again, especially when information overwhelms and knowledge has become synonymous with impotence. — Ruth Ozeki

What we believe possesses us, and thus too often it overwhelms love - the truth of us. — Miguel Ruiz

Focusing on difficulties intensifies and enlarges the problem. When we focus our attention on God, the problem is put into its proper perspective and it no longer overwhelms us. — Charles Stanley

You have goodness in your heart, but your darkness overwhelms it all; your desire to hurt, destroy, and avenge is more powerful than your desire to love, help, and light the way. — Marie Lu

We try to be formed and held and kept by him, but instead he offers us freedom. And now when I try to know his will, his kindness floods me, his great love overwhelms me, and I hear him whisper, Surprise me. — Ron Hansen

It pays to know humility, lest the delusion of control, of mastery, overwhelms. — Steven Erikson

I have seen these marshes a thousand times, yet each time they're new. It's wrong to call them benign. You could just as well call them cruel and senseless, they are all of those things, but the reality of them overwhelms halfway conceptions. — Robert M. Pirsig

Our journey begins in Part One with new discoveries about the brain's emotional architecture that offer an explanation of those most baffling moments in our lives when feeling overwhelms all rationality. Understanding the interplay of brain structures that rule our moments of rage and fear - or passion and joy - reveals — Daniel Goleman

The hope, the hope that lives in the breast of the black American, is just so tremendous that it overwhelms me sometimes. — Maya Angelou

Since dugpas wished to get you out of here, where you were safe, how
else should they expel you than by causing you to expel yourselves by
violence? When fools make war they expend their resources squandering
money and life and food until the victor loses with the vanquished,
and another, who is wiser, overwhelms them both. No dugpa would do
such foolishness. He sacrifices little dugpas, even as the governments
send soldiers to be slain, because there are always plenty who will
fill the lower ranks. But one little sleepy, stupid, belly-loving
dugpa is as useful to him as an army that a government flatters and
sends to its death; because he wages war by causing his enemy to
make mistakes, and he wins not by what he himself does, but through
the self-destroying acts of whomsoever he would conquer. — Talbot Mundy

There is no such thing as an ugly language. Today I hear every language as if it were the only one, and when I hear of one that is dying, it overwhelms me as though it were the death of the earth. — Elias Canetti

Sometimes there are moments when we objectively face the never, and it overwhelms us. — Neal Shusterman

Perhaps there is to be found in Pastrana the key to something which happens in Spain more frequently than is necessary. Past splendor overwhelms and in the end exhausts the people's will; and without force of will, as can be seen in so many cases, by being exclusively occupied with the contemplation of the glories of the past, they leave current problems unsolved. When the belly is empty and the mind filled with golden memories, the golden memories continually retreat and at last, though no one goes so far as to admit it, there is even doubt whether they ever existed and there is nothing left of them but a benevolent and useless cultural residue. — Camilo Jose Cela

We ought never to lose hope. God overwhelms us with his grace, if we keep asking. — Pope Francis

Our failure to forgive others keeps us in bondage. When you fail to take the hard road of learning to love your neighbor, or your enemy, or the one who painfully wronged you, you will find yourself forever stuck in a pit that from time to time overwhelms you. Forgiveness is hard in the short term. But staying stuck in the pit of unforgiveness, while easier in the short term, is death in the long term. — Dan Lacich

So what oppresses and scares us? It is our own thoughts, obviously, What overwhelms people when they are about to leaves friends, family, old haunts and their accustomed way of life? Thoughts. — Epictetus

People have a hard time accepting anything that overwhelms them. — Bob Dylan

Perhaps the most devastating and damaging thing that can happen to someone is to fail to fulfill his potential. A kind of gnawing emptiness, longing, frustration, and displaced anger overwhelms people when this occurs. Whether the anger is turned inward on the self, or outward towards others, dreadful destruction results. — Edward T. Hall

But if the endlessly dead awakened a symbol in us,
perhaps they would point to the catkins hanging from the
bare
branches of the hazel-trees, or
would evoke the raindrops that fall onto the dark earth in
springtime.
And we, who have always thought
of happiness as rising, would feel
the emotion that almost overwhelms us
whenever a happy thing falls. — Rainer Maria Rilke

We are all lone souls. It pays to know humility, lest the delusion of control, of mastery, overwhelms. And, indeed, we seem a species prone to that delusion, again and ever again."
~Fiddler, pg. 558 — Steven Erikson

The loathing of mankind is a force that surprises and overwhelms one, fed by hundreds of springs concealed his subconsciousness. One only detects its presence after having long entertained it unawares. — Georg Brandes

There can be no lasting peace, no security, nor can we as human beings begin to touch our full potential, as long as hunger overwhelms the human spirit around this planet. — Dennis Weaver

A dog will stay stupid. That's why we love them so much. The entire time we know them, they're idiots. Think of your dog. Every time you come home, he thinks it's amazing. He has no idea how you accomplish this every day. You walk in the door; the joy of this experience overwhelms him. He looks at you, He's back. It's that guy, that same guy. He can't believe it. Everything is amazing to your dog. Another can of food? I don't believe it. — Jerry Seinfeld

Sometimes when the sky overwhelms the world with crimson, a man becomes the image of himself. — John Knoepfle

The life bears a likeness to a song, it, though low or high, pours the whole of itself into each musical note. The song will be only wonderful if a singer sings it in the perfect pitch. This resembles to the life, it overwhelms with tasks that you have to finish. Thus, you must come up with proper timetable to bring strength to your health before doing well everything. I consider health as the most important reward of this life. Just put it in priority, don't ruin it due to any reasons — AnhTri

Our inward power, when it obeys nature, reacts to events by accommodating itself to what it faces - to what is possible. It needs no specific material. It pursues its own aims as circumstances allow; it turns obstacles into fuel. As a fire overwhelms what would have quenched a lamp. What's thrown on top of the conflagration is absorbed, consumed by it - and makes it burn still higher. — Marcus Aurelius

That's the paradox: the only time most people feel alive is when they're suffering, when something overwhelms their ordinary, careful armour, and the naked child is flung out onto the world. That's why the things that are worst to undergo are best to remember. But when that child gets buried away under their adaptive and protective shells - he becomes one of the walking dead, a monster. — Ted Hughes

Endless drama in a group clouds consciousness. Too much noise overwhelms the senses. Continual input obscures genuine insight. Do not substitute sensationalism for learning. — John Heider

Once again the absurdity of my inner thoughts overwhelms me, and I want to crawl out of my skin, escape my ugly, awkward flesh and be a skeleton, naked and anonymous. — Isaac Marion

There is nothing that overwhelms the senses quite like an unwelcome silence. — Jack McDevitt

God wants to be known, but not in a way that overwhelms us, that takes away the possibility of love freely chosen. "God is like a person who clears his throat while hiding and so gives himself away," said Meister Eckhart. — John Ortberg Jr.

Well, you know, the mind is nothing. The mind is only a bunch of thoughts. Thoughts about the past and the future, that is all a mind is. But, the Heart is a center of stillness, of quietness, of Absolute Peace. When you rest your mind in your heart, you feel a joy and a bliss that overwhelms you, and you will Know. Surrender your mind to your Heart, and you will feel it. — Robert Adams

This powerful presence of diversity, however, sometimes overwhelms people, and they begin thinking that diversity really doesn't matter or, worse, they overreact and become entrenched, angrily guarding what they perceive as their piece of the social turf. Why is it, after all, that in spite of the growing diversity in our culture, we see a rise in hate crimes, a rise in militia movements, a rise in heated, if not hateful, diatribes over the airwaves? Why the backlash of resentment? You would think that white supremacy groups would be a thing of the past. But, tragically, they continue to exist. Why has the world become more dangerous and not less? — R. Scott Colglazier

Although we are all the same in not wanting problems and wanting a peaceful life, we tend to create a lot of problems for ourselves. Encountering those problems, anger develops and overwhelms our mind, which leads to violence. A good way to counter this and to work for a more peaceful world is to develop concern for others. Then our anger, jealousy and other destructive emotions will naturally weaken and diminish. — Dalai Lama

I guess they're having what you might call panic attacks. It's an old place and smells a little musty. The hallways are sort of long and narrow. The exhibits are gory. The people are listening to some creepy, nasty stuff on their earphones. It apparently just overwhelms some of them, especially on a busy day when there might be some congestion in the rooms and hallways. You'll have flippers, fainters and barfers every so often.'
'It's sounding more fun all the time.' 'Not as much fun as the heart attacks.' 'You get heart attacks?'
'I don't, they do. Not often, though. — Richard Laymon

I wasn't going to say anything about that, Tabitha," he said quietly. "I only wanted to tell you that your compassion for other people overwhelms me."
"Oh." She offered him a tenuous smile. "I'm just used to people condemning everything I do."
He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles. "I don't condemn you, my lady. I only admire you. — Sherrilyn Kenyon

For there clings to him something that often overwhelms us
memory, a recollection that whatever we're striving for now
was once closer and truer, and that its union with us was incredibly tender.
Here, everything is distance;
There, is was breath. — Rainer Maria Rilke

The thoughts of letting go of everything I love overwhelms like a tsunami of sorrow. — Sandra Cisneros

All passion is childish. It's banal and naive. It's nothing we learn; it's instinctive, and so it overwhelms us. Overturns us. It bears us away in a flood. All other emotions belong to the earth, but passion inhabits the universe. That is the reason why passion is worth something, not for what it gives us but for what it demands that we risk. — Fredrik Backman

Dear Father, I pray to you in the name of your dear Son Jesus Christ, and I confess my sins to you and ask for your forgiveness through His death upon the cross in my behalf. I love you and long to serve you with the best of my ability, but my ability is as nothing compared to your great power. The great need for the gospel in our world overwhelms me. Oh, give me your strength and power, love through me, that I might do all for you and others to the glory of your kingdom and your name. Amen. — Andrew Murray

When a man desires a thing too much, he at once becomes ill at ease. A proud and avaricious man never rests, whereas he who is poor and humble of heart lives in a world of peace. An unmortified man is quickly tempted and overcome in small, trifling evils; his spirit is weak, in a measure carnal and inclined to sensual things; he can hardly abstain from earthly desires. Hence it makes him sad to forego them; he is quick to anger if reproved. Yet if he satisfies his desires, remorse of conscience overwhelms him because he followed his passions and they did not lead to the peace he sought. — Thomas A Kempis

What is meant by 'reality'? It would seem something very erratic, very undependable-now to be found in a dusty road, now in a scrap of newspaper in the street, now in a daffodil in the sun. It lights up a group in a room and stamps some casual saying. It overwhelms one walking home beneath the stars and makes the silent world more real than the world of speech-and then there it is again in an omnibus in the uproar of Picadilly. — Virginia Woolf

What passes for political realism may make for lively academic debates. But it often functions, ironically, as a tool of social control, rendering us passive with an analysis that overwhelms and paralyzes us. — Parker Palmer

Do not let fear of failure overwhelms joy success — Robert Kiyosaki

We need myths to get by. We need story; otherwise the tremendous randomness of experience overwhelms us. Story is what penetrates. — Robert Coover

Mindfulness can have a sobering effect on the restless, jittery psyche. The stiller and more focused it becomes, the more I am able to peer into the sources of my febrile reactivity, to catch the first stirring of hatred before it overwhelms me with loathing and spite, to observe with ironic detachment the conceited babbling of the ego, to notice at its inception the self-demeaning story that could tip me into depression. And — Stephen Batchelor

In this,
journey,
of reaching,
to myself,
I have had,
many a,
thoroughfares,
goodbye affairs,
reality checks,
and,
lovely overwhelms. — Jasleen Kaur Gumber

I close my eyes, inhale, and feel a rush of heat and energy that takes my breath away. It is the feeling of wanting something so much that it borders on an actual need, and the power and urgency of this need overwhelms me. — Emily Giffin

It is tempting to look back at Bear's people from the perspective of this modern world and see them as changeless and pure, authentic people in ways impossible for anybody to be anymore. We need Noble Savages for our own purposes. Our happy imaginings about them and the pure world they occupied do us good when incoherent change overwhelms us. But even in those early days when I was first getting to know Bear and his people, I could see that change and brutal loss had been all they had experienced for two centuries. — Charles Frazier

I'm a woman that's living in this world of everybody telling everyone how they should look, and what they should be eating and how people can lose this much weight this fast, and it just kind of overwhelms our senses. If I could just make the tiniest bit of difference in getting rid of that because it is so annoying, I would love that. — Jennifer Lawrence

It's difficult to talk about [W.S.] Merwin's poems, as it's hard to talk about a feeling or a smell. It is what it is, but so much so that it overwhelms both sense and the senses. I aspire to something about his work, that imbues his poems, though I'm not sure I could say what that is. A purity, maybe, the kind of purity that comes from being beaten, like steel. — Dorianne Laux

There comes a time when the blankness of the future is just so extreme, it's like such a black wall of nothingness. Not of bad things like a cave full of monsters and so, you're afraid of entering it. It's just nothingness, the void, emptiness and it is just horrible. It's like contemplating a future-less future and so you just want to step out of it. The monstrosity of being alive overwhelms you. — Stephen Fry

The inquisition of public opinion overwhelms in practice the freedom asserted by the laws in theory. — Thomas Jefferson

I've certainly auditioned for big budget studio films. I don't know if it's because there's so much money involved, but a lot of times the pressure overwhelms me and engulfs me. I end up falling apart in the audition. — Jason Ritter

My optimism rests on my belief in the infinite possibilities of the individual to develop nonviolence. The more you develop it in your own being, the more it overwhelms your surroundings and by and by might oversweep the world. — M K Gandhi

The form of my poem rises out of a past that so overwhelms the present with its worth and vision that I'm at a loss to explain my delusion that there exist any real links between that past and a future worthy of it. — Hart Crane

The joys of possession I have never felt very acutely. I find it hard to think of myself as the owner of anything. But I do tend to slip into the role of guardian and protector of the unloved and unlovable, of what other people disdain or spurn: bad-tempered old dogs, ugly pieces of furniture that have stubbornly stayed alive, cars on the edge of breakdown. It is a role I resist; but every now and then the mute appeal of the unwanted overwhelms my defences. — J.M. Coetzee

Memory is as thick as mud. It rises up, it overwhelms. It sucks you down and freezes you where you stand. Thrash and kick and gnash your teeth. There's no escaping it. — Lauren Oliver

It is the nature of the Kali Yuga that most human beings are now held back from spiritual liberation due to the gravity of inertia, apathy and laziness, (known in Sankrit as the quality of tapas) that overwhelms this age. Despite this seemingly gloomy prognosis, there is a way out of this predicament for those with the will and stamina to awaken from the rampant lethargy, within and outside of themselves, to take action. — Zeena Schreck

Thundering in my head; the sound of silence overwhelms. — Roderick L. Evans

I mean, the greatest laugh I always get is, if darkness, right, just overwhelms the Earth one day and [Barack] Obama had the key to light, he says, "I have a bill that will bring sunlight," they'd rather live in darkness than have him bring the light. — Luis Gutierrez

Is not he imprudent, who, seeing the tide making haste towards him apace, will sleep till the sea overwhelms him? — John Tillotson

I learned that the day "The Viper's Drag" slipped from between my fingers. But whatever might be lost or broken or forgotten is nothing compared to the miraculous rebirth that occurs every time the needle hits the groove. Here is Fats Waller Himself, not dead but present, so present that he overwhelms the well-ordered precincts of the living room. The sound sprawls. What vibrates here has more life than any room. — Geoffrey O'Brien

My life has been in shambles, like my personal relationships, my laundry, paying bills now I have someone who pays my bills and it's always been a challenge because it overwhelms me. — Adam Rapp

The way I see it, the true fear for us as human being is not terror as such. Terror certainly exists there... It manifests itself in various forms, and from time to time overwhelms our very existence as human beings. But the most fearful thing of all is to turn your back on that fear, to close your eyes to it. By doing that, we end up alienating the very most essential part of our make-up — Haruki Murakami

Overwhelms you with tingling excitement give you pleasure because of internal molecules. Some researchers believe that thrills occur when molecules called endorphins are released. A drug called naloxone blocks those molecules and prevents music from inspiring — Robert E. Svoboda

Grace overwhelms us with God's love, and as a result our heart resonates with the desires of God: His purposes become our own. — Bryan Chapell

Love, who is most beautiful among the immortal gods, the melter of limbs, overwhelms in their hearts the intelligence and wise counsel of all gods and all men. — Hesiod

[William Eggleston] sets forth what makes up our ordinary world. What is there, however strange, can be accepted without question; familiarity will be what overwhelms us. — Eudora Welty

The spectacle of the sky overwhelms me. I'm overwhelmed when I see, in an immense sky, the crescent of the moon or the sun. — Joan Miro

Marcion: The God of the Old Testament and Jesus in the New Testament are two different gods. Docetists: Jesus only appeared to be human. Arius: The Son was a created being of a lower order than the Father. Apollinarius: Jesus' divine nature/Logos replaced the human rational soul in the incarnation. In other words, Jesus' "pure" divine nature replaced the "filthy" mind of a typical human. Sabellius: Jesus and the Father are not distinct but just "modes" of a single being. Eutyches: The divinity of Christ overwhelms his humanity. Nestorius: Jesus was composed of two separate persons, one divine and one human. — Justin S. Holcomb

When someone you love dies, and you're not expecting it, you don't lose her all at once; you lose her in pieces over a long time - the way the mail stops coming, and her scent fades from the pillows and even from the clothes in her closet and drawers. Gradually, you accumulate the parts of her that are gone. Just when the day comes - when there's a particular missing part that overwhelms you with the feeling that she's gone, forever - there comes another day, and another specifically missing part. — John Irving

The thing that overwhelms me when I go out now is the sprawlation of America. — William Least Heat-Moon

Unless bureaucracy is constantly resisted, it breaks down representative government and overwhelms democracy. — Ronald Reagan

Soul one might say is more imperfectly infinite than spirit, because soul tends to abolish the ego-consciousness that it absorbs or overwhelms, reducing its particularizing structure to pure sublime feeling (immediacy); but spirit is more successfully infinite than soul, even though also more difficult and abstruse, because it digests the functions of consciousness into itself and thus preserves and deploys the senses and intelligence of conscious ego to higher ends. — Kenny Smith

The highest compliment I can give a science fiction book is that it's 'plausibly surreal' - it manages to feel like a relentless extrapolation from today even as it overwhelms with unexpected consequences of that extrapolation. — Jamais Cascio

Love is something that comes to us in life. Quietly, it overwhelms us. It is something that you cultivate. You make it happen. — Frederick Lenz

Do we have to wait until a disaster overwhelms us before we make the radical changes necessary to protect our world for future generations? That is the vital challenge of sustainable development. If we act now there is much that can be saved which will otherwise disappear forever — John Gummer

Trust is not a passive state of mind. It is a vigorous act of the soul by which we choose to lay hold on the promises of God and cling to them despite the adversity that at times seeks to overwhelms us. — Jerry Bridges

Melancholy overwhelms me at supersonic speed. — Muriel Barbery

I suddenly felt in myself all the weight of Europe: the weight of deliberate purpose in all our actions. I thought to myself, 'How difficult it is for us to attain to reality ... We always try to grab it: but it does not like to be grabbed. Only where it overwhelms man does it surrender itself to him. — Muhammad Asad

Ian's sense of right and wrong overwhelms me.
Not a single other person ... I know
possesses such an unshakable sense of morality.
Its more than unbelievable. It's frightening.
To offer without strings something all men crave,
and be rejected by him is incomprehensible.
Think I'll have to kick Kaeleigh's ass.
Does she have any idea what it means ... to be
so treasured? He has built a pedestal for her so tall
that she is afraid to be lifted atop it, because to fall
would mean certain death. But oh, she would rise
far, far beyond fear. — Ellen Hopkins

They, like you, were born to walk the like of shadows. One foot in the light and one in the dark. A few are scared enough of both that they stay in the middle and never pick a side. Others are strong enough to choose the light and stay firmly planted there, even while the darkness tries to claim them. And others are too weak or blind to fight the lure of the darkness. It overwhelms them with false promises and before they know what's happened it owns them. — Sherrilyn Kenyon

The good, supreme, divine poetry is above the rules and reason. Whoever discerns its beauty with a firm, sedate gaze does not see it, any more than he sees the splendor of a lightning flash. It does not persuade our judgement, it ravishes and overwhelms it. — Michel De Montaigne

Scratch the surface of knowledge and mystery bubbles up like a spring. And occasionally, at certain disquieting moments in history (Aristarchus, Galileo, Plank, Einstein), a tempest of mystery comes rolling in from the sea and overwhelms our efforts. — Chet Raymo

Think of it this way: performing is like sprinting while screaming for three, four minutes. And then you do it again. And then you do it again. And then you walk a little, shouting the whole time. And so on. Your adrenaline quickly overwhelms your conditioning. — Bruce Springsteen

Sometimes the enormity of war overwhelms the truth that all great struggles are just the sum of individual stories. Each is more than just the story of one soldier's service and sacrifice. Their service ripples across their families, friends and their communities. Memorial Day reminds us it is the noble sacrifice of many that makes us who we are. — James Carafano

We learn to flex our faith muscles through practice. Since faith without works is dead, then what if we, through practicing together, put feet on our faith and built into our lives the habit of trust? What if our faith quickened and rose to life with the habit of practice? When the anxiety pounds and we want to retreat, we practice stepping out, and forging ahead anyway. When life overwhelms and the way is dark, we refrain from lighting our own candles to practice relying on our God instead.[1] When the child seems lost and our own strength isn't enough, we trust God is faithful and He will do it.[2] When things look hopeless in the land of famine, we practice picking up the oil jar and pouring that last bit out anyway. — Arabah Joy

My life was so barren before we met, Sarah. I couldn't feel anything anymore. Didn't let myself fell anything." Reaching up, he stroked her lovely face. "Then you came along with your courage and teasing and passion and woke me up."
"Now I feel so much that, at times, it overwhelms me," he admitted. "I laugh. I want. I live, Sarah. Because of you. — Dianne Duvall

When fear overwhelms truth and love, we call it pain. Our spirit as women has all the knowledge and power we need to give birth and to nurture our babies. It is in our genetic coding. It has been there since the beginning of time. You can trust its wisdom. — Gurmukh Kaur Khalsa

The thought of Christmas overwhelms him. He no longer looks forward to the holiday; he wants only to be on the other side of the season. His impatience makes him feel that he is incontrovertibly, finally, an adult. — Jhumpa Lahiri

My washing machine overwhelms me with its options and its sophistication. — Uma Thurman

Are you saying good-bye or what?" Sed ased gruffly.
"Nope, we were making out," Rebekah said. "His sexiness overwhelms me sometimes, and I have to kiss him. — Olivia Cunning

The sorrow of not being movie stars overwhelms millions. — Mason Cooley

It is very unkind of you to feel this way. Any woman should properly yield, it seems to me, even a complete stranger, because that is the way of the world.... All I desire is solace from the flood of memories that overwhelms me. — Murasaki Shikibu

I know where I've come from. I know why I'm here. I know where I'm going - and I have peace in my heart. His peace floods my heart and overwhelms my soul! — Billy Graham

The whole business of your life overwhelms you when you live alone. One's stupefied by it. To get rid of it you try to daub some of it off on to people who come to see you, and they hate that. To be alone trains one for death. — Louis-Ferdinand Celine

individual does. Here's the difference: Eventually a leader's lust for progress overwhelms his reluctance to take risks. In other words, failure to move things forward is the type of failure most feared by the leader. For the leader, failure is defined in terms of missed opportunities rather than failed enterprises. — Andy Stanley

In this stillness that is at the same time movement, in this darkness that is at the same time light, change is found not in the realm of ideas but in the energizing desire that is realized through precipitation. Desire tends towards its own realization and change takes place when the desire for it shatters the bounds of the possible, breaking the dialectical equilibrium holding together the framework of what is existent. It is at such moments that the imaginary flows into the real and overwhelms it, inundating it until it has been absorbed. — Michael Richardson

It's not debt per say that overwhelms an individual corporation or country. Rather it is a continuous increase in debt in relation to income that causes trouble. — Warren Buffett