Prompting Quotes & Sayings

I can.
He rent his dark tresses,
Resulting in messes,
Thus prompting his L.I. to flee till,
she reached the end of the world and jumped off.
Perhaps I have untapped potential. — Franny Billingsley

the Holy Spirit is the author of the Bible, and thus, following what the Bible says is following the prompting of the Spirit. "And — Ron E. M. Clouzet

So at family gatherings ... I try to stick to the acceptable script. Indeed, I discover that the less I say, the happier everyone seems to be with me. I sometimes wonder if I wouldn't have been better off as a paraplegic or afflicted by some tragic form of cancer. The invisibility and periodicity of my disorder, along with how often I border on normalcy, allows them to evade my need for their understanding. And because our most enduring family heirloom is avoidance and denial of pain and suffering, I don't need much prompting to shut myself down in their presence. — Kiera Van Gelder

The limitation prompting folly was an attitude of superiority so dense as to be impenetrable. — Barbara W. Tuchman

And when she thinks of that generation of silent men, the boys who lived through the Depression and grew up to become soldiers or not-soldiers in the war, she doesn't blame them for refusing to talk, for not wanting to go back into the past, but how curious it is, she thinks, how sublimely incoherent that her generation, which doesn't have much of anything to talk about yet, has produced men who never stop talking, men like Bing, for example, or men like Jake, who talks about himself at the slightest prompting, who has an opinion on every subject, who spews forth words from morning to night, but just because he talks, that doesn't mean she wants to listen to him, whereas with the silent men, the old men, the ones who are nearly gone now, she would give anything to hear what they have to say. — Paul Auster

Theories - whether neural, mental, or conceptual - talk about intervening steps in these relationships. But instead of prompting us to search for and explore relevant variables, they frequently have quite the opposite effect. When we attribute behavior to a neural or mental event, real or conceptual, we are likely to forget that we still have the task of accounting for the neural or mental event ... Research designed with respect to theory is also likely to be wasteful. That a theory generates research does not prove its value unless the research is valuable. Much useless experimentation results from theories, and much energy and skill is absorbed by them. Most theories are eventually overthrown, and the greater part of the associated research is discarded. — B.F. Skinner

The awareness begins with a feeling of restlessness - an inner urging to find more meaning in life. As we respond to this inner prompting we begin to notice the "chance coincidences" - strange synchronistic events in our life. We begin to realize that some underlying process is operating our life. — James Redfield

I have been learning a great deal about the need to let go of our fears and truly trust the Lord. When we hold on to fear we let false beliefs (and Satan) be in control. When we trust, we give the control back to God. When we give Him the control we open up our connection to Him so that He can inspire us with the actions we need to take to receive the blessings we desire. I think it comes down to believe, listen, trust, and act.
Faith is the ability to believe something enough that you are to act upon the belief. Do I believe God when He says everything will be OK? Do I believe Him enough to trust Him and am I willing to give Him the control and listen to His prompting to do things that He says will make my situation better? — Laura Lane

Eric Ashcroft, a gentle, kind, popular man with a wicked sense of humour, was always modest about his wartime exploits, but eventually, with much prompting from his persistent son, he told me of his terrifying experience on D-Day. — Michael Ashcroft

Our first endeavors are purely instinctive prompting of an imagination vivid and undisciplined. As we grow older reason asserts itself and we become more and more systematic and designing. But those early impulses, though not immediately productive, are of the greatest moment and may shape our very destinies. Indeed, I feel now that had I understood and cultivated instead of suppressing them, I would have added substantial value to my bequest to the world. But not until I had attained manhood did I realize that I was an inventor. — Nikola Tesla

Maybe he dates girls in Denver when he goes there for business but he never asks out girls around here. I think he's simply there for looks."
The same could be said for Lindsey's ex, Hopper. He had been good for looking at but not much else. "That might work for a little while," Lindsey said, "but I prefer my men fully functional."
Holly's gaze locked on something behind Lindsey. Her hazel eyes widened and her lips formed an 'O'. She tipped her head forward, prompting Lindsey to turn and look ... straight into the eyes of Carden Crenshaw. — Tracy March

One arranges flowers as the spirit moves you; to obey some inner prompting to put this colour with that, to have brilliance here, line there, a sense of opulence in this place or sparseness in that; to suit your surroundings, your mood, the weather, the occasion. In a word, to do as you please, just as, if you could, you might paint a picture. — Constance Spry

Prayer and Bible study are inseparably linked. Effective prayer is born out of the prompting of God's Spirit as we read His Word. — Billy Graham

As a kid, I couldn't sleep without this ratty stuffed elephant," she explains, not sure what made her think of it now. Maybe it's that she'll be soon seeing her dad again, or maybe it's just the plane keying up beneath her, prompting a childish wish for her old security blanket.
[Oliver]"I'm not sure that counts"
"Clearly you've never met Elephant"
He laughs, "Did you come up with that name all by yourself?"
"Damn right," she says — Jennifer E. Smith

Does not vanity itself cease to be blamable, is it not even ennobled, when it is directed to laudable objects, when it confines itself to prompting us to great and generous actions? — Denis Diderot

When I look in the fridge, I see groceries, but I don't see food. My stomach growls; but there is no appetite.
Appetite and hunger are different. Appetite is the mental prompting that kicks the auto-response into drive so you actually reach out, take the food, put it in your mouth, chew, and swallow. I learned this in my first psychology course. Eating isn't just a physical need; it starts in the mind, generating hunger, which then should trigger the body to ingest food. I have no sparks between these plugs. — Julie Gregory

In my late thirties the dream of disappointment and exhaustion had been the dream of the exploding head: the dream of a noise in my head so loud and long that I felt with the brain that survived that the brain could not survive; that this was death. Now, in my early fifties, after my illness, after I had left the manor cottage and put an end to that section of my life, I began to be awakened by thoughts of death, the end of things; and sometimes not even by thoughts so specific, not even by fear rational or fantastic, but by a great melancholy. This melancholy penetrated my mind while I slept; and then, when I awakened in response to its prompting, I was so poisoned by it, made so much not a doer (as men must be, every day of their lives), that it took the best part of the day to shake it off. And that wasted or dark day added to the gloom preparing for the night. — V.S. Naipaul

One of my friends continued to ask me when was I going to start the group. One particular time she asked me, someone else asked the same thing later on in the week. I believe that was definitely the Lord speaking and prompting me to start it. — Mike Willis

This is the only leadership life I get, my one and only shot at following God the way I feel him prompting me to do so. This isn't some pre-game warm-up. It's the game, and the clock is ticking! — Bill Hybels

Now that the book is out in the world, I'm amazed all over again at what my friend did for me in prompting me to ditch realism for a more magical approach. In some ways, the Golem and the Jinni are the ultimate immigrants. They aren't just new to New York or America; they're new to people. Like those around them, they wrestle with issues of religion versus doubt and duty versus self-determination - but as inescapable aspects of their own otherworldly natures. For seven years I've lived with their questions, arguments, and adventures, and it's been one of the greatest gifts of my life. — Helene Wecker

I foresee all: how I'll annoy
You deeply, by my sad confession:
What bitter scorn in your expression,
How proud the glance you'll employ!
What can I hope for? With what aim
Reveal my soul, and thereafter
Open myself to endless blame,
Prompting your malicious laughter? — Alexander Pushkin

Our God is a God who cares, heals, guides, directs, challenges, confronts, corrects. To discern means first of all to listen to God, to pay attention to God's active presence, and to obey God's prompting, direction, leadings, and guidance. — Henri J.M. Nouwen

To attract people naturally, effortlessly, we need only follow the true prompting of our hearts. — Wu Wei

If you keep finding yourself in the same situations, the Universe is prompting you to confront self! YOU are the common denominator. — Sanjo Jendayi

Education is everywhere, prompting one to think, to consider, to remember. — Louis L'Amour

Whatever guilt is perpetrated by some evil prompting, is grievous to the author of the crime. This is the first punishment of guilt that no one who is guilty is acquitted at the judgment seat of his own conscience.
[Lat., Exemplo quodcumque malo committitur, ipsi
Displicet auctori. Prima est haec ultio, quod se
Judice nemo nocens absolvitur.] — Juvenal

He means, Coppy, that even though he had no intention of getting engaged or married, or otherwise entangled, he has discovered--probably with disgust--that the light of Reason has been put out and that he has been forced, against every prompting of intelligence, common sense and will-power, to chuck himself and his future at your feet, because he knows that unless you can be persuaded to pick them up, neither the one or the other will ever be of any value to him again. — M.M. Kaye

All the cartoonists at heart liked him, and there was seldom or never anything bitter or really unfriendly in their portrayals of him; they were uniformly good-natured." Caricatures even transformed his failure during a mid-November bear hunt into a triumph, conjuring an image of the president steadfastly refusing to shoot a small bear furnished for the occasion. As renditions of the original Clifford Berryman cartoon proliferated, the bear dwindled in size until he appeared as a tiny cub, prompting toy store owners to market stuffed bears in honor of Teddy Roosevelt. Soon the Teddy bear became one of the most cherished toys of all time. — Doris Kearns Goodwin

Do not belong to those who only get their thoughts from books, or at the prompting of books,-it is our custom to think in the open air, walking, leaping, climbing, or dancing on lonesome mountains by preference, or close to the sea, where even the paths become thoughtful. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Researches tested a new form of medical marijuana that treats pain but doesn't get the user high, prompting patients who need medical marijuana to declare, 'Thank you?' — Jimmy Fallon

True poetry, like the religious prompting itself, springs from the emotional side of a man's complex nature, and is ever in harmony with his highest intuitions and aspirations. — Epes Sargent

God knows the needs of his children, and he often works through us, prompting us to help one another. When we act on such promptings, we tread on holy ground, for we are allowed the opportunity to serve as an agent of God in answering a prayer. — Kathleen H. Hughes

In the performance of our responsibilities, I have learned that when we heed a silent prompting and act upon it without delay, our Heavenly Father will guide our footsteps and bless our lives and the lives of others. I know of no experience more sweet or feelings more precious than to heed a prompting, only to discover that the Lord has answered another's prayer through you. — Thomas S. Monson

There would be no chance at all of getting to know death if it happened only once. But fortunately, life is nothing but a continuing dance of birth and death, a dance of change. Every time I hear the rush of a mountain stream, or the waves crashing on the shore, or my own heartbeat, I hear the sound of impermanence. These changes, these small deaths, are our living links with death. They are death's pulses, death's heartbeat, prompting us to let go of all the things we cling to. — Sogyal Rinpoche

Man is the only one that knows nothing, that can learn nothing without being taught. He can neither speak nor walk nor eat, and in short he can do nothing at the prompting of nature only, but weep. — Pliny The Elder

I don't believe there are any powers, which in the larger sense, are unnatural or even supernatural. I think we just do not yet scientifically understand all of the powers inherent in the human consciousness, and the more attuned we are to the realm of spirit, the more our conscious mind is available to subconscious, spiritual prompting. — Marianne Williamson

It's too much show business and too much prompting, too much artificiality, and not really debates. They're rehearsed appearances. — George H. W. Bush

The buses drove to the Olympic stadium. Entering in a parade of nations and standing at attention, the athletes were treated to a thunderous show that culminated in the release of twenty thousand doves. As the birds circled in panicked confusion, cannons began firing, prompting the birds to relieve themselves over the athletes. With each report, the birds let fly. Louie stayed at attention, shaking with laughter. — Laura Hillenbrand

There are a lot of college writing textbooks that will include essays and short stories, and after reading the story or essay, there will be questions such as "Have YOU Had any experience with a pedophile in YOUR family?" or "When was the last time you saw YOUR mother drunk?" and they're just really good at prompting stories. You answer the question, and sometimes that can spring into a story. — David Sedaris

The combative instinct is a savage prompting by which one man's good is found in another's evil. — George Santayana

Standing now, apparently transfixed, by the pear tree, impressions poured in upon her of those two men, and to follow her thought was like following a voice which speaks too quickly to be taken down by one's pencil, and the voice was her own voice saying without prompting undeniable, everlasting, contradictory things, so that even the fissures and humps on the bark of the pear tree were irrevocably fixed there for eternity. — Virginia Woolf

Away with all ideals. Let each individual act spontaneously from the forever incalculable prompting of the creative wellhead within him. There is no universal law. — D.H. Lawrence

Like the quality of mercy, the prompting of compassion is not finite, and can be self-replenishing. — Christopher Hitchens

The beginning of a plot is the prompting of desire. — Christopher Lehmann-Haupt

I used my cravings for food as a prompting to pray. It was my way of tearing down the tower of impossibility before me and building something new. My tower of impossibility was food. Brick by brick, I imagined myself dismantling the food tower and using those same bricks to build a walkway of prayer, paving the way to victory. — Lysa TerKeurst

Nash says you bartend, right?"
My eyes open to his. He's staring down at me, so close I can see the vague line where black pupil stops and nearly-black iris begins. Those eyes are amazing!
I see his eyebrows rise, prompting me.
"Pardon?" I ask.
"Nothing. I don't even think it matters. If you're this adorably sexy all the time, no one will care how fast you get them their drinks. — M. Leighton

True humility is a Christian grace and one of the fruits of the Spirit, originating in a deep consciousness of sin past and present, and leading us to discover our nothingness in the view of God, our insufficiency for any thing that is good, and prompting us, as we feel our infirmities, to strive after higher and yet higher attainments. — James McCosh

God often gives us an inner conviction or prompting to confirm which way He wants us to go. This prompting comes from the Holy Spirit. — Billy Graham

Duke tossed them over the roof. Earl was about to ask Duke to sit in back when he did so without prompting. — A. Lee Martinez

It is no good hearing an inner voice or getting an inner prompting if you do not immediately act on that inner prompting. — David Spangler

Rather than telling you want not to be, think, wear, eat, say or do, your soul will be prompting you to reach for your greatest joy. — Catherine Carrigan

The more two people open to each other, the more this wide-openness also brings to the surface all the obstacles to it: their deepest, darkest wounds, their desperation and mistrust, and their rawest emotional trigger points. Just as the sun's warmth causes clouds to arise by prompting the earth to release its moisture, so love's pure openness activates the thick clouds of our emotional wounding, the tight places where we are shut down, where we live in fear and resist love. — John Welwood

The beauty and magnitude of a diva's voice resides, so the iconography suggests, in her deformity. Her voice is beautiful because she herself is not-and her ugliness is interpreted as a sign of moral and social deviance. Reading biographies of divas, I can't ignore the repeated references to physical flaws-for example, Benedetta Pisaroni's "features horribly disfigured by small-pox," prompting spectators to shut their eyes "so as to hear without being condemned to see." Audiences speculated that Maria Malibran was not anatomically a woman, but an androgyne or hermaphrodite-an aberrant physique to match her voice's magic power. — Wayne Koestenbaum

Hitler's historical hero had always been Frederick the Great. [Later], under Goebbels' prompting ... Napoleon emerged ... as his model ... Frederick the Great was a man who knew when to stop [and] Napoleon did not. — Ernst Hanfstaengl

The prompting that goes unresponded to may not be repeated. Writing down what we have been prompted with is vital. A special thought can be lost later in the day through the rough and tumble of life. God should not, and may not, choose to repeat the prompting if we assign what is given such a low priority as to put it aside. — Neal A. Maxwell

Some men
not all men
see always before them an ideal, a mental picture if you will, of what they ought to be, and are not. Whoso seeks to follow this ideal revealed to the mental vision, whoso seeks to attain to conformity with it, will find it enlarge itself, and remove from him. He that follows it will improve his own moral character, but the ideal will remain always above him and before him, prompting him to new exertions. — William Batchelder Greene

still the teachings of the philosophers are not the commandments of the gods, but the discoveries of men, who, at the prompting of their own speculative ability, made efforts to discover the hidden laws of nature, and the right and wrong in ethics, and in dialectic what was consequent according to the rules of logic, and what was inconsequent and erroneous. — Augustine Of Hippo

The athletes were treated to a thunderous show that culminated in the release of twenty thousand doves. As the birds circled in panicked confusion, cannons began firing, prompting the birds to relieve themselves over the athletes. With each report, the birds let fly. — Laura Hillenbrand

Corrupt fantasy points us, or forms us, in a consciousness that can lead to thinking that evil is good and good is evil. In the worst case, this may have long range effects, prompting the reader intuitively, subconsciously, to do evil while thinking they're doing good. — Michael O'Brien

Never, never, never postpone following a prompting. — Thomas S. Monson

There is always in the healthy mind an obscure prompting that religion teaches us rather to dig than to climb; that if we could once understand the common clay of earth we should understand everything. Similarly, we have the sentiment that if we could destroy custom at a blow and see the stars as a child sees them, we should need no other apocalypse. This is the great truth which has always lain at the back of baby-worship, and which will support it to the end. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

Words have a magical power. They can bring either the greatest happiness or deepest despair; they can transfer knowledge from teacher to student; words enable the orator to sway his audience and dictate its decisions. Words are capable of arousing the strongest emotions and prompting all men's actions. — Sigmund Freud

Humor implies a sure conception of the beautiful, the majestic and he true, by whose light it surveys and shape s their opposites. It is a humane influence, softening with mirth the ragged inequities of existence, prompting tolerant views of life, bridging over the space which separates the lofty from the lowly, the great from the humble. — Edwin Percy Whipple

If you are dissatisfied with the way the world works, it is because your heart is prompting you to change it. — Jason Russell

Suddenly he thought he saw a trait of soul-less habit in her dear coarse face, something mechanical and unmysterious in her friendly smile, something unworthy of him. His gesture froze in mid-air; the smile froze on his face. Was he still in love with her, did he really still desire her? No, he had been there too often. All too often he had seen this selfsame smile and smiled back without a prompting from his heart. What had still been all right yesterday was suddenly no longer possible today. — Hermann Hesse

There is no guarantee that life will be easy for anyone. We grow and learn more rapidly by facing and overcoming challenges. You are here to prove yourself, to develop, and to overcome. There will be constant challenges that cause you to think, to make proper judgments, and to act righteously. You will grow from them. However, there are some challenges you never need to encounter. They are those associated with serious transgression. As you continue to avoid such tragedy, your life will be simpler and happier. You will see others around you who don't make that choice, who do things that are wrong and evil and bring sadness. Thank your Father in Heaven that your pattern of life is different and that you have been helped to make choices guided by the Holy Ghost. That prompting will keep you on the right path. — Richard G. Scott

Free of all responsibility or restraint, in the sheer obliviousness of dreams, he had lived like a happy pagan; and now he must go back to the drear existence of a mediaeval monk, beneath the prompting of an obscure sense of duty. — H.P. Lovecraft

Starting out from the fact that the frustrated predominate among the early adherents of all mass movements and that they usually join of their own accord, it is assumed:
1) that frustration of itself, without any proselytizing prompting from the outside, can generate most of the peculiar characteristics of the true believer;
2) that an effective technique of conversion consists basically in the inculcation and fixation of proclivities and responses indigenous to the frustrated mind. — Eric Hoffer

Lie detectors sometimes work because people believe they work, deterring the wrong people from applying for jobs in the first place, or prompting admissions of guilt during interrogations. — Bill Dedman

I was so caught up in the rush of superficial things in my world that I missed hearing the cries for help in someone else's world. God had been prompting me to listen, really listen, to my husband, to stop and focus and give him just a few minutes. But I refused. I rushed past. And I acted like I was perfectly justified in doing so. — Lysa TerKeurst

Play is under attack in our nation's schools - and shrinking recess periods are only part of the problem. Homework is increasing. Cities are building new schools without playgrounds. Safety concerns are prompting bans of tag, soccer, and even running on the schoolyard. — Darell Hammond

They talk some more, Will prompting Peter into remembering their early childhood on the barge. How their parents always went that extra mile to make their infancy special, like the time they brought a freshly killed department store Santa Clause home for their midnight Christmas feast. — Matt Haig

Never delay a prompting. When you honor a prompting and then stand back a pace, you realize that the Lord gave you the prompting. It makes me feel good that the Lord even knows who I am and knows me well enough to know that if He has an errand to be run, and He prompts me to run the errand, the errand will get done. — Thomas S. Monson

It was 1538 and John Lambert had been outed as an Edian when, after hearing Frederic Clarence had written a pamphlet denouncing Edian magic, he turned into a dog and ate the papers, prompting Clarence to cry out, "That dog ate my scriptwork!" (277) — Cynthia Hand

I think of the chimp, the one with the talking hands.
In the course of the experiment, that chimp had a baby. Imagine how her trainers must have thrilled when the mother, without prompting, began to sign her newborn.
Baby, drink milk.
Baby, play ball.
And when the baby died, the mother stood over the body, her wrinkled hands moving with animal grace, forming again and again the words: Baby, come hug, Baby come hug, fluent now in the language of grief. — Amy Hempel

We must never ignore or pass by the prompting of the Spirit to render service to one another. — M. Russell Ballard

Patriotic feelings will surely swell, prompting proud proclamations of the wisdom, foresight, and sense of justice shared by the Framers and reflected in a written document now yellowed with age ... [F]or many Americans the bicentennial celebration will be little more than a blind pilgrimage to the shrine of the original document now stored in a vault in the National Archives. [Progressive] — Thurgood Marshall

I must suppose that reading wonderful writers may, inadvertently, teach an avid reader a great deal
not only about life and other matters, but about how to write. Therefore doubtless I have benefited from frequent immersions in the glowing genius of others. It would be nice to think so. (I do actually think so). But to improve my skills will never be the prompting force of my reading
that's just literary lust. — Tanith Lee

These glaring disparities, about how those with the most access within the movement set the agenda, contribute to the skewed media portrait, and overwhelmingly fail at funneling resources to those most marginalized. My awakening pushed me to be more vocal about these issues, prompting uncomfortable but necessary conversations about the movement privileging middle- and upper-class cis gay and lesbian rights over the daily access issues plaguing low-income queer and trans youth and LGBT people of color, communities that carry interlocking identities that are not mutually exclusive, that make them all the more vulnerable to poverty, homelessness, unemployment, HIV/AIDs, hyper-criminalization, violence, and so much more. — Janet Mock

If you have made covenants, keep them. If you haven't made them, make them. If you have made them and broken them, repent and repair them. It is never too late so long as the Master of the vineyard says there is time. Please listen to the prompting of the Holy Spirit telling you right now, this very moment, that you should accept the atoning gift of the Lord Jesus Christ and enjoy the fellowship of His labor. Don't delay. It's getting late. — Jeffrey R. Holland

You will never let go of the one thing that God keeps prompting you to fix. — Shannon L. Alder

Think of the wonders uncorked by wine! It opens secrets, gives heart to our hopes, pushes the cowardly into battle, lifts the load from anxious minds, and evokes talents. Thanks to the bottle's prompting no one is lost for words, no one who's cramped by poverty fails to find release. — Horace

I hope to God that the inner strength that will vindicate my deeds will in good time spring forth from my own people. I have done as I had to on the prompting of my inner voice. — Kurt Huber

Lord, use me today, use me for your glory, make me bold, stir me up, give me eyes to see the needs of those I work with, give me a heart sensitive to those who are hurting, give me a prompting of the Spirit to minister to those who are around me. — Craig Groeschel

It didn't take much prompting for Cariocas who were sick of living with violence to advocate violence as a solution. — Juliana Barbassa

Odalisque, prompting us to call him Dingolion and Dandelingo — Kate Christensen

When art as an expression starts to appear, without prompting, all over the suburbs and villages of this country, what we are saying is: we are confident enough to create our own living, our own entertainment, our own aesthetic. Such an aesthetic will not be donated to us from the corridors of a university; or from the Ministry of Culture, or by the French Cultural Centre. It will come from the individual creations of a thousand creative people — Binyavanga Wainaina

Seize the very first possible opportunity to act on every resolution you make, and on every emotional prompting you may experience in the direction of the habits you aspire to gain — William James

The Obama administration has issued numerous orders essentially suspending deportations, prompting a major spike in illegal crossings. — Aaron Klein