Quotes & Sayings About Stimulants

What is it in absinthe that makes it a separate cult? The effects of its abuse are totally distinct from those of other stimulants. Even in ruin and in degradation it remains a thing apart: its victims wear a ghastly aureole all their own, and in their peculiar hell yet gloat with a sinister perversion of pride that they are not as other men. — Aleister Crowley

In many college classes, laptops depict split screens - notes from a class, and then a range of parallel stimulants: NBA playoff statistics on ESPN, a flight home on Expedia, a new flirtation on Facebook. — Samantha Power

Agatha Clay: "I've never had coffee. Lilith said a young lady shouldn't drink stimulants."
Zeetha: "Drink your coffee like a warrior."
Agatha Clay: "...Yes, Zeetha. — Phil Foglio

For anyone who wants to understand the art of storytelling, this film [The Hunt for Red October] should suffice; one wonders why universities persist in teaching narrative principles on the basis of Propp, Greimas or other such punishing curricula, instead of investing in a projection room. Premise, plot, protagonists, adventures, quest, heroes and other stimulants: all you need is Sean Connery in the uniform of a Russian submarine officer and a few well-placed aircraft carriers. — Muriel Barbery

We can also take personal initiative to reduce the depressive, isolating effects of a materialist mindset by avoiding its stimulants -- most obviously, advertising. One method: "Watch less TV. — Anonymous

Drinking and other forms of body-wrecking pleasures are signs of weakness rather than manliness. It takes a better man to live a clean life - free from the stimulants, depressants, and drugs - than to be artificially [stimulated]. — Billy Graham

It is significant that many of these experiences are reported to us from periods of war and distress: that the stronger the forces of destruction appeared, the more intense grew the spiritual vision which opposed them. We learn from these records that the mystical consciousness has the power of lifting those who possess it to a plane of reality which no struggle, no cruelty, can disturb: of conferring a certitude which no catastrophe can wreck. Yet it does not wrap its initiates in a selfish and otherworldly calm, isolate them from the pain and effort of the common life. Rather, it gives them renewed vitality; administering to the human spirit not--as some suppose--a soothing draught, but the most powerful of stimulants. — Evelyn Underhill

The human mind is capable of excitement without the application of gross and violent stimulants; and he must have a very faint perception of its beauty and dignity who does not know this ... — William Wordsworth

Seen at Liberty University: I hope the Rapture happens before my student loans are due. — Kevin Roose

Formulae are the anaesthetics of thought, not its stimulants and to make any one think is far better worth while than cramming him with ill-considered, and therefore indigestible, learning. — Percival Lowell

By creating an artificial environment, we're not stimulating our immune system enough. Germs are immune-stimulants. They challenge you to be prepared. — Deepak Chopra

Enthusiasms, like stimulants, are often affected by people with small mental ballast. — Minna Antrim

All that the world needs most today, is combined in the most deductive manner in his art; the three great stimulants of exhausted people: brutality, artificiality, and innocence (idiocy). — Friedrich Nietzsche

I can get you some stimulants if you'd like, but there's no coffee." "Right," Holden said. "No coffee. This is a terrible, terrible planet. Show me how to make everyone better. — James S.A. Corey

If a man cannot do brain work without stimulants of any kind, he had better turn to hand work it is an indication on Nature's part that she did not mean him to be a head worker. — Thomas Huxley

The most delicate beauty in the mind of women is, and ever must be, an independence of artificial stimulants for content. It is not so with men. The links that bind men to capitals belong to the golden chain of civilization,
the chain which fastens all our destinies to the throne of Jove. And hence the larger proportion of men in whom genius is pre-eminent have preferred to live in cities, though some of them have bequeathed to us the loveliest pictures of the rural scenes in which they declined to dwell. — Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

The techno-political thriller and the romance novel serve as antidotes to the imagination rather than stimulants to it. For this reason they make for ideal reading in airports and airplanes. They effectively shut down the imagination by doing all its work for it. They leave the spirit or the soul - and ambiguity, for that matter - out of the equation. By shutting down the imagination, genre novels perform a useful service to the anxious air traveler by reducing his or her ability to speculate. For the most part, people on airplanes, and here I include myself, would rather not use their speculative imaginations at all; one consequence of this situation is that great poetry is virtually unreadable during turbulence, when the snack cart has been put away and the seat belts fastened. Enough anxiety is associated with air travel without Rainer Maria Rilke's Sonnets to Orpheus making it worse. — Charles Baxter

The will's operation is quite distinct from the will's feeling: By its operation, which is love, the will is united with God and terminates in him, and not by the feeling and gratification of its appetite that remains in the soul and goes no further. The feelings only serve as stimulants to love, if the will desires to pass beyond them; and they serve for no more. Thus the delightful feelings do not of themselves lead the soul to God, but rather cause it to become attached to delightful feelings. But the operation of the will, which is the love of God, concentrates the affection, joy, plea sure, satisfaction, and love of the soul only on God, leaving aside all things and loving him above them all. — San Juan De La Cruz

Why did you put spaghetti sauce into your cousin's drink?"
"Because I like it that way," said Sarah, taking the glass. "You have your chemical stimulants and I have mine, monkey. — Seanan McGuire

All wars are boyish, and are fought by boys, The champions and enthusiasts of the state: Turbid ardors and vain joys Not barrenly abate
Stimulants to the power mature, Preparatives of fate. — Herman Melville

We call for the three great stimulants of the exhausted ones, artifice, brutality, and innocence. — Joni Mitchell

Today alcohol and tobacco are available, and people spend considerably more on these very unsatisfactory euphorics, pseudo-stimulants and sedatives than they are ready to spend on the education of their children. — Aldous Huxley

But they turned out to be prescriptions for medicines, and not for the common cold: opium, lavender oil, belladonna, orange rind, chloral hydrate, strychnine, potassium bromide. Such sedatives and stimulants were common remedies at that time for epilepsy. — Catherine Bailey

For 50 years bike racers have been taking stimulants. Obviously we can do without them in a race, but then we will pedal 15 miles an hour (instead of 25). Since we are constantly asked to go faster and to make even greater efforts, we are obliged to take stimulants — Jacques Anquetil

Yet Poe was a drunkard, and Coleridge an addict, and Byron a rake, and Verlaine a degenerate. You have to separate the man from the thing. The genius has to pay a ransom for his genius in the instability of his temperament. A great medium is even more sensitive than a genius. Many are beautiful in their lives. Some are not. The excuse for them is great. They practise a most exhausting profession and stimulants are needed. Then they lose control. But their physical mediumship carries on all the same. — Arthur Conan Doyle

The truth of the matter is, that most English people don't know how to make tea anymore either, and most people drink cheap instant coffee instead, which is a pity, and gives Americans the impression that the English are just generally clueless about hot stimulants. — Douglas Adams

The fact that he was still smiling was either a testament to his training or an argument in favor of stimulants. — Mira Grant

I made my decision as an informed adult - so deliberately informed that I ended up taking a whole course in pharmacology at Harvard, where I wrote my term paper on the neural mechanisms of stimulants and their impact on cognition and behavior (and, incidentally, it's so boring you would need stimulants to read it). — Todd Rose

Beautiful things grow to a certain height and then they fail and fade off, breathing out memories as they decay. And just as any period decays in our minds, the things of that period should decay too, and in that way they're preserved for a while in the few hearts like mine that react to them. Trying to preserve a century by keeping its relics up to date is like keeping a dying man alive by stimulants. — F Scott Fitzgerald

My mind," he said, "rebels at stagnation. Give me problems, give me work, give me the most abstruse cryptogram or the most intricate analysis, and I am in my own proper atmosphere. I can dispense then with artificial stimulants. But I abhor the dull routine of existence. I crave for mental exaltation. That is why I have chosen my own particular profession, or rather created it, for I am the only one in the world. — Arthur Conan Doyle

The happiest people I know are separated followers of Jesus Christ.
They are not dependent on artificial stimulants. They do not resort to sick, dirty jokes. They do not abuse their bodies to relax their minds. — Billy Graham

Inevitably, the flood of literary pornography loosed on us is dulling our reactions of surprise or shock. Its writers are forced to raise the ante, to provide stronger and stronger stimulants. Or try to provide them, since both the manner, the naming of parts and the few inexpressive four-letter words, and the matter, are narrowly limited. — Storm Jameson

You'd have to be an imbecile or hypocrite to imagine that a professional cyclist who rides 235 days a year can hold himself together without stimulants. — Jacques Anquetil

In some socialist states well-performed work is rewarded with moral stimulants instead of material ones. However, the moral stimulants cannot be explained by materialistic philosophy. It is the same case with the appeals for humanism, justice, equality, freedom, human rights, and so forth, which are all of religious origin. Certainly, everybody has the right to live as he thinks best, including the right not to be consistent with his own pattern. Still, to understand the world correctly, it is important to know the true origin of meaning and of the ideas ruling the world. — Alija Izetbegovic

I myself eschew all stimulants. I also practically abstain from meat. — Nikola Tesla

I like to write early in the morning, like, 5 a.m. If I'm really on my game, I don't have any coffee or stimulants. I'm kind of in a dream state. — Travis Morrison

The more Wayne inhabited Edison, the more he wondered how a man cultivates a stubborn streak so pronounced that it transforms a daily barrage of failures into stimulants. — Jim Lynch

Burnout is nature's way of telling you, you've been going through the motions your soul has departed; you're a zombie, a member of the walking dead, a sleepwalker. False optimism is like administrating stimulants to an exhausted nervous system. — Sam Keen

Hermione. "I confiscated that too. None of these things actually works you know - " "Dragon claw does work!" said Ron. "It's supposed to be incredible, really gives your brain a boost, you come over all cunning for a few hours - Hermione, let me have a pinch, go on, it can't hurt - " "This stuff can," said Hermione grimly. "I've had a look at it, and it's actually dried doxy droppings." This information took the edge off Harry and Ron's desire for brain stimulants. They received their examination schedules and details of the procedure for O.W.L.s during their next — J.K. Rowling

Whatever I do, I do with the greatest love that I have in me. Try this, and you will see that you do not become fatigued at all. Love is one of the greatest stimulants to the will. Under the influence of love the will can do almost anything. — Paramahansa Yogananda

IT is an eternal phenomenon: the insatiate will can always, by means of an illusion spread over things, detain its creatures in life and compel them to live on. One is chained by the Socratic love of knowledge and the delusion of being able thereby to heal the eternal wound of existence; another is ensnared by art's seductive veil of beauty fluttering before his eyes; still another by the metaphysical comfort that beneath the flux of phenomena eternal life flows on indestructibly: to say nothing of the more ordinary and almost more powerful illusions which the will has always at hand. These three planes of illusion are on the whole designed only for the more nobly formed natures, who in general feel profoundly the weight and burden of existence, and must be deluded by exquisite stimulants into forgetfulness of their sorrow. — Friedrich Nietzsche

The Japanese, if I understand them, are masters of the unsaid and the unstated, of subtlety and ambiguity, all of which constitute powerful stimulants to the imagination. — Semir Zeki

There's an entire generation of male strength and endurance athletes, even recreational lifters, who have never gotten off the ephedrine-caffeine-aspirin stack. The process of getting off stimulants is really horrible. — Timothy Ferriss

[T]ea, that uniquely English meal, that unnecessary collation at which no stimulants
neither alcohol nor meat
are served, that comforting repast of which to partake is as good as second childhood. — Angela Carter

Nearly all the Escapists in the long past have managed their own budget and their social relations so unsuccessfully that I wouldn't want them for my landlords, or my bankers, or my neighbors. They were valuable, like powerful stimulants, only when they were left out of the social and industrial routine. — Willa Cather

In just the last issue of Science Today there had been an article on some new psychotropic agents of the group of so-called benignimizers (the N,N-dimethylpeptocryptomides), which induced states of undirected joy and beatitude. Yes, yes! I could practically see that article now. Hedonidil, Euphoril, Inebrium, Felicitine, Empathan, Ecstasine, Halcyonal and a whole spate of derivatives. Though by replacing an amino group with a hydroxyl, you obtained instead Furiol, Antagonil, Rabiditine, Sadistizine, Dementium, Flagellan, Juggernol and many other polyparanoidal stimulants of the group of so-called phrensobarbs (for these prompted the most vicious behavior, the lashing out at objects animate as well as inanimate - and especially powerful here were the cannibal-cannabinols and manicomimetics). — Stanislaw Lem

There can be no doubt that the young of today have to be protected against certain poisonous effects inherent in present-day civilization. Five social diseases surround them, even in early childhood. There is the decline in fitness due to modern methods of locomotion; the decline in initiative due to the widespread disease of spectatoritis; the decline in care and skill due to the weakened tradition of craftsmanship; the decline in self-discipline due to the ever-present availability of tranquilizers and stimulants, and the decline in compassion, which William Temple called spiritual death. — Kurt Hahn

Love is of all stimulants the most powerful. It sharpens the wits like danger, and the memory like hatred; it spurs the will like ambition; it intoxicates like wine. — Amelia B. Edwards

Coffee was the substance that kept us going. Our surgeons had offered us something stronger, but we were all concerned about our performance deteriorating when the stimulants wore off. — Gene Kranz

That the American, by temperament, worked to excess, was true; work and whiskey were his stimulants; work was a form of vice; but he never cared much for money or power after he earned them. — Henry Adams

I note the derogatory rumors concerning the use of alcoholic stimulants and lavish living. It is the penalty of greatness. — W.C. Fields

We all know how it went when Europe changed from a culture addicted to depressants to one high on stimulants [...] Within two hundred years of Europe's first cup, famine and the plague were historical footnotes. Governments became more democratic, slavery vanished, and the standards of living and literacy went through the roof. War became less frequent and more horrible. — Stewart Lee Allen

The chemistry of dissatisfaction is as the chemistry of some marvelously potent tar. In it are the building stones of explosives, stimulants, poisons, opiates, perfumes and stenches. — Eric Hoffer

I have absolutely no pleasure in the stimulants in which I sometimes so madly indulge. It has not been in the pursuit of pleasure that I have periled life and reputation and reason. It has been the desperate attempt to escape from torturing memories, from a sense of insupportable loneliness and a dread of some strange impending doom. — Edgar Allan Poe

Scenery can be a violent stimulant. — Margaret Drabble

I came across Nell like you would a Robert Mapplethorpe at a street art fair, gobsmacked that something so valuable would be lumped in with a bunch of other crap like that. She'd been slumped against the bathroom wall in Butterfields, a dorm we later took to calling Butterfingers, for the lacrosse team residents who manhandled girls made Gumby-legged by Popov vodka. Even with her mouth hanging open, her tongue dry and pebbled white from all the medically sanctioned stimulants, there was no question that she had a movie star face. "Hey," I said, my — Jessica Knoll

All good things are powerful stimulants to life, even a good book written against life. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Light itself was your first love: you paint only as a means of telling about light... Ink and catgut and paint were necessary down there, but they are also dangerous stimulants. Every poet and musician and artist, but for Grace, is drawn away from love of the thing he tells, to love of the telling till, down in Deep Hell, they cannot be interested in God at all but only what they say about Him. — C.S. Lewis

I ordered another. If this was going to be a fish-story, I needed stimulants.
"On the liner going to New York I met a girl." Biffy made a sort of curious gulping noise not unlike a bulldog trying to swallow half a cutlet in a hurry so as to be ready for the other half. "Bertie, old man, I can't describe her. I simply can't describe her."
This was all to the good. — P.G. Wodehouse

Remember, never give up on love. It is easier to give up in search of a better prize, because the brain always keeps craving for new stimulants, but this way you only keep on searching, never to find peace in love. Let me tell you a story. There was a student who asked his teacher, what is love. The teacher said go into the field and bring me the most beautiful flower. The student returned with no flower at hand and
said, I found the most beautiful flower in the field but I didn't pick it up for I might find a better one, but when I returned to the place, it was gone.
We always look for the best in life. When we finally see it, we take it for granted and after some time start expecting a better one, not knowing that it's the best. Seek for your love, and once you have it never ever give up on it, no matter the situations. — Abhijit Naskar

Every desire bears its death in its very gratification. Curiosity languishes under repeated stimulants, and novelties cease to excite and surprise, until at length we cannot wonder even at a miracle. — Washington Irving

Energy drinks and alcohol are a dangerous match. Since energy drinks are stimulants and alcohol is a depressant, mixing the two can give the illusion that you're not impaired. — Cary McNeal

We need to stop thinking about infrastructure as an economic stimulant and start thinking about it as a strategy. Economic stimulants produce Bridges to Nowhere. Strategic investment in infrastructure produces a foundation for long-term growth. — Roger McNamee

Take care with manufactured chemicals, certainly. Your safety and long term health are more important than anything. Yet don't forget that if you grow even a dozen different plants, you are surrounded by chemistry. Inside their cells even the most ordinary plants creates potent fungicides, insecticides, irritants, balms, hallucinogens, sedatives, nerve toxins, cell repair stimulants, lures, repellents ... you name it. Treat all plants with respect! — Janet Macunovich

There are only two stimulants to ones best efforts: the fear of punishment, and the hope of reward. — John Moulder Wilson

And so, he gently chided Apostle John A. Widtsoe, whose wife advocated such a rigid interpretation of the Word of Wisdom as to proscribe chocolate because of the stimulants it contained, saying, "John, do you want to take all the joy out of life?"85 But he didn't stop there. At a reception McKay attended, the hostess served rum cake. "All the guests hesitated, watching to see what McKay would do. He smacked his lips and began to eat." When one guest expostulated, "'But President McKay, don't you know that is rum cake?' McKay smiled and reminded the guest that the Word of Wisdom forbade drinking alcohol, not eating — Gregory A. Prince

Stillness empowers. Being able to detach from all external stimulants - social media, social engagements, TV, alcohol, food, etc. - and face our own silence is an enormous luxury that should not be taken for granted. The most rewarding moments in my life have stemmed from such stillness. — Romany Malco

It was more that his career was going down again and he was tired of the songs. He was tired of the routine. And there was a point where he just kind of gave up. He couldn't face being 40. And he resorted to stimulants. There's a dark side there, a really dark side. — Priscilla Presley

Undervaluations caused by neglect or prejudice may persist for an inconveniently long time, and the same applies to inflated prices caused by over-enthusiasm or artificial stimulants. — Benjamin Graham