Agitation

“ It is easy to explain these facts in the language we have adopted. The agitation consists in an activity, more less complete, in inferior tendencies very much below those the subject should normally utilize. ”

“ Convulsive attacks, diverse fits of agitation, prove to us that before the fit there existed disproportion between the quantity and the tension of the psychological forces, and that the spending of forces during the fit re-establishes the equilibrium. ”

“ They add, “Agitation is destructive or at best negative—what is wanted is positive constructive work.”
Such honest critics mistake the function of agitation. A toothache is agitation. Is a toothache a good thing? ”

“ That she coloured and gave rather a startled movement did not surprise him after the agitation produced by the interview yesterday—a beneficent agitation, he thought, since it seemed to have made her turn to him again. ”

“ What is meant by the Latin word trepidatio? Not any thing peculiarly connected with panic; it belongs as much to the hurrying to and fro of a coming battle as of a coming flight; to a marriage festival as much as to a massacre; agitation is the nearest English word. This trepidation increases both audibly and visibly at every half mile, pretty much as one may suppose the roar of Niagara and the thrilling of the ground to grow upon the senses in the last ten miles of approach, with the wind in its favor, until at length it would absorb and extinguish all other sounds whatsoever. ”

“ But, as I have often pointed out to her, agitation is the natural attitude of every woman. It would seem superfluous to encourage or inculcate that, for surely wherever two or three petticoats are gathered together, there, as far as my experience goes, is agitation of necessity in the midst of them. ”

“ Conditions are such there that no outside agitation is necessary to make trouble.”
“But the agitators are there. They’re an element and you have ignored it. Mr. Banneker, do you consider that you are dealing fairly with this paper, in attempting to commit it to an inflammatory, pro-strike course?” ”

“ If the emotion is concentrated, the cerebral disturbance increases in violence as the muscular agitation diminishes. When we spend the excess of our agitation in external movements, in gestures, walking back and forth, tears, and lamentations, the cerebral agitation is correspondingly diminished. ”

“ Some whose agitation and timidity had, in the earlier part of it, rendered them objects of pity or contempt, afterwards rose, by some great internal effort, into positive distinction for the opposite qualities; while others, remarkable at first for calmness and courage, suddenly giving way, without any fresh cause of despair, seemed afterwards to cast their minds as they did their bodies, prostrate before the danger. ”

“ I really am not politician enough to talk of it as good or bad; one's natural instinct is against it; but it may be necessary. However, agitation is getting to be recognised as the legitimate instrument by which the masses make their desires known, and secure the accomplishment of them. ”

“ Sudden shocks of agitation swept through them, and then, by reason of an increased compression, the agonized cries increased, as if, in the almost human susceptibility of the horse, his sounds took on the piteous vocality of suffering men. ”

“ There is something sustaining in the very agitation that accompanies the first shocks of trouble, just as an acute pain is often a stimulus, and produces an excitement which is transient strength. It is in the slow, changed life that follows; in the time when sorrow has become stale, and has no longer an emotive intensity that counteracts its pain; in the time when day follows day in dull, unexpectant sameness, and trial is a dreary routine,—it is then that despair threatens; ”

“ To know how to distinguish the agitation arising from covetousness, from the agitation arising from principles, to fight the one and aid the other, in this lies the genius and the power of great revolutionary leaders. ”

“ But, after all, the main cause of progress is agitation, and though the agitation may be "eminently disagreeable to many, even friends, who are brought within its immediate action, it will be eminently beneficial in the end." ”

“ They use the weapons that Nature has given them of persuasion and agitation. "Agitation is an old word with a new meaning. Sir Robert Peel, the first Englishman who felt himself its tool, defined it to be 'marshalling the conscience of a nation to mould its laws.' The means are reason and argument —no appeal to arms. ”

“ They confuse the meaning of agitation and action. It is a terrible confusion, which arose in society principally since the Eighteenth Century. That century began to disturb the springs of our inward life. ”

“ Events are following fast one upon another. Things that three years ago would have been sensational or would have caused unusual agitation, today are accepted quietly and calmly, if not with indifference. ”

“ Svoboda desires to substitute terror for agitation, although it openly admits that "as soon as intensified and strenuous agitation is commenced among the masses its excitative function will he finished." ”

“ Whenever there has been an effort to spread it, there has been agitation and resistance. Now, I appeal to this audience (very few of whom are my political friends) , as national men, whether we have reason to expect that the agitation in regard to this subject will cease while the causes that tend to reproduce agitation are actively at work? ”

“ His nerves are affected by these differences and disappointments. His agitation increases. In the still night there is nothing to divert his thoughts. It becomes insupportable. He gives unconscious expression to his agitation. ”

“ It is a sign of life, and is itself the beginnings of political education. The second form of agitation is less reasonable and more dangerous, though perhaps less dangerous here than anywhere else in the world. ”

“ It is that in reality the agitation never exists alone, it is accompanied by another very important phenomenon which it dissimulates sometimes, I mean the depression characterized by the diminution or the disappearance of superior actions, appertaining to the highest level of our hierarchy. It is always observed that with these patients certain actions have disappeared, that certain acts executed formerly with rapidity and facility can no longer be accomplished. ”

“ The activity which is stamped upon industry, the arts and the sciences, political and social agitation, the fever of money-making, and the consuming life of cities are engendering in civilized nations a condition of cerebral agitation resembling intoxication, which must predispose to intellectual troubles. ”

“ If it is a big, exaggerated thought, the agitation produced is outwardly visible. If it is small, more subtle, less sensational, its physical effects are invisible, although, theoretically, reaching in ripples to the extremities of the body. ”

“ A signal illustration of explosiveness is furnished by laughter, which has both its original causes, and also its factitious or borrowed stimulants. This is an instance where the severity of the agitation provokes self-control, and where advancing years contract rather than enlarge the sphere. ”

“ This pressure may become unbearable, but the expression of the face is less characteristic than we are accustomed to see in suffering people. In oppression and fear there is not generally that effort of will which subdues the reflex movements in voluntary pain. Tears, agitation, spasms, terror, faintness, which appear in the terrible reality of nature, can only be studied in actual sufferers. I had therefore to leave my laboratory and continue my investigations in the hospitals. ”

“ That wouldn't be blood and fire and tears, or would be none of these things stupidly precipitated; it would simply have taken place by enjoyed communication and contact, enjoyed concussion or convulsion even—since pangs and agitations, the very agitations of perception itself, are of the highest privilege of the soul and there is always, thank goodness, a saving sharpness of play or complexity of consequence in the intelligence completely alive. ”

“ Will you go home and leave all in disorder and confusion—all unsettled—all open? The contentions and agitations of the past will be increased and augmented by the agitations resulting from our neglect to decide them. ”

“ Just an Act. And surely she is mistaken in thinking that an effect of extreme agitation is best conveyed, by very rapid quasi-cinematographic progression up and down the stage? But I saw no reason to complain of the bold bad butcher's taste in the matter of a subject for abduction. ”

“ When any Person has taken too acrid, too sharp, a Vomit, or a Purge, which operates with excessive Violence; whether this consists in the most vehement Efforts and Agitations, the Pains, Convulsions, or Swoonings, which are their frequent Consequences ”

“ let me feel, that, amid the fearful agitations of the world, there are pure hands, with healthful, even pulse, stretched out toward me, if I claim their grasp. ”

“ When the rattle of musketry is heard, the smoke of battle, and the wild plunging of the frightened horses, and the shouts and fierce onset of a maddened mass of human beings is felt, there is an excitement, a fever in the blood that strengthens the arm, and hardens the muscles—thoughts of self are forgotten. ”

“ The effect of anger upon the brain is to produce first a paralysis, and afterward, during reaction, a congestion of the vessels of that organ; for, if life continues, reactive congestion follows paralysis as certainly as day follows night. Thus, in men who give way to violent rage there comes on, during the acute period, what to them is merely a faintness, which, after a time of apparent recovery, is followed by a slight confusion, a giddiness, a weight in the head, a sense of oppression, and a return to equilibrium. They are happy who, continuing their course, suffer no more severely. ”

“ The maniacal state may pass through all degrees, from simple excitement to fury. Externally, it shows itself, in its milder form, by continual goings and comings, by an incessant craving for motion, a possibility of performing active exercise without feeling fatigue; in the intense form, we have the symptoms of rage already described: congestion of the vaso-motor system, redness of the face, violent palpitations of the heart, foaming at the mouth, furious and destructive impulses, etc. ”

“ From the evidence just given it appears that any high degree of excitement in the central nervous system, whether felt as anger, terror, pain, anxiety, joy, grief or deep disgust, is likely to break over the threshold of the sympathetic division and disturb the functions of all the organs which that division innervates. ”

“ Violent anger excites powerfully the caloric in the human system, boils the blood, and in this state throws it suddenly upon the brain. The powerful shock propels it instantly to the exterior surface, and torrent-like contracts it back again in redoubled fury upon the brain, and leaves the countenance pale and ghastly. ”

“ Some were trying by the madness of intoxication to stimulate their worn-out frames to fresh exertion—or, when totally exhausted, to stupefy the agonies of the slow but certain death that cold and hunger must inevitably produce before another sun dawned. ”

“ The nerve-pangs of irritability and impatience, of well-nigh uncontrollable rebellion and revolt—all concealed with difficulty, but not thereby conquered—seared her spirit far more deeply than her left forefinger was pricked and torn by the needle driven at unaccustomed speed. ”

“ How strange it is that a simple feeling of discomfort, impeded or heightened circulation, perhaps the irritation of a nervous thread, a slight congestion, a small disturbance in the imperfect and delicate functions of our living machinery, can turn the most lighthearted of men into a melancholy one, and make a coward of the bravest! ”

“ On its first approach, persons subject to the invasion of this turbulent passion, should, as much as possible, divert their attention from the cause, by an application to some other object. A propensity to anger is increased by want of sleep, stimulant food, spices, wines, and such things as have a tendency to inflame the blood. ”

“ I used the most violent exercise, and tried every means I could think of to subdue the powerful emotions of mixed hope and fear, with which I was agitated, and which I found more oppressive than even the certainty of misery. ”

“ Still, little by little, it is brought under, and in the end the nasty little irritability is killed just like a troublesome nerve; and, by and by, what once provoked a fierce rage becomes a subject for humorous reflection. Let no one fear we kill the nerve for the great Battle of Life; this we but strengthen and make constant. ”

“ If the irritation acting upon the one is stronger than the force of will which should excite the other to activity, the reflex motion will take place in spite of what is called 'best intentions,' whether the occasion be a start of alarm, a desire to yawn, laugh, or weep at unfitting times, a scream, an angry gesture, or even a blow bestowed upon the object whence proceeds the incitement to wrath. ”

“ A heavy, slow tread could be heard now and then, and now and then groans, and now and then words of protest and anger, bitter reproach, tremulous entreaty, fierce invective, and passionate lamentation. ”

“ We are deadened by the strain—a deadly tension that scrapes along one's spine like a gapped knife. Our legs refuse to move, our hands tremble, our bodies are a thin skin stretched painfully over repressed madness, over an almost irresistible, bursting roar. ”

“ We become angry if some one strikes our bodies, or attacks our beliefs, or the beliefs of our dear friends, particularly of our families. The typical responses connected with anger are such as faster heart-beat, irregular breathing, congestion of the blood in the face and head, tightening of the voluntary muscles, particularly a setting of the teeth and a clinching of the fists. ”