Movement

“ But from the mobility of the movement we turn away as much as we can; what interests us is, as we said above, the unmovable plan of the movement rather than the movement itself. Is it a simple movement? We ask ourselves where it is going. It is by its direction, that is to say, by the position of its provisional end, that we represent it at every moment. ”

“ Imagine this vast, vast throng of boys of a hundred races, this immense movement of which you form a part, and remember, if this movement were to cease, humanity would fall back into barbarism; this movement is the progress, the hope, the glory of the world. ”

“ Docile echoes of the eternal voice, pliant organs of the infinite will, such workers are going along with the essential movement of the world; and this is their strength, and their happy and divine fortune. ”

“ Movement—progress, is a law of the physical world; there, rest and decay are correlative terms. The stars cannot stand still and keep their places; a planet by going back would be hurled into destruction, and even the plant of the earth that ceases to grow, straightway withers and dies. ”

“ The importance and power of a movement, therefore, are by no means proportionate to the importance of the personalities in whom it takes shape, and who give the first impulse to its becoming an open force. ”

“ It is not therefore the thought of the movement which produced movement in itself, but the movement in itself which produced the thought, so that the thought thinks itself as movement, and as thought. ”

“ I merely adumbrate the shifting goal, as it may have presented itself to the minds of the men engaged in the movement, that you may know at the outset, in vision, those far-off heights, which they, or some of them, essayed not only themselves to climb, but to make all mankind also to climb. ”

“ Its perpetual multitude, its incessant movement, its variety of occupations, sights and sounds, the echo of the whole vast and sleepless machinery of national existence, have been a thousand times the subject of description, and always of wonder. ”

“ From such slight and trivial beginning came the great movement—great because of the number which it comprised and of the sensation which attended its progress—that for more than forty years has alternately surprised, puzzled, disgusted and amused the world. ”

“ So goes this criss-cross multitudinous moving as far as thought can reach: and beyond that the moving goes. All moves. All moves uncomprehendingly, and to the sound of laughter. For all moves in consonance with a higher power that understands the meaning of the movement. ”

“ Movement, rapid movement of some kind, a ride, the hasty survey of a shelf of books, best of all a conversation like this morning's with a visitor for the first time,—amid the felicitous chances of that, at some random turn by the way, he would become aware of shaping purpose: the beam of light or heat would strike down, to illuminate, to fuse and organise the coldly accumulated matter, of reason, of experience. ”

“ Where the movement is a popular one, stirring the heart and mind of a people to its depths, there these new words will for the most part spring out of their bosom, a free spontaneous birth, seldom or never capable of being referred to one man more than another, because in a manner they belong to all. ”

“ A grand movement on the part of mankind, in any direction, or for any purpose, moral or political, is an interesting fact, fit and proper to be studied. It is such, not only for those who eagerly participate in it, but also for those who stand aloof from it—even for those by whom it is opposed. ”

“ This movement is the path of liberation for the spiritual substance, the deed by which the absolute final aim of the world is realised in it, and the merely implicit mind achieves consciousness and self-consciousness. ”

“ More or less fantastic caricatures of the aims and methods of a struggling movement are generated by an unconscious process of invention, fathered upon the movement, and then knocked down with solemn pomposity. ”

“ Thus, this movement spreads in a mighty flood through humanity, and seizes with a particular power the classes which are struggling upward, and which meet science and culture with a faith yet undisturbed. ”

“ And in these days how terribly we want to believe this, that "some particle may become the center of the movement," that some new hope, some free and novel expression of human ideas, may compel "the whole system to gyrate round it." ”

“ Now we are led along in a general movement, the purpose of which we naturally understand nothing; we have only to obey and keep our eyes open. Though full of spirit, we are quite bewildered and dumbfounded. ”

“ They may be discrete or concrete, but they are two—ideas, movement,—cause, result—force, effect. And progressive humanity marches upon its future with ideas for its centre, movement its right and left wings. ”

“ The expansive, reconciling movement operates in him most strongly also, and, where of the right kind, this expansive movement helps, even more than the restrictive one, to purify, humble, and deepen his heart and soul. ”

“ Using sweeping terms and ignoring exceptions, we might say that every possible feeling produces a movement, and that every movement is a movement of the entire organism, and of each and all its parts. ”

“ The past decade has witnessed a movement, just now taking aggressive shape, which is unique—the interest in outdoors, nature study, farming, summer homes, sport, and what is termed the simple life. It is a movement filled with the greatest promise of any among the host now claiming attention, and bids fair to soothe the tired nerves and over-stimulated minds of a frantically industrial age. ”

“ In our actions, which are systematized movements, what we fix our mind on is the end or meaning of the movement, its design as a whole—in a word, the immobile plan of its execution. That which really moves in action interests us only so far as the whole can be advanced, retarded, or stopped by any incident that may happen on the way. ”

“ Movement is necessary, while the logic is unapparent,—all the more profound and edifying as it appeals to and speaks from the deeper instincts, and so makes claims upon the reader's mind. That is good which stands strong in its own strength, detached from local relations. ”

“ Every sensation of movement which nature sends through us is a summons to be answered by an action, not only self-culture, not example, not passive good-will toward others, but by the intention an object of activity toward the world and humanity. ”

“ To the outside world little is known of the beginnings and endings of social movements, which, taken separately, perhaps appear of small consequence, but which in the aggregate count for a great deal in what is popularly known as the forward movement. ”

“ It is only in this way that we shall acquire the means of judging whether the movement we have witnessed is a mere eddy of fashion, or truly one with the irreversible current of intellectual progress, and, like it, safe from retrogressive reaction. ”

“ Dost thou not understand that there are two distinct forces in us, that of the soul and that of the body—that is, a movement and a regulator? ”

“ Therefore, in every organic movement we may perceive the activity of the internal motive forces which are peculiar to life, and the influences of the ground to which the life is attached. In the movements of peoples, the internal forces are the organic powers of motion common to all creatures, and the spiritual impulses of the intellect and will of man. ”

“ In the never idle workshop of nature,
In the eternal movement,
Ye shall find yourselves again! ”

“ With regard to its term, movement is divided into two kinds—that is, movement to a place, motus ad ubi, and movement towards a certain degree of perfection or intensity of power, motus virtutis. [160] The first is called local movement, of which we will speak presently. The second is subdivided into intension, remission, and alteration. Intension and remission are the acquisition or loss of some degree of perfection or of intensity with regard to power and qualities; alteration is the passage from one kind of quality or property to another. ”

“ I was continually haunted by the idea of individual action, movement or initiative, and I believe it refers to that state when life divorced from its old interior unity with the source of life, and, confined in a form begins in its imagination of itself to be an ego, is in a state of outgoing, acts and looks outward, touches and tastes ”

“ It is rather an indication which shows how healthy, and deeply implanted in the substance of human life, are the roots of this movement; and it places it in a line with all those vast controlling movements which have in the course of the ages reorganised human life. ”

“ First of all, we shall do well to distinguish the terms ‘movement’ and ‘action.’ Movement is, without question, the wider term. Action, although it is very loosely used in ordinary speech, so that we speak of the action of a horse or a sewing-machine, is the word that we naturally employ in referring to human conduct. ”

“ But by whatever name the movement may be called, the root of the movement is found in Naturalism, and by that I mean the denial of any entrance of the creative power of God, as sharply distinguished from his works in nature, at the beginnings of Christianity. ”

“ The movement, so far as it is sincere, appears to be a reflex in art of the feeling which is apt to possess members of a civilized community occasionally—the feeling which urges a man to break [pg 234] away from the restraints and formalities, as well as the comforts and luxuries of modern life, and seek a return to nature or the bed-rock of existence in the backwoods, or some primitive country, where a simple life is possible. ”

“ Movement is change, and that which is changeable works and operates ever differently, because the conception and affection follow the reason and condition of the subject; and he who sees other and other different and differently must [Pg 108] necessarily be blind as regards that beauty which is one and alone and is the same unity and entity. ”

“ But the conception of "that which moves," the experience of important and persistent qualitative differentiae, and the need of assuming ends and purposes served by the movement, are troublesome obstacles in the way of giving such a completeness to this theory of the Being of the World. ”

“ The exercise, manifestation, expression of this consciousness through a freedom secured in the way described is necessary to its real existence, just as language of some sort is necessary to the real existence of thought, and bodily movement to that of the soul. ”

“ It is movement that excites us most; still-life is rendered interesting by reference to movement. We are aroused and engrossed by all moving things; our attention is turned away from objects at rest to contemplate movements; and we imbibe with great rapidity the impressions of moving objects.
This brief survey of the sphere of individuality and of the various attractions presented by individuals is preparatory to the consideration of the most arduous part of knowledge—the knowledge of generals or generality. ”

“ I have only one question more to ask you. You have defined the attitude and function of your movement with regard to your own people. Could you in the same way characterise your methods of action as a whole? ”

“ Yet these movements are in many ways in conflict with one another, and they naturally tend to bring one another to a uniformity—that is, into a state in which one movement is as little obstructive to the other as possible. ”

“ Every step and every movement of the multitude, even in what are termed enlightened ages, are made with equal blindness to the future; and nations stumble upon establishments, which are indeed the result of human action, but not the execution of any human design. ”

“ But I have an opportunity to serve thousands--maybe hundreds of thousands of human beings. I can set in motion a movement which may have a more lasting effect upon my country than any victory ever gained by it on a field of battle ”

“ In this movement some of the ultimate determinants of human destiny are emerging, yet the play of these profound forces is inconstant and erratic because at present they are almost as enigmatical to the men who trust as to those who challenge them. This movement combines with elements of promise all the elements of danger to which we referred above. ”

“ The air is full of Social Movements, of Economic change, the Woman Movement, Rational Dress, The Reunion of Christendom, Socialism, Individualism—all the great and moving Questions of the Hour! Surely, we who follow the Great Reformer ... ”

“ Is the bare idea of a movement's sensible effects its sufficient motor-cue, or must there be an additional mental antecedent, in the shape of a fiat, decision, consent, volitional mandate, or{423} other synonymous phenomenon of consciousness, before the movement can follow? ”