"Will power" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and chin, while his moustaches sprang out quite fiercely above his full-lipped, almost sensual mouth. He looked wiry and active, a man not to be lightly reckoned with in a trial of bodily strength and will power. ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... home. Though his way through these last milestones, during which I travelled with him, was chiefly through the triumphal archways he had raised for himself upon the foundations of his work, there were indications that their cornerstone was the will power of ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... "My fast continued thirty-nine and one-half days. My appetite came on me about 9 o'clock at night, and I thought I would wait until the next day; but two boiled eggs and some dry toast would not retire before my presence. I have never had such an assault upon my will power as that imagined egg and toast made on me. I was finally compelled to surrender. My tongue had been clearing up that day, and the next day I was hungry at noon. I have not missed a first-class appetite at noon since. My tongue has kept clear ...
— The No Breakfast Plan and the Fasting-Cure • Edward Hooker Dewey
... year had passed without mishap, and already the second was nearing its close. The school board congratulated itself. Had the faculty known that for most of his scholarship, poor as it often was, Van Blake was indebted to the sheer will power of Bob Carlton they might have felt less sanguine. Day after day Bob had patiently tutored his big chum in order that he might contrive to scrape through his lessons. It was Bob who did the work and Van ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett
... day a year ago when word had reached her of Dan's marriage to Birdie Smelts, a hopeless apathy had possessed her. Even in the first weeks after his departure, when Mac's impassioned letters were pouring in and she was exerting all her will power to make good her promise to his father, she was aware of a dull, benumbing anxiety over Dan. She had tried to get his address from Mrs. Purdy, from Slap Jack's, where he still kept some of his things, from the men he knew ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... transmits this highly organised or disordered nervous system to his descendants, and consequently when they arrive at a certain age they find their bodies invaded by a passion over which they have small, and sometimes no, control. It is distinctly a case of functional insanity with them. Their will power is weak because of undue stress, but it has not been perverted. Perversion may follow; but may also be avoided, and even the will sufficiently strengthened so that it may re-assume control and subject the passion to control. The influence ...
— A Plea for the Criminal • James Leslie Allan Kayll
... on to almost superhuman efforts by sheer desperation to thwart the fate we knew would be ours should we falter by the way, gradually our strength failed us, and although we tried to encourage each other to quicker progress, it took every vestige of our will power to drag our benumbed feet from step to step against the howling, ...
— The Trail of the Tramp • A-No. 1 (AKA Leon Ray Livingston)
... no longer suppose it to possess innate ideas, the baby has most surely innate powers, inclinations and curiosities, and is reaching out in every direction towards life. It is brimming with will power, ready to push hard into experience. The environment in which it is placed and the responses which the outer world makes to it—and these surroundings and responses in the long run are largely of our choosing and making—represent either ...
— The Life of the Spirit and the Life of To-day • Evelyn Underhill
... that the son of a drunkard actually inherits drunkenness fully developed. But a drunkard gives to his son weakened nerves and a diminished will power, which tend to make him a drunkard more easily than his father was made a drunkard ...
— Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers • Arthur Brisbane
... call. Emil Crawford, his face drawn with pain, had struggled up on one elbow. The old man was obviously fighting off complete collapse by sheer will power. ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... remembrances of past pleasures that poison the enjoyments within my reach; once I should have been satisfied with them, now it is too late. Oh, dear Eve, no one can think more hardly of me than I do myself; my condemnation is absolute and pitiless. The struggle in Paris demands steady effort; my will power is spasmodic, my brain works intermittently. The future is so appalling that I do not care to face it, and the present ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... heard of "will power," and of the strength of the moral character asserting itself, despite the most gigantic efforts on the part of the victim, and though she was not inclined to raise this petty instance to the dignity of such wonderful manifestations, it yet savored of mystery ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... of authority was in his voice again, as if he had called it back by sheer will power. He had stepped forward alone, and stood looking up at his guest, still framed in the sheltering trellis, and his blurred eyes cleared and grew keen as he looked, regarding him indifferently, like some refractory but mildly amusing animal. His guest's defiant eyes avoided his, and the ineffective, ...
— The Wishing Moon • Louise Elizabeth Dutton
... and then they looked very grave and shook their heads. She did not seem so ill. Most of their patients had had far more aggravated symptoms yet still they shook their heads as they looked at her, and murmured something about lake of vitality, a general giving way, a complete want of will power, etc. People looked at each other aghast. Was it possible that little Phebe Lane was really going to die? Nobody really believed it could be, excepting only Soeur Angelique. "Oh, my darling, my darling!" she cried out when she first heard ...
— Only an Incident • Grace Denio Litchfield
... ordinary pluck for a batsman to stand up to fast bowling and show good form after having been badly hit. For a time a great deal of determination, and the exercise of a considerable amount of will power, are necessary to conquer the natural inclination to shrink from a possible repetition of the injury; and those who watched the dogged manner in which Thurston continued to defend his wicket, being themselves practical cricketers, rewarded ...
— The Triple Alliance • Harold Avery
... Nobody seemed to be paying any attention. Pat tried it, and a funny affair he made of it. Mr. Farnham, who was only apparently busy, had to exert all his will power to keep back a smile. For Pat, with the fear of observers before his eyes, unrolled the web with a softness that was almost sneaking; he held up the length with a trembling hand and a reddening cheek; and, putting his head on one side, regarded his imaginary customer with a shamefaced ...
— The Widow O'Callaghan's Boys • Gulielma Zollinger
... considered that, the more worth while it seemed to bet on it; and as I had nothing to bet with except will power and personal convenience, I plunged with both and determined to stay awake as long as human endurance could ...
— Caves of Terror • Talbot Mundy
... growled with some of his former gruffness of manner. 'Can you imagine what a tremendous amount of determination and will power I required to ...
— Our Elizabeth - A Humour Novel • Florence A. Kilpatrick
... moral sense is perverted until he no longer seems to be able to tell the difference between right and wrong. He has little regard for the truth and if occasion demands it he will lie without appreciating the dishonorable part he is playing. In the end his will power is lost—even the effort to save himself is too feeble to succeed—he is a slave to the habit, ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol 2 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague
... one with his strict honor and integrity. Several years ago he became afflicted with most distressing troubles, which prevented the prosecution of his duties. He was languid, and yet restless, while at times a dizziness would come over him which seemed almost blinding. His will power was strong, and he determined not to give way to the mysterious influence which seemed undermining his life. But the pain and annoying symptoms were stronger than his will, and he kept growing gradually worse. About that time ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 4, January 26, 1884 - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... and the "something" would doubtless bear fruit; for this elderly spinster aunt, with a mania for psychical research, had brains as well as will power, and by hook or by crook she usually managed to accomplish her ends. The revelation was made soon after tea, when she sidled close up to him as they paced slowly along ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... with him very greatly as he has suffered physical pain to a greater degree than any other man whom I have known, and yet has insisted on attending diligently to his official duties. He must be a man of extraordinary will power, or he would never have been able to conquer his physical suffering to such an extent as to enable him to attend to his Senatorial duties, and at the same time to obtain the fund of information which he possesses, as he demonstrated over and ...
— Fifty Years of Public Service • Shelby M. Cullom |
