Aeschylus
Playwright
"Whoever is just willingly and without compulsion will not lack happiness; he will never be utterly destroyed."
Compulsion quotes
Compulsion
48 quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
Plato
Philosopher
"Train children not by compulsion but as if they were playing."
Albert Einstein
Physicist
"Everybody acts not only under external compulsion but also in accordance with inner necessity."
Joan Didion
Author, Essayist
"any compulsion tries to justify itself."
B.K.S. Iyengar
Yoga Teacher
"If we become aware of its limitations and compulsions, we can transcend them."
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside compulsion — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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Compulsion quotes (page 1 of 3)
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"What is politics, after all, but the compulsion to preside over property and make other peoples' decisions for them?"
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"I wrote because I had to. I couldn't stop. There wasn't anything else I could do. If no one ever bought anything, anything I ever did, I'd still be writing. It's beyond a compulsion."
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"Compulsion in religion is distinguished peculiarly from compulsion in every other thing. ...I cannot be saved by a worship I disbelieve and abhor."
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"I'm not sure I understand the compulsion to label things."
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"Everything that you do under compulsion goes to build up attachment."
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"I'll be writing until I can't write anymore. It's a compulsion with me. I love writing."
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"There is no such thing as compulsion in the scheme of nonviolence."
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"Any imposition from without means compulsion. Such compulsion is repugnant to religion."
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"...the realm of freedom does not commence until the point is passed where labor under the compulsion of necessity and of external utility is required."
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"It was just a compulsion. In fact, I soon realized that the only thing I really enjoyed was the actual snorting."
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"The dividend I get [from my compulsion] is the freedom to be totally disorderly in my dreamworld."
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