Zora Neale Hurston
Novelist, Anthropologist
"I have the nerve to walk my own way, however hard, in my search for reality, rather than climb upon the rattling wagon of wishful illusions."
Nerves quotes
Nerves
340 quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
Joseph McCarthy
Politician
"American life, in large cities, is a perpetual assault on the senses and the nerves; it is out of asceticism, out of unworldliness, precisely, that we bear it."
Georgia O'Keeffe
Artist
"It's not enough to be nice in life. You've got to have nerve."
Adrienne Rich
Poet, Essayist, Feminist
"It is the suffering of ambivalence: the murderous alternation between bitter resentment and raw-edged nerves, and blissful gratification and tenderness"
Peter Burke
Author
"All of your quotes are getting on my nerves."
Explore further
Topics related to Nerves
Browse quotes that often appear alongside nerves — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
Quote collection
Nerves quotes (page 1 of 17)
Follow a thought to its author, or read the full quote page.
"Our success was mainly due to the fact that we stimulated the nerves of animals that easily stood on their own feet and were not subjected to any painful stimulus either during or immediately before stimulation of their nerves."
Read quote
29 likes
"I wasn't used to children and they were getting on my nerves. Worse, it appeared that I was a child, too. I hadn't known that before; I thought I was just short."
Read quote
26 likes
"We have the power, knowledge, and equipment to build a world beyond our wonder. Only loss of nerve can defeat us."
Read quote
26 likes
"Physiology has, at last, gained control over the nerves which stimulate the gastric glands and the pancreas."
Read quote
24 likes
"I have the most perfect belly button. When I stick my fingers in it, I feel a nerve in the center of my body shoot up my spine."
Read quote
21 likes
"You've got a lotta nerve to say you are my friend. When I was down you just stood there a grinin"
Read quote
17 likes
"You think, eventually, that nothing can disturb you and that your nerves are impregnable. Yet, looking down at that familiar face, I realized that death is something to which we never become calloused."
Read quote
16 likes
"We must not listen to those who advise us 'being men to think human thoughts, and being mortal to think mortal thoughts' but must put on immortality as much as possible and strain every nerve to live according to that best part of us, which, being small in bulk, yet much more in its power and honour surpasses all else."
Read quote
16 likes
"Tom's great yellow bronze mask all draped upon an iron framework. An inhibited, nerve-drawn; dropped face - as if hung on a scaffold of heavy private brooding; and thought."
Read quote
16 likes
"I have no conscience at all -- least of all an artistic conscience. All I have is nerves."
Read quote
16 likes
"To control your nerves, you must have a positive thought in your mind."
Read quote
15 likes
"My nerves are bad to-night. Yes, bad. Stay with me. 'Speak to me. Why do you never speak? Speak. 'What are you thinking of? What thinking? What? 'I never know what you are thinking. Think."
Read quote
14 likes
"You shake my nerves and you rattle my brain."
Read quote
14 likes
"Never miss a party...good for the nerves--like celery."
Read quote
13 likes
"When you're writing something and you know it's good, you get flushed, you can feel the blood coursing through your veins, you feel alive, all your nerve endings stand up, something just clicks."
Read quote
13 likes
"If I was a Mayor, I would sort the traffic out and that includes public transport. The traffic jams really get on my nerves."
Read quote
12 likes
"Every nerve in my body is so vacant and numb/I can't even remember what it was I came here to get away from/Don't even hear a murmur of a prayer/It's not dark yet, but it's getting there."
Read quote
12 likes
"Pictures, propagated by motion along the fibers of the optic nerves in the brain, are the cause of vision."
Read quote
12 likes
"If your Nerve, deny you - Go above your Nerve"
Read quote
11 likes
"Nerves are normal. You can't be cured from them unless you're a machine."
Read quote
11 likes