A Quote by Donald Woods Winnicott
If mothers are told to do this or that or the other,... they lose touch with their own ability to act.... Only too easily they feel incompetent. If they must look up everything in a book, they are always too late even when they do the right things, because the right things have to be done immediately. It is only possible to act at exactly the right point when the action is intuitive or by instinct, as we say. The mind can be brought to bear on the problem afterwards.
Quote Topics
Ability
Act
Action
Afterwards
Always
Bear
Because
Book
Brought
Do The Right Thing
Done
Easily
Even
Everything
Exactly
Feel
Immediately
Incompetent
Instinct
Intuitive
Late
Look
Look Up
Lose
Mind
Mothers
Must
Only
Other
Own
Point
Possible
Problem
Right
Right Thing
Right Things
Say
The Right Thing
Things
Too
Too Late
Touch
Up
Quote Author
Related Quotes
Life is insanely robust, though we can make species go extinct, and this is the bad thing. So I always make the point that you can't say, 'Is it too late?' That is the terrible question, because either answer promotes inaction. If it's too late, you don't need to act; if it's not too late, you don't need to act.
I wonder if things can happen too early or too late or if everything happens at exactly the right time. If so, how sad and beautiful.
I thought that if the right time gets missed, if one has refused or been refused something for too long, it's too late, even if it is finally tackled with energy and received with joy. Or is there no such thing as "too late"? Is there only "late," and is "late" always better than "never"? I don't know.
That’s why you have to write your book right now, if that’s what you want to do. If you wait until you have the time, and the security, you might not want to do it. You’re in a race against your own enthusiasm. Don’t put it off because someone told you it’s never too late. That’s the worst lie. It’s never too late today, but it’s often too late tomorrow.
You're in a terrible spot. It's too late for you to retreat but too soon to act. All you can do is witness. You're in the miserable position of an infant who cannot return to the mother's womb, but neither can he run around and act. All an infant can do is witness and listen to the stupendous tales of action being told to him. You are at that precise point now. You cannot go back to the womb of your old world, but you cannot act with power either. For you there is only witnessing acts of power and listening to tales of power.
The best advisers, helpers and friends, always are not those who tell us how to act in special cases, but who give us, out of themselves, the ardent spirit and desire to act right, and leave us then, even through many blunders, to find out what our own form of right action is.
What about your constitutional right to bear arms, you say. I would simply point out that you don’t have to exercise a constitutional right just because you have it. You have the constitutional right to run for president of the United States, but most people have too much sense to insist on exercising it.
For all the good things it has brought our society, the Web has also fostered ideological hermits, who only talk to folks who believe exactly what they do. This creates an echo chamber that only further convinces people that they are right, and everyone else is not only wrong, but an idiot or worse. So when an incident like this one arises, it's not enough to point out an error; they must prove that the error had nefarious origins. In some places on the Web, everything happens on a grassy knoll.
Have the daring to stop doing the things you really don't want to do. Can you see them? Look closely. Can you observe the many things you do because you reluctantly feel you should or must? Watch closely. Examine every action and reaction. Do you act naturally or do you act because you feel compelled? If you feel compelled, stop. Compulsion is slavery. Example: Refuse to go along with the crowd.
Virtue means doing the right thing, in relation to the right person, at the right time, to the right extent, in the right manner, and for the right purpose. Thus, to give money away is quite a simple task, but for the act to be virtuous, the donor must give to the right person, for the right purpose, in the right amount, in the right manner, and at the right time.
We need to hold onto that so that people can be told in the right way that they're going through these things [like tumors] early instead of discovering them late. Discovering important health news too late happens far too much.
This Ariyan Eightfold Path, that is to say: Right view, right aim, right speech, right action, right living, right effort, right mindfulness, right contemplation.
It isn't enough just to do right things and say right things, you must also think right things before your life can come into harmony.
A lot of young actors have the idea that, "I've got to do this right. There's a right way to do this." But there's no right or wrong. There's only good and bad. And "bad" usually happens when you're trying too hard to do it right. There's a very broad spectrum of things that can inhibit you. The most important thing for actors - and not just actors, but everybody - is to feel loose enough to create what you want to create, and be free to try anything. To have choices.
In this world laws are written for the lofty aim of "the common good" and then acted out in life on the basis of the common greed. In this world irrationality clings to man like his shadow so that the right things get done for the wrong reasons - afterwards, we dredge up the right reasons for justification. It is a world not of angels but of angles, where men speak of moral principles but act on power principles; a world where we are always moral and our enemies always immoral; a world where "reconciliation" means that when one side gets the power and the other side gets reconciled to it.
When we have our body and mind in order, everything else will exist in the right place, in the right way. But usually, without being aware of it, we try to change something other than ourselves; we try to order things outside us. But it is impossible to organize things if you yourself are not in order. When you do things in the right way, at the right time, everything else will be organized.
Related Authors
Elliott Jaques Quotes
Canadian
Psychoanalyst
Franz Alexander Quotes
American
Psychoanalyst
Heinz Kohut Quotes
American
Psychoanalyst
John A. Sanford Quotes
American
Psychoanalyst
Lloyd deMause Quotes
American
Psychoanalyst
Mary Esther Harding Quotes
American
Psychoanalyst
Michael Maccoby Quotes
American
Psychoanalyst
Wilfred Bion Quotes
British
Psychoanalyst