Top 1200 Thinking Flexibly Quotes & Sayings - Page 17

When you are thinking something, you have the feeling that the thoughts do nothing except inform you the way things are and then you choose to do something and you do it. That's what people generally assume. But actually, the way you think determines the way you're going to do things. Then you don't notice a result comes back, or you don't see it as a result of what you've done, or even less do you see it as a result of how you were thinking. Is that clear?

One of the nice things about our marriage, at least to my way of thinking, is that my wife and I no longer have to argue every thing through. We each know what the other will say, and so the saying becomes an unnecessary formality. No doubt some marriage counselor would explain to us that our problem is a failure to communicate, but to my way of thinking we've worked long and hard to achieve this silence, Lily's and mine, so fraught with mutual understanding.

I find fantasy easier to write. If I'm going to write science fiction, I spend a lot more time thinking up justifications. I can write fantasy without thinking as much. I like to balance things out: a certain amount of fantasy and a certain amount of science fiction.

Our thoughts are mainly controlled by our subconscious, which is largely formed before the age of 6, and you cannot change the subconscious mind by just thinking about it. That's why the power of positive thinking will not work for most people. The subconscious mind is like a tape player. Until you change the tape, it will not change.

Food conditions the nature of the mind. Mind guides the thinking. Thinking results in action. Actions lead to commensurate or matching results and effects. This chain of action between the food we eat and the results of our actions highlights the fact that meat eating leads to beastly actions and the concomitant evil effects.

After a few days in hospital, I was thinking, Oh, gee - I raised in a church, Protestant upbringing which I'd rejected as an adult - I'm lying in bed thinking, Hmmm, maybe I ought to pray. They always say there are no atheists in a foxhole... and I thought, Here I am in a pretty good-sized foxhole... and I thought Naahhh. I wouldn't respect any God who would listen to me after I'd rejected him so vociferously.

Fathers and sons are natural enemies. Look at any species. Shark, sees his father in the water, he's not thinking, Hey dad, wassup ? He's thinking, Back off, old man, this surfer carcass is mine. Of course, when his girlfriend swims up and she's like, Way, you know, there's enough surfer for everybody. You and your dad need to frenzy together more. Leave you father a thigh.

Toward the end of the campaign, we interviewed some voters in Raleigh, N.C., which is a generally Democratic city, and I'm thinking of a young couple. They had two kids. They described themselves as Christian. They oppose gay marriage. And they were saying that even though they didn't like Donald Trump, they were thinking of voting for him. And one of the reasons was they felt that they were - their very views were making them socially unacceptable. They were feeling a little alienated from the world.

I've been thinking of humorous things since I was... I can't remember when. All the way through elementary school, all the way through junior high, all the way through high school, through college and after college, I was thinking of the same kinds of things that I say in front of an audience now.

I made cranberry sauce, and when it was done put it into a dark blue bowl for the beautiful contrast. I was thinking, doing this, about the old ways of gratitude: Indians thanking the deer they'd slain, grace before supper, kneeling before bed. I was thinking that gratitude is too much absent in our lives now, and we need it back, even if it only takes the form of acknowledging the blue of a bowl against the red of cranberries.

Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it's thinking of yourself less.

When writing, I'm not thinking about war, even if I'm writing about it. I'm thinking about sentences, rhythm and story. So the focus, when I'm working, even if it's on a story that takes place at war, is not on bombs or bullets. It's on the story.

I prefer the films that put their audience to sleep in the theater. Some films have made me doze off in the theater, but the same films have made me stay up at night, wake up thinking about them in the morning, and keep on thinking about them for weeks.

The American journalist Barbara Ehrenreich has written about this in her book Smile or Die: How Positive Thinking Fooled America and the World (2009) . She talks about the happiness industry, the rise of medication to make us happy and of self-help books, and the influence of all this on religion. In many ways religion has become another form of self-help. We all suffer from over-exposure to positive thinking.

I started to see human beings as little lonesome, water based, pink meat, life forms pushing air through themselves and making noises that the other little pieces of meat seemed to understand. I was thinking to myself, 'There's five billion people here but we've never been more isolated.' The only result of the aggressive individualism we pursue is that you lose sight of your compassion and we go to bed at night thinking, 'Is this all there is?' because we don't feel fulfilled.

Just as important as getting enough sleep is thinking about sleep in the right way. Stop thinking of sleep and naps as “downtime” or as a “waste of time.” Think of them as opportunities for memory consolidation and enhancing the brain circuits that help skill learning. Nor should you feel guilty about sleep. It's just as crucial a part of successful brain work as the actual task itself.

People who would not be using the word gender or thinking about gayness or trans-ness may actually, without even thinking about it, be not their own gender in their inner world. I think that's actually so normal, because female sexuality is sold to all of us. It doesn't just reach the eyes of men. You might not care about the idea of boobs or jugs or whatever, but it could impact your inner sexual life.

When your thinking is brilliant, you will be brilliant, but if your thinking is not brilliant you will not be brilliant, no matter how brilliant you may think you are.

In general, I find that poets spend a lot of time thinking about themselves, and not a lot of time thinking about other poets, or other poetry. Unless they think about how it affects them, or how it could impact them.

I'm not sure if I could tell the difference—between just staring into space and thinking. We're usually thinking all the time, aren't we? Not that we live in order to think, but the opposite isn't true either—that we think in order to live. I believe, contrary to Descartes, that we sometimes think in order not to be. Staring into space might unintentionally have the opposite effect.

[...] intelligent people only have a certain amount of time (measured in subjective time spent thinking about religion) to become atheists. After a certain point, if you're smart, have spent time thinking about and defending your religion, and still haven't escaped the grip of Dark Side Epistemology, the inside of your mind ends up as an Escher painting.

I like the fact that I like to think out-of-the-box. Thinking out-of-the-box goes along with dressing out-of-the-box and living out-of-the-box. If you want to come up with a really original design idea and you want to capture a whole new design direction, perhaps the best way to arrive at that is not by acting and thinking and doing like everybody else. That's all.

When I was younger, I used to vacillate between thinking love was this great and glorious mystery and thinking it was just something a bunch of Hollywood move producers made up to sell more tickets in the Depression, when Dish Night kind of played out." Eddie laughed. Now I think that all of us are born with a hole in our hearts, and we go around looking for the person who can fill it. You...Eddie, you fill me up.

I would say to anybody who thinks that all the problems in philosophy can be translated into empirically verifiable answers - whether it be a Lawrence Krauss thinking that physics is rendering philosophy obsolete or a Sam Harris thinking that neuroscience is rendering moral philosophy obsolete - that it takes an awful lot of philosophy - philosophy of science in the first case, moral philosophy in the second - even to demonstrate the relevance of these empirical sciences.

My focus has always been on the work - that work being critical thinking and writing. I am always doing that. That's where I am, wherever I am. Critical thinking and writing as my heartbeat.

The one nice thing about doing a character for a long time is, you begin to feel more comfortable, and you are thinking less and behaving more. It's always best not to be thinking a hell of a lot while you're acting, because you want it to be as spontaneous as possible, not too intellectual. Just behaving and listening to other people who you're doing scenes with. I always like the latter when it looks easy, even though it may not be.

As for thinking time versus writing time, well, that's up to you. But - and I wish it were otherwise - books don't get written by thinking about them, they get written by writing them. And that's when you make discoveries about what you're writing. That's when you get the happy accidents.

You can't rock the boat without being told you're off your rocker. Entrepreneurs' greatest asset is their contrarian way of thinking, their tendency to zig when others zag, to go in a new direction. But many people don't give themselves permission to get going for fear that they will be called crazy. I say not only is crazy a compliment, but if you're not called crazy when you start something new, then you're not thinking big enough!

The very act of thinking about power in our lives and experiences creates a process of revelation and self-analysis that may even make us look at ourselves in a new light... thinking about power and its complex manifestations may not simply lead to a better understanding of the abstract complexities of society, but may have an effect on one?s own image and identity. Perhaps a warning label should be placed on the cover.

He was the fantasy of every girl in the country. He was so far out of realm, her world, that she should have stopped thinking about him the second the door had closed. Should stop thinking about him immediately. Should never think about him again, except maybe as a client - and her prince. And yet, the memory of his fingers against her skin refused to fade.

Would you stop thinking about what everyone wants. Stop thinking about what I want, what he wants, what your parents want. What do you want?

Marriage is an effort to legalize love. It is out of fear. It is thinking about the future, about the tomorrows. Man always thinks of the past and the future, and because of this constant thinking about past and future, he destroys the present. And the present is the only reality there is. One has to live in the present. The past has to die and has to be allowed to die.

I wrote "Bootylicious" because, at the time, I’d gained some weight and the pressure that people put you under, the pressure to be thin, is unbelievable. I was just 18 and you shouldn’t be thinking about that. You should be thinking about building up your character and having fun and the song was just telling everyone just forget what people are saying. You’re bootylicious. That’s all. It’s a celebration of curves and a celebration of women’s bodies.

I have a guy friend who said to me, "Hey, you know it's strange, feminism is cool now." I think now people understand that being a feminist means everyone should be equal. What really shocked me was being in America during the Republican primaries. I haven't been exposed to that kind of thinking. I was so shocked that that kind of thinking exists in a modern world, and in a first-world country.

Supreme Court says pornography is anything without artistic merit that causes sexual thoughts, that's their definition, essentially. No artistic merit, causes sexual thoughts. Hmm... Sounds like... every commercial on television, doesn't it? You know, when I see those two twins on that Doublemint commercial? I'm not thinking of gum. I am thinking of chewing, so maybe that's the connection they're trying to make.

I love rainy and bad-weather days because this type of weather gives me a mental advantage, especially when I'm fishing in a tournament. When the weather is inclement, most fishermen start thinking of reasons why they can't catch bass. But, because I fish so often in bad weather, I'm thinking of all the reasons I can catch bass in bad weather conditions.

A thinking mind is not swallowed up by what it comes to know. It reaches out to grasp something related to itself and to its present knowledge (and so knowable in some degree) but also separate from itself and from its present knowledge (not identical with these). In any act of thinking, the mind must reach across this space between known and unknown, linking one to the other but also keeping visible to difference. It is an erotic space.

You may not be thinking about politics, but politics is thinking about you.

I grew up feeling that to be gay was a tragedy. I didn't grow up thinking that it was morally wrong, but I grew up thinking that it would make me marginal, prevent me from having children, and quite possibly prevent me from having a meaningful long relationship. It seemed that this condition would leave me with a vastly reduced life.

We can have facts without thinking but we cannot have thinking without facts.

Yesterday you were thinking about today because then it was tomorrow; now it is today and you are thinking about tomorrow, and when the tomorrow comes, it will become today- because anything that exists, exists here and now, it cannot exist otherwise.

As more women have gone into the workforce, they find it harder to be a good mother and a good worker. When I go into the office, I always feel guilty. I'm thinking about the children. When I'm at home, I'm thinking about my work. So you're always under tremendous pressure. Women feel very stressed. They feel like they're working harder and harder and harder. And society is not really helping them.

I did sit in cinemas as a kid looking at English and American movies thinking, "Wouldn't it be great if the characters were like real people?" And the worst thing is films are constantly advertising themselves, drawing attention to their style of things. But actually I make films that I think are extremely sophisticated and cinematic. But you don't want the audience thinking about the bloody film. You want them to think about what's going on, and believe in it. Be flies on the wall, you know?

'Hamilton' just asks us all to go a little bit deeper: whether you're a hip-hop fan seeing musical theater for the first time, or if you were thinking you were gonna see some reprise of 1776, and now it's this? And you're thinking, 'Wait a minute, these people aren't white!' It asks you just take a step and go a little deeper.

I made promises to you that I'm not sure I can keep. None of it has anything to do with you. It's just that I don't know what to do now. You must be thinking what a rotten person I am. Well, believe me, I'm thinking the same thing. I don't know how this happened or why. Maybe I can get over it. Do you think you can wait - because I don't want you to stop loving me. I keep remembering us and how it was. I don't want to hurt you ... not ever.

Theatre has nothing to do with buildings or other physical constructions. Theatre - or theatricality - is the capacity, this human property which allows man to observe himself in action, in activity. Man can see himself in the act of seeing, in the act of acting, in the act of feeling, the act of thinking. Feel himself feeling, think himself thinking.

You are transmitters. Everywhere you are sitting in meditation you are transmitting vibrations, do you know that ? At that time if you are thinking say of your jobs and your other things which you have been thinking before, the transmission is poorer. Think of love. Think of the whole country, think of the whole world at that time. You are transmitters of these waves of love, and love will flow from you.

Trump's not showing up and trying to politely insert himself in political system and the way politicians do things. He's not trying to ingratiate himself. He doesn't care. He's elected to do specific things. His campaign, his agenda, his rallies, a very long list of specific things, and he reminded everybody, if you're thinking he's not gonna build a wall, if you're thinking that was just chatter, I'd change my mind if I were you.

Want to know the secret behind The Secret? The Law of Attraction will not bring you abundance and prosperity for just thinking pleasant, positive thoughts. It is no cosmic mistake that the word "attraction" has the word "action" in it. Abundance is, in fact, the result of creative thinking and a lot of action. Much action, much prosperity, in other words. What are you waiting for?

Ordinarily, even when people become religious, they go on thinking in terms of having - possessing heaven or possessing the pleasures of heaven - but still they go on thinking in terms of having. Their heaven is nothing but their projected desire of having everything. All that they have missed here they would like to have in the after-life. But it is the same desire.

What are you thinking of so earnestly?" said he, as they walked back to the ballroom; "not of your partner, I hope, for, by that shake of the head, your meditations are not satisfactory." Catherine coloured, and said, "I was not thinking of anything." That is artful and deep, to be sure; but I had rather be told at once that you will not tell me." Well then, I will not." Thank you; for now we shall soon be acquainted, as I am authorized to tease you on this subject whenever we meet, and nothing in the world advances intimacy so much.

In many ways, we've been taught to think that the real question is, do people deserve to die for the crimes they've committed? And that's a very sensible question. But there's another way of thinking about where we are in our identity. The other way of thinking about it is not, do people deserve to die for the crimes they commit, but do we deserve to kill?

If we [American nation] are only thinking about tomorrow or the next day and not thinking about 10 years from now, we're not going to control our own economic future, because China, Germany - they're making these [clean energy] investments. And I'm not going to cede those jobs of the future to those countries. I expect those new energy sources to be built right here in the United States.

I hadn't been onstage in a while. The last time was pre-children. And before I went on [at Roseland], my kids were backstage, and I thought, This isn't how I usually do it. I've got kids, and I'm thinking, This is weird. It's weird juggling children on your knee while you're in your rhinestone outfit. And I'm thinking, Okay, I'm gonna go out and do a show and I'm gonna be Superwoman! But I'm not really, `cause I'm a mom. It's all very strange.

We just met for the first time and David Byrne was like, "Hey, you want to sing on this song?" and I was like, "Yes, I do want to sing on that song." He's the most legendary dude but I wasn't thinking about how he was a legend when rehearsing. I was just thinking, "Wow, this guy really knows what he wants in his music." And that ended up being the vibe, like "Oh, you wanna try that?" "Yeah, that sounds great!"

My father has always been interested in discarding the past. He's never much liked China or the whole idea behind China or Chinese ways of thinking. He's always been much more attracted to American ways of thinking. He feels Americans are more open - they tell you what they think - and he's very much that way himself.

We feel an affinity with a certain thinker because we agree with him; or because he shows us what we were already thinking; or because he shows us in a more articulate form what we were already thinking; or because he shows us what we were on the point of thinking; or what we would sooner or later have thought; or what we would have thought much later if we hadn’t read it now; or what we would have been likely to think but never would have thought if we hadn’t read it now; or what we would have liked to think but never would have thought if we hadn’t read it now.

Lee Strasberg told me I had talent. Real talent. It was the first time that anyone, except my father--who had to say so--told me I was good. At anything. It was a turning point in my life. I went to bed thinking about acting. I woke up thinking about acting. It was like the roof had come off my life!

Always keep absorbing art and looking at paintings and reading books and watching movies in other languages, just getting to know the world at hand and the world of the past. It's important to keep absorbing the world and keep engaging with it, and often that means not thinking about movies and thinking about other things.

But once we realize that people have very different kinds of minds, different kinds of strengths -- some people are good in thinking spatially, some in thinking language, others are very logical, other people need to be hands on and explore actively and try things out -- then education, which treats everybody the same way, is actually the most unfair education.