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Attention Quotes

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Attention Quotes

“On one level, nothing's really changed in my life. I still drive my daughter in the car pool on Monday. But it's impossible not to be aware of this rush of attention; it's impossible not to be seduced by it once you've entered into it, seduced by being unhappy when the attention wanes.”

Stills Levels Attention Impossible Car Changed Daughter Unhappy My Daughter Pool Monday Being Unhappy

Author:Michael Tolkin

“It is impossible to understand the history of economic thought if one does not pay attention to the fact that economics as such is a challenge to the conceit of those in power.”

Ifs Doe Facts Challenges Pay Attention Impossible Economic Economics Pay Attention Conceit

Book:Human Action

Source: Human Action

“For the ordinary man, whose mind is a checkerboard of criss-crossing reflections, opinions, and prejudices, bare attention is virtually impossible.”

Men Mind Attention Opinion Impossible Ordinary Reflection Prejudice Crossings Ordinary Man Checkerboard

Book:The three pillars of Zen: teaching, practice, and enlightenment

Source: The three pillars of Zen: teaching, practice, and enlightenment

“The bourgeois thinkers of the eighteenth century thus turned Aristotle's formula on its head: satisfactions which the Greek philosopher had identified with leisure were now transposed to the sphere of work, while tasks lacking in any financial reward were drained of all significance and left to the haphazard attentions of decadent dilettantes. It now seemed as impossible that one could be happy and unproductive as it had once seemed unlikely that one could work and be human.”

“My whole life everyone always said 'it can't be done', 'you'll never do it', 'you will fail', 'no one has ever gone from Austria and become a Mr Universe, blah, blah, blah', or when I ran for governor people were sceptical. It was 'you're going to lose' and 'people don't take people from show-business seriously in politics'. So, I've heard all the 'it's impossible' thing but I didn't pay any attention because I believed that I could do it.”

People Said Done Whole Shows Universe Loses Pay Attention Gone Impossible Failing Heard Whole Life Ran Governors Show Business Impossible Things Blah Austria Mr Universe

Author:Arnold Schwarzenegger

“It is impossible to look into the Bible with the most ordinary attention without feeling that we have got into a moral atmosphere quite different from that which we breathe in the world, and in the world's literature.”

World Looks Different Feelings Literature Attention Moral Impossible Ordinary Bible Breathe Atmosphere

Author:Thomas Erskine, 1st Baron Erskine

“An extended stay in the wilderness inevitably directs one's attention outward as much as inward, and it is impossible to live off the land without developing both a subtle understanding of, and a strong emotional bond with, that land and all it holds.”

Strong Understanding Attention Impossible Land Emotional Developing Subtle Wilderness Inward Strong Emotional

Book:Into the Wild

Source: Into the Wild

“It's impossible to predict which paintings will last and which won't. In New Orleans I painted on a dilapidated shop in a street littered with abandoned cars and rotting mattresses, then two hours later the piece was gone. It turned out I'd picked the side of a crack house and the proprietor didn't like the attention.”

Two Lasts House Sides Hours Attention Gone Pieces Impossible Streets Car Painting Shops Cracks Abandoned New Orleans Rotting Mattresses

Author:Banksy

“Tis impossible to judge with much Præcision of the true Motives and Qualities of human Actions, or of the Propriety of Rules contrived to govern them, without considering with like Attention, all the Passions, Appetites, Affections in Nature from which they flow. An intimate Knowledge therefore of the intellectual and moral World is the sole foundation on which a stable structure of Knowledge can be erected.”

Source: The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: Diary, with passages from an autobiography. Notes of debates in the Continental Congress, in 1775 and 1776. Autobiography

“For the ordinary man, whose mind is a checkerboard of crisscrossing reflections, opinions, and prejudices, bare attention is virtually impossible; his life is thus centered not in reality itself but in his ideas of it. By focusing the mind wholly on each objects and every action, zazen strips it of extraneous thoughts and allows us to enter into a full rapport with life.”

Men Mind Ideas Reality Action Life Is Attention Opinion Impossible Objects Ordinary Reflection Prejudice Ordinary Man Rapport Checkerboard

Book:The three pillars of Zen: teaching, practice, and enlightenment

Source: The three pillars of Zen: teaching, practice, and enlightenment

“Modern physics has taught us that the nature of any system cannot be discovered by dividing it into its component parts and studying each part by itself... We must keep our attention fixed on the whole and on the interconnection between the parts. The same is true of our intellectual life. It is impossible to make a clear cut between science, religion, and art. The whole is never equal simply to the sum of its various parts.”