Quotessence
Home / Topics / Attention Quotes

Attention Quotes

Browse 6826 quotes about Attention.

Related topics

Attention Quotes

“The activity at this very moment must be the only thing that matters, to which one is fully given. If one is concentrated, it matters little what one is doing. The important, as well as the unimportant things, assume a new dimension of reality, because they have one's full attention.”

“Those who dwell among the beauties and mysteries of the earth are never alone or weary of life. Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts. The more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe, the less taste we shall have for destruction.”

“There is certainly no single remedy for this condition and I am offering no panacea. But it seems reasonable to believe — and I do believe — that the more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe about us the less taste we shall have for the destruction of our race. Wonder and humility are wholesome emotions, and they do not exist side by side with a lust for destruction.”

“I've been a fan of Mads since the “Casino Royale” movie. I really sat up and paid attention to him. I was like, “Who is this motherf**ker?” Even his work in something as sort of popcorn as “Clash of the Titans,” he brings a kind of danger and reality and he grounds it in such a way that you think, yes, I'm good to work with this guy. I should come back, just stay behind him. (Laughs) Our working relationship has been fantastic.”

“All those who, since Adam Smith, have turned their attention to Political Economy, agree that in reality we do not buy articles of consumption with money, the circulating medium with which we pay for them. We must in the first instance have bought this money itself by the sale of our produce.”

“That reality is 'independent' means that there is something in every experience that escapes our arbitrary control. If it be a sensible experience it coerces our attention; if a sequence, we cannot invert it; if we compare two terms we can come to only one result. There is a push, an urgency, within our very experience, against which we are on the whole powerless, and which drives us in a direction that is the destiny of our belief.”

“The ongoing war in Afghanistan is being imposed on us, and Afghans are being sacrificed in it for someone else's interests. We are not blocking the interests of the United States or other major powers. But we are demanding that if you consider Afghanistan the place from which to advance your interests, then you should also pay attention to Afghanistan's interests.”

“You are the creator of your own reality, and so you are not in jeopardy. You do not need to control the behavior of others in order for you to thrive. Your attention to things that you think they do that keeps you from your thriving is, in fact, what keeps you from your thriving... It is not what they do to you; it's what you do to you in fear of what you think that they will do to you.”

“Then there is the further question of what is the relationship of thinking to reality. As careful attention shows, thought itself is in an actual process of movement. That is to say, one can feel a sense of flow in the stream of consciousness not dissimilar to the sense of flow in the movement of matter in general. May not thought itself thus be a part of reality as a whole? But then, what could it mean for one part of reality to 'know' another, and to what extent would this be possible?”

“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.”

“In education, it is said that the state must impose schooling on all children, else the parents and communities will neglect it. Only the state can make sure that no child is left behind. The only question is the means: will we use the union and bureaucracies favored by the left, or the market incentives and vouchers favored by the right. I don't want to get into a debate about which means is better, but only to draw attention to the reality that these are both forms of planning that compromise the freedom of families to manage their own affairs.”

“If 'The Wild One' were filmed today, Marlon Brando and the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club would all have to wear helmets. I used to be afraid that when (Hells) Angels became movie stars and Cal the hero of the book, the bikerider would perish on the coffee tables of America. But now I think that this attention doesn't have the strength of reality of the people it aspires to know, and that as long as Harley-Davidsons are manufactured other bikeriders will appear, riding unknown and beautiful through Chicago, into the streets of Cicero.”