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Simple Quotes

“Boredom has to be the most life sapping, mental disease you can be afflicted with.The most accurate definition of boredom I have ever heard is this - Boredom is the absence of a creative idea. But there is a simple cure - begin to think immediately of a better way to do something. The creative juices are within you but you must turn on the tap. Those who are bored are not living; they are dying. When their heart stops beating, it will be a mere formality. The best way to do anything has never been thought of. Get on a creative improvement kick and jar others mentally into the same activity.”

ThinkingWayHeartIdeasTurnsSimpleCreativeHeardDyingActivityDiseaseMereDefinitionsAbsenceImprovementBest WayCuresBoredKicksBoredomAccurateWithin YouJuiceTurn-onBetter WaysJarsCreative IdeasFormalityCreative Juices
Author:Bob Proctor
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“Must I shoot a simple-minded soldier boy who deserts, while I must not touch a hair of the wily agitator who induces him to desert? I think that in such a cse to silence the agitator and save the boy is not only constitutional but withal a great mercy.”

ThinkingWarSimpleSilenceBoysHistoryHairMercySoldierDesertCivil WarAmerican Civil War
Book:Abraham Lincoln, a Documentary Portrait Through His Speeches and Writings
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“In fine arts, when you make a painting, it's just a painting. But if you make a painting in the entertainment industry, it can be an album cover or a t-shirt or a logo. I like that entertainment has this usefulness - that it's ultimately trying to make a bunch of people feel something, and to think about life and be able to use things that were so simple and direct but potentially have a really powerful effect.”

PeopleIfsThinkingFeelsTryingArtUseAbleSimplePowerfulEffectsPaintingFineIndustryDirectAlbumsEntertainmentBunchShirtsT ShirtUsefulnessFine ArtsEntertainment IndustryLogosReally PowerfulAlbum Covers
Author:Andrew W.K.
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“When some people look at a shrimp they think, "Hmm. Delicious." When I look at a shrimp I think, "You're a miracle, absolutely incredible. Your ancestors have gone back hundreds of millions of years." And to develop a thing as simple as a shrimp cocktail, you have to calculate the hundreds of millions of years that have preceded that moment where you're sitting there with your sauce and fork poised.”

PeopleThinkingYearsLooksMomentsSimpleMillionsGoneSittingMiracleIncrediblesThat MomentAncestorDeliciousSauceCocktailsForksHmmShrimp
Author:Sylvia Earle
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“Everything - a bird, a tree, even a simple stone, and certainly a human being - is ultimately unknowable. This is because it has unfathomable depth. All we can perceive, experience, think about, is the surface layer of reality, less than the tip of an iceberg. Underneath the surface appearance, everything is not only connected with everything else, but also with the Source of all life out of which it came. Even a stone, and more easily a flower or a bird, could show you the way back to God, to the Source, to yourself.”

ThinkingWayHumansShowsRealityHuman BeingsSimpleTreeFlowerSourceBirdStonesDepthAppearanceConnectedSurfacePerceiveLayersUnfathomableIceberg
Book:A New Earth (Oprah #61): Awakening to Your Life's Purpose
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“There is something nobly simple and pure in a taste for the cultivation of forest trees. It argues, I think, a sweet and generous nature to have his strong relish for the beauties of vegetation, and this friendship for the hardy and glorious sons of the forest. He who plants a tree looks forward to future ages, and plants for posterity. Nothing could be less selfish than this.”

ThinkingLooksAgeStrongSimpleTreeSonSweetTastePurePlantArguingSelfishForestsGenerousGloriousPosterityRelishCultivationHardyPlant A TreeVegetation
Author:Washington Irving
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“The cure-alls of the present day are infinitely various and infinitely obliging. Applied psychology, autosuggestion, and royal roads to learning or to wealth are urged upon us by kindly, if not altogether disinterested, reformers. Simple and easy systems for the dissolution of discord and strife; simple and easy systems for the development of personality and power. Booklets of counsel on 'How to Get What We Want,' which is impossible; booklets on 'Visualization,' warranted to make us want what we get, which is ignoble.”

IfsThinkingWantEasyWealthSimplePsychologyImpossiblePersonalityDevelopmentVariousCuresStrifeRoyalVisualizationPresent DayWishful ThinkingDiscordReformersDissolutionDisinterestedIgnobleGullibility
Author:Agnes Repplier
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“Poverty is a strange and elusive thing. ... I condemn poverty and I advocate it; poverty is simple and complex at once; it is a social phenomenon and a personal matter. Poverty is an elusive thing, and a paradoxical one. We need always to be thinking and writing about it, for if we are not among its victims its reality fades from us. We must talk about poverty because people insulated by their own comfort lose sight of it.”

PeopleIfsThinkingNeedsWritingMatterRealitySocialLosesSimplePovertyStrangeComfortSightVictimComplexesPhenomenonFadesElusiveParadoxicalPersonal MatterSimple And Complex
Author:Dorothy Day
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“All that's known is this: there is no central processor, no single computer. Nothing that simple. Millions of neurons process information simultaneously and in parallel, not linearly, but the actual chemistry and electrical properties of that integrative process are still being mapped. Even so, it seems odd that during the evolution of brain circuitry and thinking, the ability to understand itself did not get wired in. Such built-in innocence seems like a terrible oversight.”

ThinkingMindStillsSeemsProcessSimpleAbilityBrainKnownMillionsInformationEvolutionTerribleComputerBuiltPropertyInnocenceOddChemistryParallelsElectricalNeuronsOversightProcessors
Book:A Match to the Heart: One Woman's Story of Being Struck By Lightning
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“Applause is an instinctive, unconscious act expressing the sympathy between actors and audience. Just as our art demands more instinct than intellect in its exercise, so we demand of those who watch us an apppreciation of the simple unconscious kind which finds an outlet in clapping rather than the cold intellectual approval which would self-consciously think applause derogatory. I have yet to meet the actor who was sincere in saying that he disliked applause.”

ThinkingKindArtSelfActorsSimpleWatchesAudienceColdExerciseDemandIntellectualTheaterInstinctIntellectUnconsciousSincereApprovalOutletsApplauseClappingDerogatoryActors And Audience
Book:The Story of My Life: Recollections and Reflections
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“The Zen meditative approach has a simple, unstated premise: moods and attitudes shape—determine—what we think and perceive. If we feel happy, we tend to develop certain trains of thought. If we feel sad or angry, still others. But suppose, with training, we become nonattached to distractions and learn to dampen these wild, emotional swings on either side of equanimity. Then we can enter that serene awareness which is the natural soil for positive, spontaneous personal growth, often called spiritual growth.”

IfsThinkingFeelsStillsSpiritualCertainSidesGrowthNaturalSimpleAttitudeLearningSadnessAwarenessEmotionalShapesApproachTrainingAngryTrainPersonal GrowthDetermineHappyMoodPerceiveSoilSpiritual GrowthDistractionSwingsSpontaneousPremisesSereneEquanimityTrain Of Thought
Book:Zen and the Brain: Toward an Understanding of Meditation and Consciousness
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“The hardest thing about being a guy is that women don't accept that you really are just a simple, pathetic, labrador retriever-like creature. That we live in a world were women actually expect you to think thoughtful thoughts, and have real emotions, which we don't have. Having to try to live up to the imaginary ideal that women have of what men are, instead of just being what you are, which is just a pathetic creature, but still.”

ThinkingMenWorldTryingStillsRealGuySimpleEmotionAcceptingCreaturesIdealsHardestThoughtfulImaginaryJust BeingHardest ThingPatheticRetrieversReal EmotionLabradors
Author:Dave Barry
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“With respect to our State and federal governments, I do not think their relations correctly understood by foreigners. They generally suppose the former subordinate to the latter. But this is not the case. They are co-ordinate departments of one simple and integral whole.”

ThinkingStatesWholeGovernmentSimpleCasesUnderstoodRelationFormerDepartmentLatterFederal GovernmentForeignersSubordinates
Book:The Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions of 1798 and '99: With Jefferson's Original Draught Thereof. Also, Madison's Report, Calhoun's Address, Resolutions of the Several States in Relation to State Rights. With Other Documents in Support of the Jeffersonian Doctrines of '98
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“A good leader has a plan that consists of changing simple pictures. Just because a group of people has a bunch of boards, hammers, and nails does not mean that they are building a house or even anything recognizable. Sometimes leaders think they are doing their job just because there is a lot of hammering going on. As a society we like the sound of hammering, but we are uncomfortable with the sound of thinking, which is silence.”

PeopleThinkingMeanDoeSometimesJobsHouseSoundLeadershipSimpleSilenceLeaderPlansGroupsBuildingBunchUncomfortableBoardsNailsHammersGood Leader
Book:Jesus, CEO: using ancient wisdom for visionary leadership
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“Insecure managers create complexity. Frightened, nervous managers use thick convoluted planning books and busy slides filled with everything they’ve known since childhood……. They worry that if they’re simple, people will think they’re simple minded. In reality, of course, it’s just the reverse. Clear, tough minded people are the most simple.”

PeopleIfsThinkingBookUseRealityCoursesSimpleKnownWorryClearChildhoodToughFilledBusyPlanningNervousManagersComplexityFrightenedThickReverseInsecureSlidesConvoluted
Author:Jack Welch
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“I think the big thing for Simple Plan is that we were able to keep the band members, the same five guys, the same lineup from the start. That's not easy. We grew up together. We're friends. We come from the same world. We've always had the same dreams and goals. I think we realized, as the years go by, how precious it is to have that, to build that, to see so many bands break up... it makes us realize how different we are to all that. We're really proud of that.”

ThinkingWorldYearsDifferentDreamBigsAbleTogetherGuyEasyGoalRealizingSimpleBreakFivePlansGrewProudBandMembersGrew UpBig ThingsDreams And GoalsBand MembersSimple Plan
Author:Chuck Comeau
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“What is a positive attitude? The simple definition is the way you dedicate yourself to the way you think. Interestingly, it's also the definition of a negative attitude.”

ThinkingWaySimpleAttitudeNegativeDefinitionsPositive AttitudeNegative Attitude
Book:Jeffrey Gitomer's Little Gold Book of YES! Attitude: New Edition, Updated & Revised: How to Find, Build and Keep a YES! Attitude for a Lifetime of SUCCESS & HAPPINESS
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“[T]hus one should not think that desire is repressed, for the simple reason that the law is what constitutes both desire and the lack on which it is predicated. Where there is desire, the power relation is already present: an illusion, then, to denounce this relation for a repression exerted after the event.”

ThinkingShouldReasonLawDesireSimpleEventsIllusionRelationRepressionRepressed
Book:The History of Sexuality: An Introduction
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“A powerful tool in the early stages of developing scenarios is to pretend the interface is magic. If your persona has goals and the product has magical powers to meet them, how simple could the interaction be? This kind of thinking is useful to help designers look outside the box.”

IfsThinkingLooksKindHelpingGoalSimplePowerfulMagicStageProductsToolsBoxesDevelopingDesignerInteractionScenariosPersonaInterfacesOutside The Box
Book:About Face 3: The Essentials of Interaction Design
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“I don't think God is an explanation at all. It's simply redescribing the problem. We are trying to understand how we have got a complicated world, and we have an explanation in terms of a slightly simpler world, and we explain that in terms of a slightly simpler world and it all hangs together down to an ultimately simple world. Now, God is not an explanation of that kind. God himself cannot be simple if he has power to do all the things he is supposed to do.”

IfsThinkingWorldTryingKindProblemTogetherTermSimpleAtheismComplicatedPositive AtheismExplanationComplicated World
Author:Richard Dawkins
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“You are all alike, you respectable people. You can't tell me the bursting strain of a ten-inch gun, which is a very simple matter;but you all think you can tell me the bursting strain of a man under temptation. You daren't handle high explosives; but you're all ready to handle honesty and truth and justice and the whole duty of man, and kill one another at that game. What a country! What a world!”

PeopleThinkingMenWorldCountryMatterWholeGamesJusticeSimpleHonestyReadyDutyLike YouMoralityTenGunHandleTemptationInchesStrainRespectableExplosivesBurstingRespectabilityTruth And HonestyTruth And Justice
Book:The Collected Plays of George Bernard Shaw (Illustrated): Including Renowned Titles like Pygmalion, Mrs. Warren’s Profession, Candida, Arms and The Man, Man and Superman, The Inca Of Perusalem, Macbeth Skit, Caesar and Cleopatra, Androcles And The Lion
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“In ordinary speech the words perception and sensation tend to be used interchangeably, but the psychologist distinguishes. Sensations are the items of consciousness--a color, a weight, a texture--that we tend to think of as simple and single. Perceptions are complex affairs that embrace sensation together with other, associated or revived contents of the mind, including emotions.”

ThinkingMindTogetherUsedSimpleEmotionConsciousnessColorSpeechPerceptionOrdinaryWeightEmbraceComplexesIncludingAffairSensationsItemsTexturePsychologist
Author:Jacques Barzun
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“Take the rose—most people think it very beautiful: I don’t care for It at all. I prefer the cactus, for the simple reason that it has a more interesting personality. It has wonderfully adapted itself to its surroundings! It is the best illustration of the theory of evolution in plant life.”

PeopleThinkingReasonCareBeautifulSimpleInterestingTheoryPersonalityEvolutionRosePlantDon't CareI Don't CareSurroundingsAdaptedIllustrationVery BeautifulTheory Of EvolutionCactusPlant LifeInteresting Personalities
Author:Charles Proteus Steinmetz
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“At last gleams of light have come, and I am almost convinced (quite contrary to opinion I started with) that species are not (it is like confessing a murder) immutable. Heaven forfend me from Lamarck nonsense of a 'tendency to progression', 'adaptations from the slow willing of animals', &c! But the conclusions I am led to are not widely different from his; though the means of change are wholly so. I think I have found out (here's presumption!) the simple way by which species become exquisitely adapted to various ends.”

ThinkingWayMeanDifferentEndsLightLastsFoundHeavenSimpleAnimalOpinionWillingMurderSpeciesVariousConvincedContraryTendenciesConclusionNonsenseAdaptationProgressionAdaptedPresumptionGleamConfessingOrigin Of SpeciesSimple Ways
Book:Charles Darwin's Works: The life and letters of Charles Darwin... ed. by his son, Francis Darwin. 2v
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“When I think of God, when I think of him as existent, and when I believe him to be existent, my idea of him neither increases nordiminishes. But as it is certain there is a great difference betwixt the simple conception of the existence of an object, and the belief of it, and as this difference lies not in the parts or composition of the idea which we conceive; it follows, that it must lie in the manner in which we conceive it.”

ThinkingBelieveIdeasGodLyingCertainBeliefI BelieveDifferencesSimpleExistenceObjectsIncreaseConceptionCompositionBelief In God
Book:A Treatise of Human Nature
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“Poetry is the most direct and simple means of expressing oneself in words: the most primitive nations have poetry, but only quitewell developed civilizations can produce good prose. So don't think of poetry as a perverse and unnatural way of distorting ordinary prose statements: prose is a much less natural way of speaking than poetry is. If you listen to small children, and to the amount of chanting and singsong in their speech, you'll see what I mean.”

IfsThinkingWayMeanChildrenPoetryNationsNaturalSimpleProducePoetAmountCivilizationSpeechOrdinaryDirectOneselfStatementsProsePoetry IsPrimitiveUnnaturalSmall ChildChantingExpressing Oneself
Author:Northrop Frye
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“Each man's private conscience ought to be a nice little self-registering thermometer: he ought to carry his moral code incorruptibly and explicitly within himself, and not care what the world thinks. The mass of human beings, however, are not made that way; and many people have been saved from crime or sin by the simple dislike of doing things they would not like to confess.”

PeopleThinkingMenWorldWayHumansLittlesHas BeensMadeSelfCareHuman BeingsSinSimpleMoralNiceCrimeOughtMoralityMassConscienceSavedCodeDislikeMoral CodeThermometers
Book:Modes and Morals
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“Serious skeptics, true believers, and seekers of every stripe will want to read Mitch Horowitz's vibrant, probing, and richly researched account of the impact of the positive-thinking movement on every aspect of American life today. Filled with a cast of remarkable characters and many lively tales, One Simple Idea is a readable, responsible examination of the limits and possibilities of mind-power as a source of constructive transformation.”

ThinkingWantMindIdeasCharacterTodaySimpleMovementPossibilityPositive ThinkingSeriousSourceLimitsAspectAccountsTransformationResponsibleImpactFilledCastsBelieverTalesRemarkableSeekersExaminationConstructiveLivelySkepticAmerican LifeStripesTrue BelieverPower Of The MindProbingSimple Ideas
Author:Judith Viorst
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