Distraction Quotes - Page 2

Work, the gospel of work, the sanctity of work, laborare est orare - all that tripe and nonsense. 'Work!' he once broke out contemptuously against the reasonable expostulations of Philip Quarles, 'work is no more respectable than alcohol, and it serves exactly the same purpose: it just distracts the mind, makes a man forget himself. Work's simply a drug, that's all. It's humiliating that men shouldn't be able to live without drugs, soberly; it's humiliating that they shouldn't have the courage to see the world and themselves as they really are. They must intoxicate themselves with work. It's stupid. The gospel of work's just a gospel of stupidity and funk. Work may be prayer; but it's also hiding one's head in the sand, it's also making such a din and a dust that a man can't hear himself speak or see his own hand before his face. It's hiding yourself from yourself. No wonder the Samuel Smileses and the big business men are such enthusiasts for work. Work gives them the comforting illusion of existing, even of being important. If they stopped working, they'd realize that they simply weren't there at all, most of them. Just holes in the air, that's all. Holes with perhaps a rather nasty smell in them. Most Smilesian souls must smell rather nasty, I should think. No wonder they daren't stop working. They might find out what they really are, or rather aren't. It's a risk they haven't the courage to take.

Though you can get smart from reading everything that a smart person writes, you cannot get famous from reading about everything that a famous person does or is said to have done.

I loved you so much once. I did. More than anything in the whole wide world. Imagine that. What a laugh that is now. Can you believe it? We were so intimate once upon a time I can't believe it now. The memory of being that intimate with somebody. We were so intimate I could puke. I can't imagine ever being that intimate with somebody else. I haven't been.

Feeling its power, one Civil War paper trumpeted that Milton and Homer were for another age but for this one was the New York Herald.

A survey of Canadian media consumption by Microsoft concluded that the average attention span had fallen to eight seconds, down from 12 in the year 2000.

We can achieve even more than we could expect if we try to be less distracted by the fuss of life and concentrate more on developing some qualities or characteristic of our soul and character

That is a vacation! It is the best time for you to be productive because you are not being distracted by work.

Eliminate all distractions and focus on things that add value to your life

The author explores the result of endless choice. It is not only overload, but a profound loss of unity, solidity, and coherence in life.

A person who is another man's slave is better than one who is a slave to lust.

I'm gonna go put my earplugs in and practice piano for hours until my fingers bleed. I practice the piano with the focus of Helen Keller—and nothing can distract me from the scent of the music.-Karen Quan and Jarod Kintz

Being self-owned is a state of mind.

I’d find someone else. No distractions. Men get in the way of ambition. Plus, they laugh at you when you fail

Goals for the future distract from worry and anger about the past and redirect your focus to the direction you're travelling in.

There are two types of 'busy': 1)Constantly distracting yourself from what is true. 2) Constantly working to create something real.

Love is one of the most motivating and self-defining forces in our lives, whether we turn from it or allow ourselves to be drawn to it. If you allow romantic possibilities with others to consume all your time and energy, they will distract you from the things of interest that fill your life with passion and purpose.

To some people, employment is a distraction. To all entertainers, distraction is employment.

The author says the earliest Australian aborigines devoted extraordinary amounts of energy to enterprises no one now can understand.

Employment leaves you distracted

Television was suppressing their freedom not to know.

Any journalist who holds the office writes in a straitjacket.

This is the problem about thinking about something else to take your mind off something. It works for a little while, but in the end you always come back to the thing you were trying not to think about, only now whatever it was is worse.

It's alright to keep and open mind, but at a certain point—once you have thoroughly completed your homework—you have to learn how to stop and focus on intensely and passionately executing these goals step by step. You have to repel the distractions.

Distractions can be disastrous if they are allowed, they will steal precious time and energy from most important things that matters in life.

I should have learned mindfulness, and it’s too late now because it’s no good learning it when you’re already in crisis: you have to start when things are good. But only the very, very oddest would think, Hey, my life is perfect. I know! I’ll sit and waste twenty minutes Observing My Thoughts without Judgement.

The author tells a story wherein a missionary friend of his was invited by unbelievers on a train ride to play cards. The friend declined, saying that he did not bring his hands with him. He explained to the astonished group that the hands attached to what they saw as his body belonged to the Lord, and he was thereby able to explain the Gospel.

Everyone’s mind has sort of a slum division—a flirtatious spot that doesn’t give a hoot about how grave a situation is but constantly endeavors to derail more earnest thoughts, almost like a death-wish backseat driver.

One cannot underestimate boredom as an incentive to write.

Energies expended on sideshows, never on the main event. Where the hell was the main event? Was there a main event?

Only in sleep, where there's nothing but mind, can the mind clearly process all of the day's experiences/memories - without distraction. And, perhaps, only in sleep, where there's nothing but mind, can the mind truly understand the meaning of these memories, as well, and assimilate them with all the other memories you've accumulated over time, forming greater meanings - unintelligible in the light of day - building, perhaps, to some ultimate meaning at the culmination of life - unintelligible in the light of living.

Delay is as dangerous as the wrong answer.

Twitter is a serious writing distraction. As are grapefruits. The two have nothing else in common.

The confusion created by mode of fictitious imagery, staged to produce a perceived idea of character or life, does only that - confuses.

Humility is by far the most spiritual virtue of the lot. The only way by which one may cease obsessing over himself is to wholly step outside his flesh. But who could do this by himself? And who would really want to under his natural pretense? And even if somehow he could and he succeeded, would not it be artificial? Would not he seem far too aware of his own talents of achieving humility for it to be such? Alternatively, he would need a distraction, something else to love; it is not that the Humbleman thinks poorly of himself, nor highly for that matter, but rather he does not think of himself at all - and this is because he is too busy loving something or someone else to do it. For the humility of this kind 'rears its head' as the most love-driven and free, spiritual of virtues; whereas its opposite, pride, the most self-imprisoning human vice.

Humor and seriousness can be an unstable mix.

I said to all the things that throng about the gateways of the senses: "Tell me of my God, since you are not He. Tell me something of Him." And they cried out in a great voice: "He made us." CS Lewis

We're very familiar with the idea that some things are so complex they're beyond our comprehension. This not only keeps us solving and experimenting but also distracted. Many things are really so simple we can't see them under our big noses.

We are always falling in love or quarreling, looking for jobs or fearing to lose them, getting ill and recovering, following public affairs. If we let ourselves, we shall always be waiting for some distraction or other to end before we can really get down to our work. The only people who achieve much are those who want knowledge so badly that they seek it while the conditions are still unfavorable. Favorable conditions never come.

Admiration for a quality or an art can be so strong that it deters us from striving to possess it.

She feared that she would become a slave to superficial, symbolic duties.

Sometimes I think it is because we remember when we could smoke in pubs, and that we pull our phones out together as once we pulled out our cigarette packets. But probably it’s because we are easily bored.

Once art served to educate and edify, now it distracts and amuses.

To all the readers,whom despitethe attraction of tv,of internet,of family troubles,of video games,of sport,of night clubs,have found some hoursso we can all dream together.

At times the whole world seems to be in conspiracy to importune you with emphatic trifles. Friend, client, child, sickness, fear, want, charity, all knock at once at thy closet door and say,—'Come out unto us.' But keep thy state; come not into their confusion. The power men possess to annoy me I give them by a weak curiosity. No man can come near me but through my act.

The overpowering unimportance of this MAKES ME SPEECHLESS. – Speaker of the House of Representatives Thomas Reed

Unbelief is a master carpenter at cross-making.

The shadow of the passions of the moment transversed this grand and gentle spirit occupied with eternal things.

Who can be astonished at anything, when he has once been astonished at the manger and the cross? What is there wonderful left after one has seen the Saviour?

I can't blame modern technology for my predilection for distraction, not after all the hours I've spent watching lost balloons disappear into the clouds. I did it before the Internet, and I'll do it after the apocalypse, assuming we still have helium and weak-gripped children.

Sand was dribbling out of the bag of her attention, faster and faster.

The lightheaded and the fashionable are always willing to shed tears for distant underdogs.

They say you don’t get over someone until you find someone or something better. As humans, we don’t deal well with emptiness. Any empty space must be filled. Immediately. The pain of emptiness is too strong. It compels the victim to fill that place. A single moment with that empty spot causes excruciating pain. That’s why we run from distraction to distraction—and from attachment to attachment.

The more my brain was fed, the hungrier it became.

If you get stuck, get away from your desk. Take a walk, take a bath, go to sleep, make a pie, draw, listen to ­music, meditate, exercise; whatever you do, don't just stick there scowling at the problem. But don't make telephone calls or go to a party; if you do, other people's words will pour in where your lost words should be. Open a gap for them, create a space. Be patient.", 25 February 2010]

Each one of us is serious individually, but together we become frivolous.

We are here to love. Everything else is distraction.

Murder was a fascination as always.

When grace has won the day, the worldling seeks the world to come.

More voices means less trust in any given voice.

Another distraction that deviates people from their God given purpose and calling is the distraction of job and formal education.