Distracted Quotes - Page 12

• In Chekhov, when people leave, a carriage is taking them away forever. The stakes are so high just for someone to make a simple exit. And now we have all this access to public transportation, automobiles and jets and the Internet; we're so easily distracted, but the world is still designed to destroy you. It just happens quicker and faster now.

  Adam Rapp

  Simple, People, Forever

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• He that condemns himself to compose on a stated day will often bring to his task attention dissipated, a memory embarrassed, an imagination overwhelmed, a mind distracted with anxieties, a body languishing with disease: he will labour on a barren topic till it is too late to change it; or, in the ardour of invention, diffuse his thoughts into wild exuberance, which the pressing hour of publication cannot suffer judgment to examine or reduce.

  Samuel Johnson

  Memories, Writing, Imagination

  Samuel Johnson (1823). “The Works of Samuel Johnson: An essay on the life and genius of Dr. Johnson [by A. Murphy] Poems.- v. 2-4. The rambler.- v. 5. The idler. History of Rasselas, prince of Abissinia.- v. 6-8. The lives of the English poets.- v. 9. Lives of eminent persons. Letters, selected from the collection of Mrs. Piozzi and others. Prayers and meditations.- v. 10. Philological tracts, &c.- v. 11. Miscellaneous tracts, &c. Dedications. Reviews and criticisms. Tales of imagination. The adventurers.-”, p.59

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• We are living in a demented world. And we know it. It would not come as a surprise to anyone if tomorrow the madness gave way to afrenzy which would leave our poor Europe in a state of distracted stupor, with engines still turning and flags streaming in the breeze, but with the spirit gone.

  Johan Huizinga

  War, Europe, History

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• I think an erotics of place may be one of the reasons why environmentalists are seen as subversive. There is a backlash now:... [ellipsis in source] take all the regulations away; weaken existing legislation; the endangered species act is too severe, too restrictive; let there be carte blanche for real-estate developers. Because if we really have to confront wildness, solitude, and serenity, both the fierceness and compassionate nature of the land, then we ultimately have to confront it in ourselves, and it's easier to be numb, to be distracted, to be disengaged.

  Terry Tempest Williams

  Nature, Real, Thinking

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• It's annoying when you've got a guitar and you're working on music and then you have to go and do the shopping or someone calls your mobile and you get distracted or you have to go out and do something. So it's nice to just concentrate on it one hundred percent and give your all to it.

  Michael Kiwanuka

  Nice, Shopping, Guitar

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• Trying to write while I'm distracted definitely doesn't work for me. I'm also a compulsive saver of my files, so every writing session ends with me emailing what I've written to myself, just in case.

  Ian Doescher

  Writing, Trying, Ends

  Source: www.thegeekgirlproject.com

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• While we're working on the script, I never see any films. I make it a point because I don't want to get distracted. I don't want to be influenced, and before I know it, have somebody say, "My God, she plagiarized that line."

  Deepa Mehta

  Lines, Want, Scripts

  Source: collider.com

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• That's such a relevant thing, as an actor - committing and not being distracted by any kind of technical awareness, or whatever. You do have to block things out sometimes, and sometimes it's easier than others.

  Dylan O'Brien

  Block, Actors, Kind

  Source: collider.com

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• What is called eloquence in the forum is commonly found to be rhetoric in the study. The orator yields to the inspiration of a transient occasion, and speaks to the mob before him, to those who can hear him; but the writer, whose more equable life is his occasion, and who would be distracted by the event and the crowd which inspire the orator, speaks to the intellect and heart of mankind, to all in any age who can understand him.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Inspiration, Heart, Yield

  Henry David Thoreau (2015). “Walden”, p.88, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• With Iraq plunging into chaos and gas prices at record highs President Bush took time out this weekend for a ride on his bicycle, but unfortunately he fell off and sustained cuts to his face and hands. Apparently Bush was distracted by the enormous responsibilities of the presidency. I'm just kidding. He hit some gravel or something.

  Craig Kilborn

  Responsibility, Cutting, Weekend

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• Anxious. Intriguing word. It literally means, "to be divided" or "distracted." It conveys the idea of being so mentally ill at ease that you cannot do what you need to do because you are so distracted in your thinking.

  Charles R. Swindoll

  Mean, Thinking, Ideas

  Charles R. Swindoll (2012). “Perfect Trust”, p.49, Thomas Nelson Inc

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• By now, legions of tireless essayists and op-ed columnists have dressed feminists down for making such a fuss about entering the professions and earning equal pay that everyone's attention has been distracted from the important contributions of mothers working at home. This judgment presumes, of course, that prior to the resurgence of feminism in the '70s, housewives and mothers enjoyed wide recognition and honor. This was not exactly the case.

  Mary Blakely

  Mother, Home, Equal Pay

  Mary Kay Blakely (1995). “American Mom: Motherhood, Politics, and Humble Pie”, p.36, Simon and Schuster

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• Boyhood is distracted for years with precepts of grammar that are infinitely prolix, perplexed and obscure.

  John Amos Comenius

  Years, Boyhood, Obscure

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• People are distracted by objects of desire, and afterwards repent of the lust they've indulged, because they have indulged with a phantom and are left even farther from Reality than before. Your desire for the illusory is a wing, by means of which a seeker might ascend to Reality. When you have indulged a lust, your wing drops off; you become lame and that fantasy flees. Preserve the wing and don't indulge such lust, so that the wing of desire may bear you to Paradise. People fancy they are enjoying themselves, but they are really tearing out their wings for the sake of an illusion.

  Rumi

  Mean, Reality, Wings

  Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi (2008). “The Pocket Rumi”, p.171, Shambhala Publications

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• When you enter your secret chamber, take plenty of time before you begin to speak. Let quietude wield its influence upon you. Let the fact that you are alone assert itself. Give your soul time to get released from the many outward things. Give God time to play the prelude to prayer for the benefit of your distracted soul.

  Ole Hallesby

  Prayer, Play, Giving

  Ole Hallesby (1975). “Prayer”, Augsburg Fortress Publishing

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• So often we are too lazy or too distracted to see with care. Images come into our retinas, and our minds have already interpreted them. We do not see without our biases, our habits of life and thought.

  Gunilla Brodde Norris

  Life, Book, Lazy

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• Awareness is the key. Do we see the stories that we're telling ourselves and question their validity? When we are distracted by strong emotion, do we remember that it is our path? Can we feel the emotion and breathe it into our hearts for ourselves and everyone else? If we can remember to experiment like this even occasionally, we are training as a warrior. And when we can't practice when distracted but KNOW we can't, we are still training well. Never underestimate the power of compassionately recognizing what's going on.

  Pema Chodron

  Strong, Heart, Warrior

  Pema Chodron (2002). “The Places That Scare You: A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times”, p.47, Shambhala Publications

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• Kissing on screen is just, funny enough you're just acting so you're distracted by that more than anything. Or at least I am. I'm actually always coming away from those things going like, 'I wonder how I kissed just now.' Because I have no idea! I'm just thinking about what's happening.

  Dylan O'Brien

  Kissing, Thinking, Ideas

  "'Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials': Dylan O'Brien Talks Stunts, Unromantic Romance and More". Interview with Perri Nemiroff, collider.com. August 12, 2015.

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• There is no yajna (sacrifice) greater than spinning calculated to bring peace to the troubled spirit, to soothe the distracted student's mind, to spiritualize his life.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Sacrifice, Mind, Spinning

  Mahatma Gandhi (1967). “Collected Works”

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• I think the most important thing is just to write. It sounds so simple, but sometimes it's not. You can get so distracted - -by having to work other jobs, or what other people have to say about your writing - -but the one thing that really matters is that you just keep going, especially when you're working on a novel. It's so easy to get discouraged and give up.

  Sarah Dessen

  Jobs, Giving Up, Writing

  "Author Interview: Sarah Dessen on Just Listen". Interview with Cynthia Leitich Smith, cynthialeitichsmith.blogspot.com. December 12, 2006.

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• Don't let the company get distracted or excited about other things. A common mistake is that companies get excited by their own PR.

  Sam Altman

  Mistake, Common, Excited

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• It's not supposed to make you distracted from your life, it's supposed to make you challenge the ongoing distraction with focused intention. Simply discussing how asleep we can be gives credence to the possibility of finding moments of true honest alertness.

  Dan Mangan

  Giving, Challenges, Ongoing

  Source: www.themetropolist.com

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• That is much of what I think the writer's job is - to slow people down. To give them the chance to notice the passage of time as experienced by others as a reminder of what it is like to be alive. Because we are most often distracted from that. Massively distracted.

  Adam Haslett

  Jobs, Thinking, People

  Source: threeguysonebook.com

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• If, at the time when the mind is praying it is distracted by any extraneous thought or worry about anything, then this prayer is not called pure.

  Isaac of Nineveh

  Inspirational, Christian, Religious

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• In a world suffering from mental stress, yoga promises calm. In a distracted world, yoga creates focus, creates concentration. In a world of fear, yoga promises strength and courage. A healthy body and a disciplined mind are the foundations of a world free from fear. In crafting a new self through Yoga, we create a new world.

  Narendra Modi

  Stress, Yoga, Self

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