Quotes About Distraction

one reads, above all, to prevent oneself thinking.

After all, what is reading but a vice, like drink or venery or any other form of excessive self-indulgence? One reads to tickle and amuse one's mind; one reads, above all, to prevent oneself thinking

A society, most of whose members spend a great part of their time, not on the spot, not here and now and in the calculable future, but somewhere else, in the irrelevant other worlds of sport and soap opera, of mythology and metaphysical fantasy, will find it hard to resist the encroachments of those who would manipulate and control it.

You can't play Electro-magnetic Golf according to rules of Centrifugal Bumble-puppy.

_They_ believe that the Ballot will rob them of their Power and Privileges, whereas _I_ am sure that, by the exercise of even such little Prudence and Cunning as parsimonious Nature has endowed them with, they can with ease maintain themselves in their present pre-eminence. This being so, let the Rabble amuse itself by voting. An Election is no more than a gratuitous Punch and Judy Show, offered by the Rulers in order to distract the attention of the Ruled.

Gastamos actualmente en bebidas y tabaco más de lo que gastamos en educación. Esto,desde luego, no es sorprendente. El afán de escapar de sí mismo y del ambiente se halla en la mayoría de nosotros casi todo el tiempo.

The bias of the headlines, the systematic one-sidedness of the reporting and the commentaries, the catchwords and slogans instead of argument. No serious appeal to reason. Instead, a systematic effort to install conditioned reflexes int eh minds of the voters -- and, for the rest, crime, divorce, anecdotes, twaddle, anything to keep them distracted, anything to prevent them from thinking.

Ve sólo Uno en todas las cosas; es el segundo el que te descarría

The soma tablets within reach of her hand -- there she remained, and yet wasn't there at all, was all the time away, infinitely far away, on holiday.

Take a holiday from reality whenever you like, and come back without so much as a headache or a mythology.

Cheltuim ast?zi cu mult mai mult pentru b?utur? ÅŸi fumat decât cheltuim pentru edu- caÅ£ie. Åži nu e de mirare. Aproape în fiecare dintre noi, aproape tot timpul, exist? pornirea de a fugi de sine ÅŸi de ceea ce ne înconjoar?.

One reads to tickle and amuse one's mind; one reads, above all, to prevent oneself thinking.

Todo pájaro que aprenda a organizarse una buena vida sin necesidad de usar sus alas pronto renunciará al privilegio del vuelo y permanecerá por siempre en tierra. Algo parecido pasa con los seres humanos. Si se les procura con regularidad y abundancia el pan tres veces al día, muchos de ellos se contentarán con vivir de pan únicamente o, al menos, de pan y circo únicamente.

Pero todos ellos son hechos remotos e insustanciales al lado del hecho próximo y muy sentido del ansia, aquí, ahora, de un alivio, de un sedante, de un trago o un cigarrillo.

To read a newspaper is to refrain from reading something worthwhile. [....] The first discipline of education must therefore be to refuse resolutely to feed the mind with canned chatter.

The Victrola, the Movies, a lecture: such are the three American alternatives to Silence, Scandal and Squabble. Or else, get drunk. America knows no other devices to enable its inhabitants to endure either their own company or that of their fellow-creatures.

C'erano un sacco di altre cose di cui non si doveva più occupare. Era come uno di quei cavalli che, scosso il fantino, tornano indietro, svagati, al piccolo trotto, mentre gli altri sono ancora a farsi scoppiare il cuore inseguendo un traguardo e un qualsiasi ordine d'arrivo.

each of us needed to find just the right way to take our mind off our problems, and it did not matter what that was--a drive in the country, an expedition to a shoe shop, a quiet cup of tea under a cloudless sky; each of us had something that made it easier to continue in a world that sometimes, just sometimes, was not as we might wish it to be.

the problem with governments these days. They want to do things all the time; they are always very busy thinking of what things they can do next. That is not what people want. People want to be left alone to look after their cattle.

Are we facing a new Dark Age, Angus? Possibly, Lou. A dark age in which our concentration spell is this long.

they are dazzled by all the money that they are being offered. That is what money does, Mma Ramotswe—you must have seen that. Sometime we need to look the other way when people put money in front of our noses. We have to look at the other things we can see so the money doesn't hide them.

He could not imagine being interested in that way in somebody like Mma Mateleke; how would one ever get to plant a kiss on such a person if she was always talking? It would be difficult to get one's lips into contact with a mouth that was always opening and shutting to form words; that would surely be very distracting for a man, he thought, and might even discourage him to the point of disinclination, if that was the right word.

There was that quality of sensitivity, that look in his eyes that told her, and everybody else who cared to look for it, that he understood , but, at the same time, that he was elsewhere.

If you don't have things to keep you busy, you end up starting fights with your neighbours.