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Quotes About Distraction

We ignore the gods and fill our minds with trash.
~ Rainer Maria Rilke
Physical pleasure is a sensual experience no different from pure seeing or the pure sensation with which a fine fruit fills the tongue; it is a great unending experience, which is given us, a knowing of the world, the fullness and the glory of all knowing. And not our acceptance of it is bad; the bad thing is that most people misuse and squander this experience and apply it as a stimulant at the tired spots of their lives and as distraction instead of a rallying toward exalted moments.
~ Rainer Maria Rilke
Yes, the Springs needed you. Many a star was waiting for your eyes only. A wave swelled toward you out of the past, or as you walked by the open window a violin inside surrendered itself to pure passion. All that was your charge. But were you strong enough? Weren't you always distracted by expectation, as though each such moment presaged a beloved's coming? (But where would you keep her, with all those big strange thoughts in you going and coming and sometimes staying all night?)
~ Rainer Maria Rilke
Oh Malte, we just go on living, and it seems to me that everyone is distracted and busy and no one pays proper attention as we go along. As if a meteor were to fall and no one sees it and no one has made a wish. Never forget to wish for something, Malte.
~ Rainer Maria Rilke
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. "What we love that we have, but by desire we bereave ourselves of the love.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Everybody we know surrounds himself with a fine house, fine books, conservatory, gardens, equipage, and all manner of toys, as screens to interpose between himself and his guest. Does it not seem as if man was of a very sly, elusive nature, and dreaded nothing so much as a full rencontre front to front with his fellow?
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
The epitome of the human realm is to be stuck in a huge traffic jam of discursive thought. —Chogyam Trungpa
~ Ram Dass
Lord Foulgrin: You must not let him see Charis as a place of learning, exploration, duties, travel, companionship, banquets, celebrations, and productive work. A low view of heaven is our ace in the hole. (conspiring to bring Fletcher down after salvation)
~ Randy Alcorn
last everything comes between you and what you'd like to be, and you've lost your true self forever.
~ Ravi Zacharias
The Internet is a big distraction. It's distracting, it's meaningless; it's not real. It's in the air somewhere.
~ Ray Bradbury
So bring on your clubs and parties, your acrobats and magicians, your daredevils, jet cars, motorcycle helicopters, your sex and heroin, more of everything to do with automatic reflex. If the drama is bad, if the film says nothing, if the play is hollow, sting me with the theremin, loudly. I'll think I'm responding to the play, when it's only a tactile reaction to vibration. But I don't care. I just like solid entertainment.
~ Ray Bradbury
Video games are a waste of time for men with nothing else to do. Real brains don't do that. On occasion? Sure. As relaxation? Great. But not full time— And a lot of people are doing that. And while they're doing that, I'll go ahead and write another novel.
~ Ray Bradbury
Or maybe he means in a richer world the begging population is melting away. But no to that too. So maybe, perhaps, he means there aren't many 'human beings' left to look, see, and understand well enough for one to ask and one to give. Everyone busy, running, jumping, there's no time to study one another. But I guess that's bilge and hogwash, slop and sentiment.
~ Ray Bradbury
But my uncle says that was merely rationalizing it; the real reason, hidden underneath, might be they didn't want people sitting like that, doing nothing, rocking, talking; that was the wrong kind of social life. People talked too much. And they had time to think.
~ Ray Bradbury
Nadie tiene ya tiempo para nadie.
~ Ray Bradbury
You think too many things,' said Montag, uneasily. 'I rarely watch the parlour walls or go to the races or Fun Parks. So I've lots of time for crazy thoughts, I guess...
~ Ray Bradbury
Ma vaatan harva televisioonisaateid, käin harva võidusõitudel ja lõbustusparkides. Küllap mul seepärast ongi aega narre mõtteid mõlgutada.
~ Ray Bradbury
If you're not driving a hundred miles an hour, at a clip where you can't think of anything else but the danger, then you're playing some game or sitting in some room where you can't argue with the four-wall televisor. Why? The televisor is 'real.' it is immediate, it has dimension. It tells you what to think and blasts it in. It must be right. It seems so right. It rushes you on so quickly to its own conclusions your mind hasn't time to protest, 'What nonsense!
~ Ray Bradbury
Si no quieres que un hombre sea políticamente desgraciado, no lo preocupes mostrándole dos aspectos de una misma cuestión. Muéstrale uno. Que olvide que existe la guerra. Es preferible que un gobierno sea ineficiente, autoritario y aficionado a los impuestos, a que la gente se preocupe por esas cosas.
~ Ray Bradbury
Caesareans or not, children are ruinous; you're out of your mind," said Mrs. Phelps. "I plunk the children in school nine days out of ten. I put up with them when they come home three days a month; it's not bad at all. You heave them into the 'parlor' and turn the switch. It's like washing clothes; stuff laundry in and slam the lid." Mrs. Bowles tittered. "They'd just as soon kick as kiss me. Thank God, I can kick back!
~ Ray Bradbury
Whirl man's mind around about so fast under the pumping hands of publishers, exploiters, broadcasters, that the centrifuge flings off all unnecessary, time-wasting thought!
~ Ray Bradbury
People don't talk about anything." "Oh, they must!" "No, not anything. They name a lot of cars or clothes or swimming pools mostly and say how swell!
~ Ray Bradbury
But he heard the words as he might have heard the buzzing of a fly.
~ Joseph Conrad
When the momentum of mindfulness is well developed, it works like a boomerang; even if we want to distract ourselves, the mind naturally rebounds to a state of awareness.
~ Joseph Goldstein