Quotes About Focus

When we only name the problem, when we state complaint without a constructive focus on resolution, we take away hope. In this way critique can become merely an expression of profound cynicism, which then works to sustain dominator culture.

Attention is an important resource.

The best way to respond to distracting personal attacks is to practice bringing the conversation back to the issue at hand. Never fall into the trap of engaging in personal attacks while letting the topic of conversation slip into the background. Doing so allows your opponent to escape the need to explain her position.

Always put first things first.

Successful people don't have fewer problems. They have determined that nothing will stop them from going forward.

one day, "you've found your chosen field, and you're already moving into it.

Never consider the bigger picture, because if you do you'll just give up. If you're hanging on a precipice, there's no point worrying that the precipice is in a desert five days from water. Just get out of the precipice, then worry about the water.

You've got to be careful if you don't know where you're going, 'cause you might not get there. —Yogi Berra

Shun epic verse.

He was watching my eyes. A man who uses a sword with lethal skill always matches his opponent's eyes.

could feel the torn, knurled rim that had held the small lens of the eyepiece. The

A man whose house is burning to the ground does not carry water to his neighbour's fire

The rest merely requires common sense; it is like a boxing match, the more you punch the better it is.

The human being must always be central, not the products and objects of his skill and energy.

Sein Vater hatte ihn immer ermahnt, wie wichtig es im Leben war, Ziele zu haben. Ohne Ziel wurde man hin und her getrieben und am Ende des Lebens hatte man gar nichts erreicht. Hatte man sich aber ein Ziel gewählt und hielt verbissen daran fest, dann spannte sich eine für andere unsichtbare Schnur durch das Leben. Eine Rettungsleine, an die man sich bei jedem Sturm klammern konnte.

The wise man thinks about his troubles only when there is some purpose in doing so; at other times he thinks about other things, or, if it is night, about nothing at all.

Never let yourself be diverted, either by what you wish to believe, or what you think could have beneficent social effects if it were believed; but look only and solely at what are the facts.

When you find yourself inclined to brood on anything, no matter what, the best plan always is to think about it even more than you naturally would, until at last its morbid fascination is worn off.

My advice to anyone who wishes to write is to know all the very best literature by heart, and ignore the rest as completely as possible.

I never found that love, either when it prospered or when it did not, interfered in the slightest with my intellectual concentration.

Clarity, above all, has been my aim.

temptation to be interesting rather than technically effective is a dangerous one.

No great achievement is possible without persistent work.

I have found, for example, that, if I have to write upon some rather difficult topic, the best plan is to think about it with very great intensity – the greatest intensity of which I am capable—for a few hours or days, and at the end of that time give orders, so to speak, that the work is to proceed underground. After some months I return consciously to the topic and find that the work has been done.