Attention Quotes

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Cimourdain was one of those men who have a voice within them, and who listen to it. Such men seem absent-minded; they are not; they are all attention.
Cimourdain knew everything and nothing. He knew everything about science, and nothing at all about life. Hence his inflexibility. His eyes were bandaged like Homer's Themis. He had the blind certainty of the arrow, which sees only the mark and flies to it. In a revolution, nothing is more terrible than a straight line. Cimourdain went straight ahead, as sure as fate.
Cimourdain believed that, in social geneses, the extreme point is the solid earth; an error peculiar to minds which replace reason with logic.

Without health there is no happiness. An attention to health, then, should take the place of every other object.

Thomas Jefferson

One ought to fast, watch, and labor to the extent that such activities are needed to harness the body's desires and longings; however, those who presume that they are justified by works pay no attention to the need for self-discipline but see the works themselves as the way to righteousness. They believe that if they do a great number of impressive works all will be well and righteousness will be the result. Sometimes this is pursued with such zeal that they become mentally unstable and their bodies are sapped of all strength. Such disastrous consequences demonstrate that the belief that we are justified and saved by works without faith is extremely foolish.

Keep your attention focused entirely on what is truly your own concern, and be clear that what belongs to others is their business and none of yours.

Paradox has been defined as Truth standing on her head to get attention.

G. K. Chesterton

The general who wins a battle makes many calculations in his temple ere the battle is fought. The general who loses a battle makes but few calculations beforehand. Thus do many calculations lead to victory, and few calculations to defeat: how much more no calculation at all! It is by attention to this point that I can foresee who is likely to win or lose.

The statesman who should attempt to direct private people in what manner they ought to employ their capitals would not only load himself with most unnecessary attention but assume an authority which could safely be trusted to no council and senate whatever, and which would nowhere be so dangerous as in the hands of man who have folly and presumption enough to fancy himself fit to exercise it.

If you really come down to any large story that interests people – holds the attention for a considerable time... human stories are practically always about one thing, aren't they? Death. The inevitability of death.

J. R. R. Tolkien

I felt that I wanted the world to be in uniform and at a sort of moral attention forever; I wanted no more riotous excursions with privileged glimpses into the human heart.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

If a man fasten his attention on a single aspect of truth and apply himself to that alone for a long time, the truth becomes distorted and not itself but falsehood.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

We have seen that the senses and intuitions, the various emotions and faculties, such as love, memory, attention and curiosity, imitation, reason, etc., of which man boasts, may be found in an incipient, or even sometimes in a well-developed condition, in the lower animals.

I apply to you to come and hear that you are in evil case; that what deserves your attention most is the last thing to gain it; that you know not good from evil, and are in short a hapless wretch; a fine way to apply! though unless the words of the Philosopher affect you thus, speaker and speech are alike dead.

How often we all have heard speakers begin by calling the attention of the audience to their lack of preparation or lack of ability. If you are not prepared, the audience will probably discover it without your assistance.

To be religious is to have one's attention fixed on God and on one's neighbour in relation to God.

Where danger shews it self, apprehension cannot, without stupidity, be wanting; where danger is, sense of danger should be; and so much fear as should keep us awake, and excite our attention, industry, and vigour; but not to disturb the calm use of our reason, nor hinder the execution of what that dictates.

The public school system is not about educating black children. Never has been. Inner-city schools are about social control. Period. They're operated as holding pens—miniature jails, really. It's only when black children start breaking out of their pens and bothering white people that society even pays any attention to the issue of whether these children are being educated.

As a child, I was taught that it was bad manners to bring attention to yourself, and to never, ever make a spectacle of yourself … All of which I've earned a living doing.

There is much in the Bible against which every instinct of my being rebels, so much that I regret the necessity which has compelled me to read it through from beginning to end. I do not think that the knowledge which I have gained of its history and sources compensates me for the unpleasant details it has forced upon my attention.

There have already been published by the bucketsful such brazen lies and utter fictions about me that I would long since have gone to my grave if I had allowed myself to pay attention to them.

Albert Einstein

It needs good management to enjoy life. I enjoy it twice as much as others, for the measure of enjoyment depends on the greater or less attention that we give to it...The shorter my possession of life the deeper and fuller I must make it.

Michel de Montaigne

I pay attention to what's going on around me. I'm always looking for new energy, new talent, new voices. When you do that I think it's easier to come up with fresh ideas. It's not that my career has been based on surprising people, but it's been about challenging myself — to constantly do new things that are going to broaden my own mind and in the process, hopefully, connect with other people.

I find it so difficult to dispose of the few facts which to me are significant, that I hesitate to burden my attention with thosewhich are insignificant, which only a divine mind could illustrate. Such is, for the most part, the news in newspapers and conversation.

Henry David Thoreau

Aging people should know that their lives are not mounting and unfolding but that an inexorable inner process forces the contraction of life. For a young person it is almost a sin — and certainly a danger — to be too much occupied with himself; but for the aging person it is a duty and a necessity to give serious attention to himself.

School has no task more important than to teach strict thought, cautious judgment, and logical conclusions, hence it must pay no attention to what hinders these operations, such as religion, for instance.

Friedrich Nietzsche

Apple has some tremendous assets, but I believe without some attention, the company could, could, could — I'm searching for the right word — could, could die.