Automatic Pilot Quotes & Sayings

Mindfulness is focusing on the present with intent, being in the present instead of allowing ourselves to be run on automatic pilot by our past-based default programming. Being — Steven Jay Fogel

As we do at such times I turned on my automatic pilot and went through the motions of normalcy on the outside, so that I could concentrate all my powers on surviving the near-mortal wound inside. — Sonia Johnson

By the exercise of his will he has set his course, and on that course he will stay as if guided by an automatic pilot. If blown off course for a moment by some adverse wind he will surely return again as by a secret bent of the soul. — A.W. Tozer

I was on automatic pilot; ideas for gadgets kept coming, fed by a force of energy flowing through me and around me. — Trevor Baylis

In the future, you'll simply jump into your car, turn on the Internet, turn on a movie and sit back and relax and turn on the automatic pilot, and the car will drive itself. — Michio Kaku

With two sons born eighteen months apart, I operated mainly on automatic pilot through the ceaseless activity of their early childhood. I remember opening the refrigerator late one night and finding a roll of aluminum foil next to a pair of small red tennies. Certain that I was responsible for the refrigerated shoes, I quickly closed the door and ran upstairs to make sure I had put the babies in their cribs instead of the linen closet. — Mary Blakely

But the biggest clue seemed to be their expressions. They were hard to explain. Good-natured, friendly, easygoing ... and uninvolved. They were like spectators. You had the feeling they had just wandered in there themselves and somebody had handed them a wrench. There was no identification with the job. No saying, "I am a mechanic." At 5 P.M. or whenever their eight hours were in, you knew they would cut it off and not have another thought about their work. They were already trying not to have any thoughts about their work on the job. — Robert M. Pirsig

I don't know about living on an automatic pilot, but I've had times where I've decided to just test myself and my mettle, and for no good reason other than it's what life is. Even before I was acting, I had, like, one day in high school I decided to just show them my pajamas, just for no good reason. — Will Ferrell

They need to review this secret world. We have an incredibly powerful government that gets on automatic pilot. — Bob Woodward

When we endure our own tragedies or trials, most of us develop some empathy and compassion for others who are suffering. The trick is to keep that sense of compassion going throughout our daily lives, when we are likely to go on automatic pilot and move back into being judgmental, especially when times are tough. — William Hudson O'Hanlon

How could I have missed it? Easy. Deep in grief over Casey leaving, I'd gone on automatic pilot this morning, barely glancing in the mirror as I brushed my hair, smoothed on my makeup. I clamp down on the impulse to dig out a mirror and check out the 'mark. — Magda Alexander

I've not been a prolific poet, and it always seemed to me to be a bad idea to feel that you had to produce in order to get ... credits. Production of a collection of poems every three years or every five years, or whatever, looks good, on paper. But it might not be good; it might be writing on a kind of automatic pilot. — James Fenton

One very important domain of our lives and experience that we tend to miss, ignore, abuse, or lose control of as a result of being in the automatic pilot mode is our own body. — Jon Kabat-Zinn

If crimes are committed, they are committed by people; they are not committed by some free-floating entity. These companies and other entities don't operate on automatic pilot. There are individuals that make decisions - and some make the right decisions, and some make the wrong decisions. — Jed S. Rakoff

The two-point rhythm of walking's stride clears the mind for thinking. (N.B.: Perhaps, after telling the spinal circuits to "take a walk," the forebrain shifts to automatic pilot, so to speak, freeing the neocortex to ponder important issues of the day.) Many philosophers were lifetime walkers, who found that bipedal rhythms facilitated creative contemplation and thought. In his short life, e.g., Henry David Thoreau walked an estimated 250,000 miles--ten times the circumference of earth. — David B. Givens

But when we start to focus in on what our own mind is up to, for instance, it is not unusual to quickly go unconscious again, to fall back into an automatic-pilot mode of unawareness. These lapses in awareness are frequently caused by an eddy of dissatisfaction with what we are seeing or feeling in that moment, out of which springs a desire for something to be different, for things to change. — Jon Kabat-Zinn

My grandfather was an engineer who invented the automatic pilot for airplanes. — Temple Grandin

Many people don't know about the power of good feelings, and so their feelings are reactions or responses to what happens to them. THey have their feelings on automatic pilot, instead of deliberately taking charge of them. When something good happens, they feel good. When something bad happens, they feel bad. They don't realize that their feelings are the cause of what is happening to them. As they react with negative feelings to something that has happened, they give out more negative feelings, adn they receive back more negative circumstances. — Rhonda Byrne

Your goal, as a creative investor, is to launch your ship into financial orbit ... and then put it on automatic pilot. — Robert G. Allen

Appreciation involves being alert to the positive aspects of the current situation and feeling thankful for what one has and for one's circumstances. This requires not only a positive perspective in the present but also conscious awareness of features in the surround. The latter, in fact, is something that may be surprisingly rare. Especially when we are engaging in routine activities, we often do so mindlessly (Langer, 1997) or as though we were on automatic pilot (Cialdini, 1993). If we learn to bring our attention to the current state, we can choose to focus on positive aspects of the situation and to remind ourselves of the potential sources of good feelings that might otherwise pass unnoticed. — Sandra L. Schneider

The truth is, I've been going pretty much nuts all year. I constantly have to fight being scattered. I feel like I'm on automatic pilot from fatigue. The hardest thing is trying to be present, living for the moment, for everybody in the family. — Patricia Richardson