Constructive Thinking Quotes & Sayings

Granted you want to go beyond ideas and beyond thought, but that takes years of practice. If you must think, think good thoughts, happy thoughts, and constructive thoughts. — Frederick Lenz

Music, first of all, is completely about abstraction, which is exactly what architecture is not. In a way, it has been incredibly constructive to know what true abstraction is. So you don't fall into the trap of thinking that what you do is abstract. — Rafael Vinoly

Personally I think there is only one thing to do: find the task we have been placed on this earth to do, and accomplish it as best we can, with all our strength, without making things complicated or thinking there's anything divine about our animal nature. This is the only way we will ever feel that we have been doing something constructive when death comes to get us. — Muriel Barbery

Critical feedback shared in good faith is inherently a constructive dialogue. A "critique," a term that is both a noun and a verb, represents the systematical application of critical thought, a disciplined method of analysis, expressing of opinions, and rendering judgments. — Kilroy J. Oldster

During my time here [Guantanamo], as Nelson Mandela says ... the most important thing you have is time to think about things. I came to the conclusion that ... you're not going to gain anything with hate. Second thing, it's more destructive than it's constructive. Third thing: I came to a conclusion that love and forgiveness are more constructive and will bring people together. — Omar Khadr

Thinking without constructive action becomes a disease. — Henry Ford

Doctor James Rowland Angell has said that 'any program may be regarded as educational (and here we may substitute the words 'a public service') in purpose which attempts to increase knowledge, to stimulate thinking, to teach techniques and methods, to cultivate discernment, appreciation, and taste, or to enrich character by sensitizing emotion and by inspiring socialized ideals that may issue on constructive conduct. — Judith C. Waller

We do not make very full value of the opportunities provided by technology because we prefer critical to constructive thinking, argument to design. — Edward De Bono

Jazz is really about the human experience. It's about the ability of human beings to take the worst of circumstances and struggles and turn it into something creative and constructive. That's something that's built into the fiber of every human being. And I think that's why people can respond to it. They feel the freedom in it. And the attributes of jazz are also admirable. It's about dialogue. It's about sharing. And teamwork. It's in the moment, and it's nonjudgmental. — Herbie Hancock

Choose the positive. You have choice, you are master of your attitude, choose the positive, the constructive. Optimism is a faith that leads to success. — Bruce Lee

We are approaching a new age of synthesis. Knowledge cannot be merely a degree or a skill ... it demands a broader vision, capabilities in critical thinking and logical deduction without which we cannot have constructive progress. — Li Ka-shing

I finish a lot of lyrics while I'm in the water and it's always pretty constructive for me to get out in the water. I'm not actually writing the words down, but I have time to think about words, and doing a lot of surfing usually gives me a little space and peace of mind to finish things up. — Jack Johnson

As the brain of man is the speck of dust in the universe that thinks, so the leaves - the fern and the needled pine and the latticed frond and the seaweed ribbon - perceive the light in a fundamental and constructive sense. ... Their leaves see the light, as my eyes can never do. ... They impound its stellar energy, and with that force they make life out of the elements. — Donald C. Peattie

Pedagogy, like language itself, can either liberate or imprison ideas, inspire of suffocate constructive thinking. — Hyman Bass

If I had done nothing more than bring McCabe's talents to the attention of what has become a world-wide audience--if I had done only this job, I believe I'd have established myself as a force for mass education and enlightenment with immediate and constructive effects on the thinking portion of the population. My association with McCabe has been enough to build a career for anyone.

{Julius on legendary scholar Joseph McCabe} — E. Haldeman-Julius

We cannot create blueprint for future society, but it is good to think about that. It is good to have in mind a goal. It is constructive, it is helpful, it is healthy, to think about what future society might be like, because then it guides you somewhat what you are doing today, but only so long as this discussions about future society don't become obstacles to working towards this future society. Otherwise you can spend discussing this utopian possibility versus that utopian possibility, and in the mean time you are not acting in a way that would bring you closer to that. — Howard Zinn

Taking part in your own creation is as simple as changing your mind. The way you think literally creates your everyday reality. Obsessive and negative thinking fosters a negative or even hostile lifestyle. Positive and constructive thoughts create happiness and contentment in the same manor. The fortunate thing for us is that the frequency wave of a positive thought far exceeds that of a negative one, so even if we suffer through a bout of depression or anger, a few positive thoughts can easily reverse the damage we have created in ourselves — Gary Hopkins

Our minds work like a garden. It is fertile ground that accepts any and everything we plant. Good or evil, constructive or destructive, our lives will bear the fruit of the seeds we plant in our minds. — Iyanla Vanzant

We are particularly proud of our youth. I think we have never had a stronger generation of young men and women than we have today. For the most part they are true to the faith of their forebears. Surrounded by forces that would pull them down and tremendous pressures to pull them away from time-tested virtues, they are going forward with constructive lives, nurturing themselves both intellectually and spiritually. We have no fears or doubts concerning the future of this work. — Gordon B. Hinckley

Serious skeptics, true believers, and seekers of every stripe will want to read Mitch Horowitz's vibrant, probing, and richly researched account of the impact of the positive-thinking movement on every aspect of American life today. Filled with a cast of remarkable characters and many lively tales, One Simple Idea is a readable, responsible examination of the limits and possibilities of mind-power as a source of constructive transformation. — Judith Viorst

Be careful, think about the effect of what you say. Your words should be constructive, bring people together, not pull them apart. — Miriam Makeba

Writing is a never ending journey for me - not only for my own comfort, but as a strong medium for encouraging a healthy process of constructive thinking among my readers — Debalina Haldar

If you want to get positive results you have to refuse to think negative thoughts by substituting them with constructive ones. When you develop a positive attitude toward life, your life will start having a positive result. — Roy Bennett

There is no such thing as constructive criticism. There is constructive advice, constructive guidance, constructive counsel, encouragement, suggestion, and instruction. Criticism, however, is not constructive but a destructive means of faultfinding that cripples all parties involved. Don't be fooled into thinking otherwise. — Richelle E. Goodrich

The Chinese government thinks China and the U.S. should develop a constructive relationship of cooperation, — Jiang Zemin

True thinking takes place within a frame of continuous historical development in which progress in understanding is being made ... No constructive thinking that is worth while can be undertaken that sets at nought the intellectual labours of the centuries that are enshrined in tradition, or be undertaken on the arrogant assumption that everything must be thought through de novo as if nothing true had already been done or said. He who undertakes that kind of work will inevitably be determined unconsciously by the assumptions of popular piety which have already been built into his mind. — T.F. Torrance

One of the tests for positive thinking, for constructive thinking, is to test one's idle moments. At those times, is one's mind turning over negative critical thoughts; fighting battles that have been won or lost; rehashing senseless arguments? If so, then one is out of tune. But if one is thinking how to improve a situation or a procedure, how to gain a worthwhile objective, then one is on the constructive side of life. — Paul Davis

What I learned constructive about women is that no matter how old they get, always think of them the way they were on the best day they ever had. — Ernest Hemingway,

In order to move our self image higher on the spectrum of performance, we must specifically attack our self-talking and our self-thinking? By using constructive imagination - the eye of faith - we can change our self image. — Hyrum W. Smith

I am not talking about rebelliousness, but giving people time for constructive internal reflection and even daydreaming. A lot of research is suggesting that the more that you demand people's external attention, the less chance you are allowing them to dip into the default mode where daydreams and reflection happen - and lot of great ideas are not going to come from the brute force of work but from personal life experience. Mind-wandering seems to be essential to the creative process, and I don't think a lot of businesses are aware of that fact. — Scott Barry Kaufman

When the positive revolution takes hold it will no longer be enough for politicians to gain points through attack or being negative. Politicians will be expected to be constructive. — Edward De Bono

Donald Trump is a good businessman. He knows how to put the deal together. And I think he'd be a - he'll be a very constructive figure in the White House. — Rick Santorum

Poetry is creative expression; Prose is constructive expression ... by creative I mean original. In Poetry the words are born or reborn in the act of thinking ... There is no time interval between the words and the thought when a real poet writes, both of them happen together, and both the thought and the word are Poetry. — Herbert Read

If you want to dismiss a negative thought, the only way to do so is to think of something positive and constructive. — Emmet Fox

I have spoken of analogy as a constructive method. This, however, should be used only for suggestion, for it is most dangerous. Often we use an analogy and are quite unaware of it. Thus many social and political thinkers have called society an "organism," and have proceeded to deal with it as if it were a large animal. They have thought not in terms of the actual phenomena under consideration, but in terms of the analogy. In so far as the terms of the analogy were more concrete than those of the phenomena, their thinking has been made easier. But no analogy will ever hold good throughout, and consequently these thinkers have often fallen into error. — Henry Hazlitt

We're talking about should we increase taxes? Why not put a tax on carbon emissions. It would raise a lot of money, it would reduce the environmental damages in the future, it would solve so many problems, and it would be a much more constructive thing to do than to think about raising the income tax. — Robert F. Engle

In order to figure this artmaking stuff out, it's trial and error and experimentation, and takes some time and hard thinking. Putting work out in many forms and stages is an extension of how I see things. I feel the art process is best served when it invites comments and constructive criticism from people. — Jim Goldberg

Living each day as a preparation for the next is an exciting way to live. Looking forward to something is much more fun than looking back at somethingand much more constructive. If we can prepare ourselves so that we never have to think, 'Oh, if I had only known, if I had only been ready,' our lives can really be the great adventure we so passionately want them to be. — Hortense Odlum

Let's fight for our happiness by following a daily program of cheerful and constructive thinking. — Dale Carnegie

It is ironic that constructive thinkers are often misunderstood as negative, as they differ from those longing for positivity: constructive thinkers have been conditioned to find positive in negative rather than suffering from the negative in negative. Or as Paul the Apostle wrote, 'I have learned the secret to contentment in any and every circumstance.' He was right. Indeed the Lord is our strength, especially under the commandment to love one another. Otherwise we are nothing and easily thrown about by both our own and other people's mind control in a painful, mental, physical desperation to run from every thought, every thing, and every one not seeming so positive or immediately beneficial to us. — Criss Jami

I think a mentor gets a lot of satisfaction in a couple of ways. They're doing something constructive, so they feel good about that. And when they see the results of this, with the young people they're working with, it's very, very rewarding. — John Glenn

The word constructive means 'carefully constructed, meant to be helpful'. Constructive thinking is therefore the process of carefully thinking or responding in a helpful and solution oriented manner. — Gudjon Bergmann