Counter Productive Quotes & Sayings

I think technology is such that we can reach new heights but we need some of the basics of the pre-technological age. It's counter-productive to be able to type a hundred words a minute but not know what the words mean. — Larry Gelbart

The advocates of retaliatory wars will continue to assume a much simpler reality with their hoary oppositions: Religious and secular, backward and enlightened, free and unfree. But if we are to admit how deeply and irrevocably interconnected our world is, then we must find new ways to break the cycle of counter-productive violence. — Pankaj Mishra

Reform has to be based on opening your mind and opening the mind does not come from decrees or laws. It comes from a whole set of circumstances, which if you do not have, anything you do will be not productive or will be counter-productive. — Bashar Al-Assad

Moreover, seeing ourselves as a majority led at times to both a theological downgrade and a counter-productive public stance. The application of the promises to Israel to the United States of America, for example, caused many to miss, as we will see in the next chapter, the meaning of the kingdom of God, and thus to bypass Jesus Christ himself. The idea of America as a Christian nation is able to get "Amens" in the churches only as long as the churches believe America is, at least in some ways, with us and not against us. But what happens when the cultural climate starts to shift in obvious ways? If the church believes the United States is a sort of new Israel, then we become frantic when we see ourselves "losing America." We then start to speak in gloomy terms of America as, at best, Babylon, a place of hopeless exile, or, at worst, Gomorrah, slouching toward the judgment of God. — Russell D. Moore

War is an irrational, counter-productive way to handle conflicts. — Lawrence S. Wittner

I told the President, I told Rahm Emanuel and others in the administration that I thought the policy they took to try to bring about negotiations is counter-productive, because when you give the Palestinians hope that the United States will do its negotiating for them, they are not going to sit down and talk. — Chuck Schumer

I have a problem with people saying feminine means anti-feminist, and I think it's counter-productive to immediately associate anything 'girly' with vanity or stupidity. — Tavi Gevinson

Every administration has this idea to talk tough to Israel and make nice to the Arabs and the Palestinians, and that's the way to bring about peace. It's counter-productive - it's actually the opposite. — Chuck Schumer

Often buyers make the mistake of believing they must have a specific home in mind first. That's counterproductive, counter-successful thinking. Moving through the loan application process early is the most productive and most successful. — Keller Gary

The lesson here is that high expectations can be counter-productive. We probably can do more to affect the quality of our lives by controlling our expectations than we can by doing virtually anything else. The blessing of modest expectations is that they leave room for many experiences to be a pleasant surprise, a hedonic plus. The challenge is to find a way to keep expectations modest, even as actual experiences keep getting better. — Barry Schwartz

The idea of abstracting away the one thing that must be blindingly fast, the kernel, is inherently counter productive. — Linus Torvalds

Tara. I'm a vampire," Pearl said.
"Yeah, whatever, and I'm queen of the sea."
"Your Marine Majesty, I'm a vampire," Pearl said.
Concentrating, she slid her fangs out. "Tara. Tara!" She curled back her lips to expose the points. "See"
Tara screamed.
"I won't hurt you," Pearl said. Calm down. Sheesh."
Tara continued to scream.
Pearl considered biting her merely to shut her up. Regrettably that would be counter productive. Studying her nails, she waited for Tara to quit screaming. She noticed that Tara didn't try to exit the car, which was an interesting choice.
"You aren't running away," Pearl said.
"Duh, it's raining outside," Tara said. — Sarah Beth Durst

When you work with someone you don't quite know, you have to figure the director out and you can come up with ideas that are counter-productive. — Stellan Skarsgard

I sympathize with people who want to ban guns, but I can't agree with them. We have to be careful in our zeal to abolish guns that we don't wind up with counter-productive legislation that will leave armed only the people most likely to do harm with them. — Hugh Downs

Deep down, all of us are probably aware that some kind of mystical evolution is our true task. Yet we suppress the notion with considerable force because to admit it is to admit that most of our political gyrations, religious dogmas, social ambitions, and financial ploys are not merely counter-productive but trivial. — Tom Robbins

We are all on a collision course with ourselves. Inevitably, our existing habits will be counter-productive to achieving our bigger picture goals. To avoid the crash, we need to regularly review how we are doing things and make adjustments as needed. — John Fairclough

The vast carnival of cruelty called animal exploitation goes on and on
and it is all so needless, even counter-productive. There is already an adequate (often superior) non-animal substitute for virtually everything obtained by animal suffering and slaughter ... — H. Jay Dinshah

Earth is abundant with plentiful resources. Our practice of rationing resources through monetary control is no longer relevant and is counter-productive to our survival. — Jacque Fresco

It is more important to move on to positive actions without stopping to wallow in anger about injustices -- including the unjust suppression of inventors. Exposing the skeletons in the closet serves to enlighten, but getting off-message with retribution will be counter-productive. — Jeane Manning

This life is only a test' is a counter-productive mindset; it encourages wishful thinking toward and elusive and likely non-existent afterlife while often enabling the believer to squander this life as somehow less important. — David G. McAfee

Campaigning against religion can be socially counter-productive. If teachers take the uncompromising line that God and Darwinism are irreconcilable, many young people raised in a faith-based culture will stick with their religion and be lost to science. — Martin Rees

I don't like to be labeled, to be anything. I've made the mistake before myself of labeling my music, but it's counter-productive. — Neil Young

The more you watch users carefully and listen to them articulate their intentions, motivations, and thought processes, the more you realize that their individual reactions to Web pages are based on so many variables that attempts to describe users in terms of one-dimensional likes and dislikes are futile and counter-productive. Good design, on the other hand, takes this complexity into account. — Steve Krug

Another longstanding foreign policy flaw is the degree to which special interests dictate the way in which the "national interest" as a whole is defined and pursued ... America's important historic relationship with Israel has often led foreign policy decision-makers to defer reflexively to Israeli security assessments, and to replicate Israeli tactics, which, as the war in Lebanon last summer demonstrated, can turn out to be counter-productive. — Samantha Power

We needed to be uncompromising with our workforce, to expect 100 percent of our employees to comply 100 percent of the time with complex and ever-changing government mandates. Striving to comply with every law does not mean agreeing with every law. But, even when faced with laws we think are counter-productive, we must first comply. Only then, from a credible position, can we enter into a dialogue with regulatory agencies to demonstrate alternatives that are more beneficial. If these efforts fail, we can then join with others in using education and/or political efforts to change the law. — Charles Koch

I've found that sitting around and obsessing about projects moving forward, when there's actually nothing I can do about it, at a certain point, is really counter-productive. — Danny Strong

I have gotten disturbed at ... some of the Democrats' anti-business behavior, the sentiment, the attacks on work ethic and successful people. I think it's very counter-productive. — Jamie Dimon

Putting labels on people is so counter-productive. Most of us on some issues could be considered conservative, on other issues could be considered progressive, on other issues might be thought of as being moderate, on other issues might be thought of as being rather forthright. — Tony Abbott

I was frequently embarrassed by the way Margaret conducted herself within the European Community. Her tactics were counter-productive and damaging to the UK's interests. On most issues her approach was foolish. Her style and tone of voice came to irk the others so much that they instinctively sank their differences and joined forces against her. — Nigel Lawson

I think the word is counter-productive. Capitalism is counter-productive to art, just as the Catholic Church was counter-productive to art four hundred years ago. — Mick Farren

Trying to effect change in others is a lost cause especially if you are unwilling to first change yourself. It's easier to focus on other people's issues or shortcomings rather than look inward. It's counter-productive to try to clean someone else's house, while your house is a disaster. Not to mention, hypocritical. Start with yourself and then worry about others. ~Jason Versey — Jason Versey

Broader social concerns within Muslim communities, such as discrimination, integration or socio-economic disadvantages, should be treated distinctively and not as part of counterterrorism agenda, which has been counter-productive. — Maajid Nawaz

Terrorists hate Americans. Indians hate each other. A terrorist will blow up an airport. Indians like to work at the airport. That would be counter-productive. — Russell Peters

Government is at best useless, and at worst counter-productive. — Kakha Bendukidze

The first step into getting in the zone is to turn off your judgment switch. Let go, and move away from a nagging inner voice, questions, or anything that prevents you from getting things done. Other negative thoughts might include not being productive out of fear that your work will turn out to be unacceptable. Don't worry about the quality of work you are creating. You have to keep your energy flowing and continue to contribute, that's the most important part, whether the work is good or not. We become stagnant and procrastinate because we want things to be just right; we want to feel inspired and good, before we start working. This is counter intuitive because once we start working, that is when we will begin to feel inspired from the creation of our own work. Get your dream energy rolling now. — Christian Cee

The battle for the acceptance of photography as Art was not only counter-productive but counter-revolutionary. The most important photography is most emphatically not Art. — A. D. Coleman

How can creativity be bad? You can have, "I liked it" or "I didn't like it," but, in the end, it's an individual experience. How can you even begin to define that? I find that sometimes extremely arrogant and counter-productive. — Nicolas Winding Refn

Julia Roberts was really rather lovely. I had to interview her on Pebble Mill At One years ago. You learn not to be starstruck if you're trying to get a decent interview out of someone. If you fall apart it's counter productive. — Alan Titchmarsh

I learned a long time ago that place matters to me, on many levels, and maybe more than it should, but it is generally counter-productive for me to resist it. — Val Kilmer

The way the [welfare] programs are organized, poor people are only paid to do things that are counter-productive - such as breaking up their families, such as not earning above a certain level of income. — Thomas Sowell

The British bombing of Caen beginning on D-Day in particular was stupid, counter-productive and above all very close to a war crime. — Antony Beevor

Though the details differ across the world, no known culture lacks some version of the time-consuming, wealth consuming, hostility provoking rituals, the anti-factual, counter-productive fantasies of religion. — Richard Dawkins

Pushing myself against my own will really, because some of this stuff is hard. I don't consider myself to be a great guitar player, so pushing myself as a guitar player or pushing myself as a singer, as a performer, and just riding that fine line between being so hard on yourself that it's counter-productive and being so hard on yourself that nothing is ever good enough is what drives me. — Cody Johnson