Effective Thinking Quotes & Sayings

He doesn't necessarily have to learn the sky hook. He just has to learn how to be an effective post player. I think I can help him do that. — Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

I have huge admiration for people who think like the effective altruist, who try to rationally think about how they can change the world for the better, and who try not to be swayed by irrational considerations, such as skin color or whether or not someone lives in the same neighborhood. — Paul Bloom

I wish that after the war against Saddam Hussein we had been more effective at rebuilding Iraq quickly. I think had we done it from the provinces, in, rather than from Baghdad, out, we might have been more successful. — Condoleezza Rice

If everyone could learn how to read books properly and how to use them as effective tools for daily living, the facilities of colleges could easily go out of existence without any loss to society.' -From a speech by the president of Mount Holyoke College, as reported in the Philadelphia Public Ledger, May 13, 1938 — Francis Beauchesne Thornton

The effective thinker treats arrogance as the major sin of thinking. — Edward De Bono

I am in favor of cutting taxes under any circumstances and for any excuse, for any reason, whenever it's possible.
The reason I am is because I believe the big problem is not taxes, the big problem is spending. The question is, 'How do you hold down government spending? The only effective way I think to hold it down, is to hold down the amount of income the government has. The way to do that is to cut taxes — Milton Friedman

The fact is that much of advertising's power comes from this belief that advertising does not affect us. The most effective kind of propaganda is that which is not recognized as propaganda. Because we think advertising is silly and trivial, we are less on guard, less critical, than we might otherwise be. It's all in fun, it's ridiculous. While we're laughing, sometimes sneering, the commercial does its work. — Jean Kilbourne

I spend way too much time on Facebook and MySpace to feel too uncomfortable at this. I like to think of the Internet as an effective way to waste time and time. — Jim Gaffigan

The definition of horror is pretty broad. What causes us "horror" is actually a many splendored thing (laughs). It can be hard to make horror accessible, and that's what I think Silence of the Lambs did so brilliantly - it was an accessible horror story, the villain was a monster, and the protagonist was pure of heart and upstanding so it had all of these great iconographic elements of classic storytelling. It was perceived less as a horror movie than an effective thriller, but make no mistake, it was a horror movie and was sort of sneaky that way. — Bryan Fuller

The government is already involved from an entertainment standpoint. I mean, they regulate a large part of our entertainment. What we're trying to do as an industry is be proactive and drive it much more positively, much more effectively, than the government can, and that's what the ESA is all about[ ... ]We think we're doing a pretty effective job, and certainly from an Nintendo perspective, we think the ESA is the way to go. — Reggie Fils-Aime

Nourish your reasoning skills my friend, they are the most effective tool you can ever have in the path of progress. — Abhijit Naskar

He has an awareness of what's happening around him on the edge of the box which is better than most players. As a kid he always had a knack of arriving in the penalty area just at the right time, but he's proving just as effective from outside the box because he's using his experience in the right way. It doesn't matter who I am thinking about bringing into my midfield, Paul Scholes will be included, as he would in any side in the world. — Alex Ferguson

We humans have a wide range of abilities that help us perceive and analyze mathematical content. We perceive abstract notions not just through seeing but also by hearing, by feeling, by our sense of body motion and position. Our geometric and spatial skills are highly trainable, just as in other high-performance activities. In mathematics we can use the modules of our minds in flexible ways - even metaphorically. A whole-mind approach to mathematical thinking is vastly more effective than the common approach that manipulates only symbols. — William Thurston

If someone has not learned to stop and admire something beautiful, we should not be surprised if he or she treats everything as an object to be used and abused without scruple. If we want to bring about deep change, we need to realize that certain mindsets really do influence our behaviour. Our efforts at education will be inadequate and ineffectual unless we strive to promote a new way of thinking about human beings, life, society and our relationship with nature. Otherwise, the paradigm of consumerism will continue to advance, with the help of the media and the highly effective workings of the market. — Pope Francis

When you write a program, think of it primarily as a work of literature. You're trying to write something that human beings are going to read. Don't think of it primarily as something a computer is going to follow. The more effective you are at making your program readable, the more effective it's going to be: You'll understand it today, you'll understand it next week, and your successors who are going to maintain and modify it will understand it. — Donald Knuth

I have evolved to where I don't think the death penalty is effective. — Evelyn Lundberg Stratton

My father ... used to say, 'I need my anger. It obliges me to take action.' I think my father was partly right. Anger arises, naturally, to signal disturbing situations that might require action. But actions initiated in anger perpetuate suffering. The most effective actions are those conceived in the wisdom of clarity. — Sylvia Boorstein

If life becomes hard to bear we think of a change in our circumstances. But the most important and effective change, a change in our own attitude, hardly even occurs to us, and the resolution to take such a step is very difficult for us. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

thinking of API design as resource design is a very effective way to avoid thinking about hypermedia. — Leonard Richardson

The only planning I do is about a minute before I play. I desperately try to think of something that will be effective, but I never sit down and work it out note for note. — Eric Clapton

What you do makes you better at what you think. What you think makes you more effective at what you do. — Ralph Marston

If you have fun at your job, I think you're going to be more effective. — Meg Whitman

Detachment is not indifference. it is the prerequisite for effective involvement. Often what we think is best for others is distorted by our attachments to our opinions. We want others to be happy in the way we think they should be happy. It is only when we want nothing for ourselves that we are able to see clearly into others needs and understand how to serve them. — Mahatma Gandhi

We are spending hundreds of billions of dollars maintaining 5,000 nuclear weapons. I think we need major reform in the military, making it more cost effective, but also focusing on the real crisis that faces America. — Bernie Sanders

The programme of the British Labour Party under Neil Kinnock is so wildly irresponsible, so separate and apart from the historic NATO strategy, that I think a Labour government that stood by its present policies and I rather doubt that they would would, if it didn't destroy the Alliance, at least diminish its effective ability to do the task for which it was created. — Richard Perle

The three most effective incentives to human action may be ... classified as creed, greed and dread ... In examining the scientist it is perhaps worth while to examine how far he is moved by these three incentives. I think that, rather peculiarly and rather exceptionally, he is very little moved by dread ... He is in fact essentially a person who has been taught he must be fearless in his dealing with facts. — Robert Watson-Watt

I do think I've learned, in the ensuing years, how to be a more effective bandleader. And maybe, just maybe, we're a little better on our instruments. — David First

Your mind is not just the wonderful power house that empowers your action and steps or the driver of your life but a wonderful city. A city in which people and things you think about dwell. Create therefore an effective and efficient licensing office in the city of your thought that will ensure that the right people and things live there. Do well to ensure that you differentiate between people and things that should stay permanently, those that should be just passersby and that which should not even get closer to this wonderful city. If you allow anything at all into this city, the city shall be filled with anything at all and you shall think about anything at all. Mind your mind! — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

Beliefs constitute the basic stratum, that which lies deepest, in the architecture of our life. By them we live, and by the same token we rarely think of them ... One may symbolize the individual life as a bank of issue. The bank lives on the credit of a gold reserve which is rarely seen, which lies at the bottom of metal coffers hidden in the vaults of the building. The most elementary caution will suggest that from time to time the effective condition of these guaranties
of these credences, one might say, that are the basis of credit
be passed in review. — Jose Ortega Y Gasset

Call it holistic or holographic thinking, it's been quite effective imagining the world's problems are all right in front of you on a smaller scale with your band. You deal with those relationships, and that's where real major change begins. — Stone Gossard

You can learn great things from your mistakes when you aren't busy denying them. Read The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. — John Spence

Music is just one of the tools a director has with which to paint and I think it's one of the most effective. — Todd Phillips

When thinking through who to bring together to generate new ideas, it is more effective to combine specialists from very different and unrelated disciplines rather than a variety of people with different skills sets in the same field. — Simon Mainwaring

Prohibition didn't work, so why should emancipation work? I think we should just stick with a system that has proven to be effective. — Zach Braff

There is no rigorous and effective deconstruction without the faithful memory of philosophies and literatures, without the respectful and competent reading of texts of the past, as well as singular works of our own time. Deconstruction is also a certain thinking about tradition and context. Mark Taylor evokes this with great clarity in the course of a remarkable introduction. He reconstitutes a set of premises without which no deconstruction could have seen the light of day. — Jacques Derrida

Hope is not wishful thinking. It's not a temperament we're born with. It is a stance toward life that we can choose ... not not. The real question for me, though, is whether m hope is effective, whether it produces or is just where I hide to ease my own pain. — Frances Moore Lappe

Revenge is the thinking man's reflex, a complex blend of action and consistency no other animal species has so far succeeded in evolving. Evolutionary speaking, the practice of taking revenge has shown itself to the so effective that only the most vengeful of us have survived. — Jo Nesbo

I think the danger right now is that without effective inspections, without effective monitoring, Iraq can in a very short period of time measured in months, reconstitute chemical and biological weapons, long-range ballistic missiles to deliver these weapons, and even certain aspects of their nuclear weaponization program, — Scott Ritter

That is, contrary to the dominant thinking on this issue, the data show that the more regulated public school sector embraces more innovative and effective professional practices, while independent schools often use their greater autonomy to avoid such reforms, leading to curricular stagnation. — Christopher A. Lubienski

With the right Mindset ... effective thinking is automatic. — Tony Dovale

When you are writing a spoken word poem, the tools you're working with are your voice, your body, how it's going to sound to someone when you're saying it out loud. Which is different from when you're writing it on the page. That toolbox becomes how does this look visually on the page, how does this read among pages, how is this in relation to poems that are before it or after it. I don't think one is better or more successful than the other. You've just gotta think about "what are the tools I'm using, and how are they most effective in this form?" — Phil Kay

I think if a candidate ran for office in most states in the country, if his opponent, or her opponent was an effective advocate against the TPP and could show, as I think we will be able to show, it's detrimental to working Americans, I think they would have a hard time getting elected. — Jeff Sessions

The Santa myth is one of the most effective means ever devised for intimidating children, eroding their self- esteem, twisting their behavior, warping their values, and slowing their development of critical thinking skills. — Tom Flynn

As far as CGI and hand-drawn animation, I consider them both nothing more than tools for drawing pictures, the same as crayons or oils. Which is why, to me, the most important thing is what it is you are drawing, and in the themes that I depict, I think hand-drawing is the most effective. — Mamoru Hosoda

When I'm naked, I really like to do push-ups. No. I think I really tackle it like everything else. If you're going to commit yourself to playing something, you have to be able to understand it. If you can understand it, then you can do it and go balls out with it. But, I've never been in a position where I've been like, "This doesn't feel right." I wouldn't do it, if it was that. I like the shock value of it. I think that, if you use it correctly, it's pretty effective, as long as I'm lit really, really, really well. — Charlize Theron

To make our communications more effective, we need to shift our thinking from "What information do I need to convey?" to "What questions do I want my audience to ask? — Chip Heath

If you ask ... the man in the street ... the human significance of mathematics, the answer of the world will be, that mathematics has given mankind a metrical and computatory art essential to the effective conduct of daily life, that mathematics admits of countless applications in engineering and the natural sciences, and finally that mathematics is a most excellent instrumentality for giving mental discipline ... [A mathematician will add] that mathematics is the exact science, the science of exact thought or of rigorous thinking. — Cassius Jackson Keyser

Affirmations are so easy that some people think they are too simple to be effective. — Ruth Fishel

Schools must inquire deeper into their own practices, explore new ways to motivate their learners, make use of learning styles, introduce multiple intelligences, integrate learning, and teach thinking, and in the process discover the passion and moral purpose that makes teaching exciting and effective. — Michael Fullan

I think Americans expect optimism in their leadership. The most popular and effective leaders, whether it was Bill Clinton or Ronald Reagan or Jack Kennedy, brought to it a sense of optimism and possibility. — David Brooks

Any Church community, if it thinks it can comfortably go its own way without creative concern and effective cooperation in helping the poor to live with dignity and reaching out to everyone, will also risk breaking down, — Pope Francis

I closed my eyes and took more of those deep breaths Dad was so fond of, thinking that it was no wonder Prodigium were always getting their asses handed to them by humans. I mean, every time I had to do an intense spell, there was all this focusing, and relaxing, and picturing, and breathing...It wasn't exactly the most effective battle strategy against something like The Eye.
I should've known better than to think about The Eye,though. As soon as the name popped into my head, my control shattered.
And so did the terra-cotta pot.
Black soil rained down on my feet, and the purple flower drooped even further. I could have sworn it actually bobbed accusingly at me.
"Ugh," I groaned, as Cal quickly scooped the jagged pot out of my hands. "Sorry,but I warned you I was destructo-girl. — Rachel Hawkins

I think What Dreams May Come is the most important (read effective) book I've written. It has caused a number of readers to lose their fear of death the finest tribute any writer could receive ... Somewhere In Time is my favorite novel. — Richard Matheson

But the idea of using the Apache resistance, one, it works effective to actually get German soldiers to think of Jews that way. You know, and they're not just any Jews. They're the American Jews. They're Jews with entitlement. — Quentin Tarantino

Information cannot serve as an effective substitute for thinking. — Bernard Baruch

In truly effective thinking the prime necessity is to liquidate judgments, regain an innocent eye, disentangle feelings, be curious and open-hearted. — Walter Lippmann

It's characteristic of democracy that majority rule is understood as being effective not only in politics but also in thinking. In thinking, of course, the majority is always wrong. — Joseph Campbell

The best way to deal with excessive thinking is to just listen to it, to listen to the mind. Listening is much more effective than trying to stop thought or cut it off. — Ajahn Amaro

More than seven out of 10 people have found The Landmark Forum to be one of life's most rewarding experiences. To me, this suggests that The Landmark Forum addresses many of people's most profound concerns how to improve their personal and professional relationships, how to be a more effective person, how to think productively about their life and goals. — Daniel Yankelovich

Curiosity is an effective way to disruptive thinking and innovation for us. — Megan Coulter

I think I can say without fear of contradiction that we could generate sorties at an extremely high level and bring very, very effective air power to bear in support of our troops. — Bill Vaughan

I think that the United States has always been most effective when it is leading both from power and principle. — Condoleezza Rice

Many persons swear by positive thinking, and quite a few have been helped by it. Nevertheless, it is not a very effective tool and can be downright harmful in some cases. — Srikumar Rao

It does not always help to analyze and think about problems with your rational mind. Sometimes it is far more effective to turn to your inner self, to ask the universe for help. Simply sit quietly. Take a few deep breaths and focus your awareness within. Ask your wise inner self, either silently or aloud, for guidance or help in understanding the message. As you get a sense of what feels right, act on this feeling. — Shakti Gawain

When I was a young hippy, I thought marching naked would be a strong protest, but I don't think it would be as effective now. — Germaine Greer

Becuase of dualistic, sacred/secular thinking among Christians, a truly effective application of biblical thought and practice to the whole of our culture "out there" has been short-circuited. Christians have become their own worst enemies, having spiritualized themselves right out of the ball game and on to the bench. — Christian Overman

There is a deep gap between our thinking about statistics and our thinking about individual cases. Statistical results with a causal interpretation have a stronger effect on our thinking than noncausal information. But even compelling causal statistics will not change long-held beliefs or beliefs rooted in personal experience. On the other hand, surprising individual cases have a powerful impact and are a more effective tool for teaching psychology because the incongruity must be resolved and embedded in a causal story. — Daniel Kahneman

Because the eternal principle of agency gives us the freedom to choose and think for ourselves, we should become increasingly able to solve problems. We may make the occasional mistake, but as long as we are following gospel principles and guidelines, we can learn from those mistakes and become more understanding of others and more effective in serving them. — M. Russell Ballard

I don't think more mega-summits is the way to secure effective implementation. — Anders Fogh Rasmussen

Scientific thinking explores and redraws the world, gradually offering us better and better images of it, teaching us to think in ever more effective ways. Science is a continual exploration of ways of thinking. Its — Carlo Rovelli

If the President asked you to help, I don't think anybody could refuse, unless one felt that one couldn't be effective. — Joseph Stiglitz

When everyone thinks something is true, it does not make it anything more than effective marketing. — Clifton Hill

Thinking in a concentrated manner to define desired outcomes is something few people feel they have to do. But in truth, outcome thinking is one of the most effective means available for making wishes reality. — David Allen

The divine knowing - what the Father knows, and what the Word says in response to that knowing, and what the Spirit broods upon under the speaking of the Word - all that eternal intellectual activity isn't just daydreaming. It's the cause of everything that is. God doesn't find out about creation; he knows it into being. His knowing has hair on it. It is an effective act. What he knows, is. What he thinks, by the very fact of his thinking, jumps from no-thing into thing. He never thought of anything that wasn't. — Robert Farrar Capon

Effective thinking consists of being able to arrive at the truth; truth being defined as that which exists. — Calvin S. Hall

What passes for education, culture or maturity in most minds is merely how individuals want to think of themselves, a contrived egocentric self-concept, not actual and effective principles and values. This is what is known in the cliche as the "veneer" of civilization. — Kenny Smith

the more interesting their conversation, the more cultured they are, the more they will be trapped into thinking that they are effective at what they are doing in real business (something psychologists call the halo effect, the mistake of thinking that skills in, say, skiing translate unfailingly into skills in managing a pottery workshop or a bank department, or that a good chess player would be a good strategist in real life). — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

The fundamental question is: 'Will I be a successful president when it comes to foreign policy?' I will be, but until I'm the president, it's going to be hard for me to verify that I think I'll be more effective. — George W. Bush

Just as the education of nerve and sinew is vital to the excellent athlete and education of the mind is vital to the scholar, education of the conscience is vital to the truly proactive, highly effective person. Training and educating the conscience, however, requires even greater concentration, more balanced discipline, more consistently honest living. It requires regular feasting on inspiring literature, thinking noble thoughts and, above all, living in harmony with its still small voice. — Stephen Covey

If you are selective about the things you choose to read, look at or listen to, then you are taking effective action against negative thinking. It's just like with a computer; if you change the input, you will change the output. — Zig Ziglar

Realism to be effective must be a matter of selection.genius chooses its materials with a view to their beauty and effectiveness; mere talent copies what it thinks is nature, only to find it has been deceived by the external grossness of things. — Julia Marlowe

Throw in something extra. Whether it's a coupon for a future discount, additional information on how to use the product, or a genuine smile, people love to get more than they thought they were getting. And don't think that a gesture has to be large to be effective. — Susan Ward

I think the presidency is a bad way to measure the effective campaign finance, because in the presidency, there is so much publicity, there's so much money floating around. — David Brooks

There is no policy which will ever be as effective a deterrent in the mind of the mass marauder as the advance knowledge - the re-thinking - that someone armed will likely be where he was headed. — John Longenecker

I think Americans have every reason to be worried about ISIS and the network of terrorist groups, because they have proven to be sophisticated and effective in wreaking violence and murder in many parts of the world, including in San Bernardino with their somehow connected radicalization of that couple there. — Hillary Clinton

I think violence is part of the struggle against oppression. If something bad happens to these people [animal researchers], it will discourage others. It is inevitable that violence will be used in the struggle and that it will be effective. — Jerry Vlasak

Pretenders try to out-think their opponents as if they were playing chess. Tennis is a martial art. Instinctive fluid action is far more effective than thinking. — Anonymous

I think noogies can be effective if done at the right time and place. — Drew Chadwick

I don't want a job in the administration; I think I'm more effective carping from the sidelines. — Paul Krugman

I like to think of innovation as upgrading your current self. This upgrade helps you to more effectively deal with changes happening around you and to be able to think in a more complex manner than before. — Daniel Willey

I sometimes think that when the prime minister tries to select a weapon it is the boomerang he finds most effective. — John Smith

Homeopathy pills are, after all, empty little sugar pills which seem to work, and so they embody [..] how we can be misled into thinking that any intervention is more effective than it really is. — Ben Goldacre

Sometimes I think that the only effective and productive method of destroying speciesism would be for each uncaring human to be forced to live the life of a cow on a feedlot, or a monkey in a laboratory, or an elephant in the circus, or a bull in a rodeo, or a mink on a fur farm. Then people would be awakened from their soporific states and finally understand the horrors that are inflicted on the animal kingdom by the vilest species to ever roam this planet: the human animal! — Gary Yourofsky

The only effective way to help well-intentioned, intelligent persons to do the best they can in raising children is to encourage and guide them always to do their own thinking in their attempts at understanding and dealing with child-rearing situations and problems, and not to rely blindly on the opinions of others. — Bruno Bettelheim

The thing we have to fear in this country, to my way of thinking, is the influence of the organized minorities, because somehow or other the great majority does not seem to organize. They seem to feel that they are going to be effective because of their own strength, but they give no expression of it. — Al Smith

Strange, but I actually wished I was hungover. Because when you're so busy thinking about how awful you feel you forget for a moment how awful you are. Because pain can be its own relief. Because throwing up is a super-effective way to stay a size 0. — Elizabeth Little

I think the educational value is what comes first. I've always thought that the most effective tools we have for disseminating information, i.e. education, is television and film. — Morgan Freeman

They think that the cure to big government is to have bigger government ... the only effective cure is to reduce the scope of government - get government out of the business. — Milton Friedman

Personally I like the slow burn; I don't think there is anything wrong with it. When I think about the movies that were most effective on me as a viewer I think of the original Haunting and the Exorcist, Rosemary's Baby, the Sixth Sense, the Others. These movies are not over the top at all, they are movies that rely on good story telling, good acting, good premise, good exposition and I want to stay true to that in future projects. — Oren Peli

Give serious thought to why your company should care about your strategy. Specifically, find problems that the board wants to be solved. What are senior managers scared of? Part of becoming a credible strategic thinker is learning effective approaches to selling ideas for your situation. You'll know that you're getting better at selling (or pitching) strategy when managers start coming to you when there is strategic thinking to be done. — Max McKeown