Emotional Thinking Quotes & Sayings

Thinking gets you nowhere. It may be a fine and noble aid in academic studies, but you can't think your way out of emotional difficulties. That takes something altogether different. You have to make yourself passive then, and just listen. Re-establish contact with a slice of eternity. — Etty Hillesum

We're too often guilty of thinking that our parents arrived on this planet as fully functioning adults on the day that we were born. That they don't have pasts of their own prior to our birth. That the father is not also a son, that the mother is not also a child. My mother had a tough beginning, enduring things I know little about. And yet I more often discount her pain and overvalue mine. — Steven Rowley

Don't let any emotional thought concerning success or failure, fame or gain, overtake you, and don't dwell upon them. Give up your personal shortcomings, such as foolish talk, distracting activities, and absentmindedness. Train in being totally gentle in all physical, verbal, or mental activities. Don't ponder the flaws of others; think instead of their good sides. — Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche

Slowly the highlights emerged: sunlight on the Madonna's face, on the curls, left cheek and shoulder of the child. On the foredrapery covering the Madonna's leg, on the back of John as he straddled the balustrade, on the inside of the balustrade itself to accent its importance in the structure. All the rest, the blockseat, stairs, walls were in quiet
shadow. Now, he thought, one saw and felt the crisis, the intense emotional thinking reflected on Mary's face as she felt the tug of Jesus at her breast and the weight of the cross in her hand. — Irving Stone

I think [music and acting], they are connected, all that stuff. It's your emotional self, is pretty much how you do it, I think, from whatever place you do it, whether you're acting or you're singing. — Dolly Parton

To have that concentration to act well is like lugging things up staircases in your brain. I think that's a thing people don't understand. It is that exhausting. If you're doing it well, if you're concentrating the way you need to, if your will and your concentration and emotional and imagination and emotional life are all in tune, concentrated and working together in that role, that is just like lugging weights upstairs with your head ... And I don't think that should get any easier. — Philip Seymour Hoffman

Cognitive skills such as big-picture thinking and long-term vision were particularly important. But when I calculated the ratio of technical skills, IQ, and emotional intelligence as ingredients of excellent performance, emotional intelligence proved to be twice as important as the others for jobs at all levels. — Daniel Goleman

Feelings take you into uncharted territory from time to time it's true, but you almost always benefit from the journey one way or the other. We tend to think of the rational as a higher order, but it is the emotional that marks our lives. — Merle Shain

People change their behavior and thinking not because they are "told to be different" but when the conditions are present that require and empower them to figure out what to do and to act on a plan. Try giving teenagers a lot of advice and see if it changes behavior. They probably don't look at you and say, "Gee, Dad, or Mom, thanks for explaining reality to me. Now I will run out and do it." But if you provide context - by listening, sharing information and positive examples, setting expectations and consequences, creating a healthy emotional climate, and challenging them to do their best - they will figure it out and implement it. That is a lot better than just "telling them what to do. — Henry Cloud

You are 100% emotional in everything you think, feel and decide. You decide emotionally and justify logically. — Brian Tracy

Mindfulness removes the emotional fogs of negative thoughts with the light of awareness. — Amit Ray

When you walk to the end of a fiction, its procedure is 1) intuitive; and 2) emotional. Its intelligence is emotional, I think. — Fred D'Aguiar

I don't know why so many of my fans assume I'm a better person than them. They're not alone in their challenges. I think the more I know, the harder it gets to handle human beings. With every challenge I overcome, comes a new one that throws me back to the ground again. Every time I start thinking I'm invincible, I'm defeated. And I don't trust anyone that isn't living inside the same cycle, because that's what evolution is. Whatever my books truthfully promote, they also hide in the depths of your emotional response to whatever happens to you. — Robin Sacredfire

Our ancestors lived in groups of no more than a few hundred people, and those on the other side of a river or mountain range might as well have been living in a separate world. We developed ethical principles to help us to deal with problems within our community, not to help those outside it. The harms that it was considered wrong to cause were generally clear and well defined. We developed inhibitions against, and emotional responses to, such actions, and these instinctive or emotional reactions still form the basis for much of our moral thinking. — Peter Singer

I think that it is real important for someone to be really honest and open emotionally. I'm really an emotional person. If I'm that way and the guy isn't that way I just really feel like a jerk. — Molly Ringwald

In terms of writing, I think something happens to you, and you think, "Oh I'm going to write about that. That's an emotional event." But obviously, if you keep going, and it's something you do with regularity, you've got to find other ways to write. — David Gray

A lot of people are just really confused by me; they don't know what to think of me, so they try to compartmentalize me or diminish me. Maybe they just feel unsafe. But any time you have an overtly emotional or irrational, negative reaction to something, you're fearing something that it's bringing up in you. — Madonna Ciccone

It seemed like so much of romantic relationships today have to do when the people are not in the same room. Whether it's texting or emailing or Facebooking, there's a kind of distance between the participants. I think it's sort of shifted the energy of that first romantic meeting, where it's quicker, perhaps more desperate, more energetic, in a whole different way, and it's resulted in a situation where people seem to be sometimes more comfortable having a sexual relationship than an emotional one. — Ivan Reitman

I tend to go against the grain because when I start to see that everybody's trying to shock, I try not to. I just do stuff that's subtler, more emotional, and I think that shocks people. — Sandra Bernhard

I don't think the emotional quality is the defining quality of the music but it's definitely something that people have picked up on a lot — Win Butler

The mind we have when we practice zazen is the great mind: we don't try to see anything; we stop conceptual thinking; we stop emotional activity; we just sit. Whatever happens to us, we are not bothered. We just sit. It is like something happening in the great sky. Whatever kind of bird flies through it, the sky doesn't care. That is the mind transmitted from Buddha to us. — Shunryu Suzuki

Some children are threatened with loss of privileges such as money, cell phones, cars or even eviction from home if they do not 'toe-the-line' and 'act straight'. I don't think parents who do such things consider for a moment the kind of emotional damage they are doing to their children - or thinking beyond their own feelings about the situation - which will not change or go away simply because of their denial. — Christina Engela

I think, in all honesty, the first place that someone in emotional distress should turn is their loved ones, and then to use professionals ... — Peter Kinderman

I'm against sloppy, emotional thinking. — Herman Kahn

I feel like being nerd is not about the superficial quality; it's about how nerds approach life. It's much more emotional and mental than it is you're some fat guy living in your mom's basement, which I think is just a hacky stereotype. — Chris Hardwick

There are some superficial things that connect me to the stream. There's instrumentation, there's timbre, use of electronics, the way that samples are used, the way the electric guitar is used. I'm thinking of things that are particular to this era. But I don't always feel particularly close to the music of my peers. I often feel that I have more in common with writers and visual artists. I try to connect to people in an emotional kind of way. — Missy Mazzoli

Focus attention on the feeling inside you. Know that it is the pain-body. Accept that it is there. Don't think about it - don't let the feeling turn into thinking. Don't judge or analyze. Don't make an identity for yourself out of it. Stay present, and continue to be the observer of what is happening inside you. Become aware not only of the emotional pain but also of "the one who observes," the silent watcher. This is the power of the Now, the power of your own conscious presence. Then see what happens. — Eckhart Tolle

There are dimensions to me that are not just the thinking person, but the person who is much richer, the person who has other emotional experiences, psychological experiences, these experiences also enrich me. — George Coyne

What you saw was the people of New York having a debate, talking through these issues. It was contentious; it was emotional; but, ultimately, they made a decision to recognize civil marriage. And I think that's exactly how things should work. — Barack Obama

[On married love]
This love is above all fully human, a compound of sense and spirit. It is not, then, merely a question of natural instinct or emotional drive. It is also, and above all, an act of the free will, whose trust is such that it is meant not only to survive the joys and sorrows of daily life, but also to grow, so that husband and wife become in a way one heart and one soul, and together attain their human fulfillment.
It is a love which is total - that very special form of personal friendship in which husband and wife generously share everything, allowing no unreasonable exceptions and not thinking solely of their own convenience. Whoever really loves his partner loves not only for what he receives, but loves that partner for the partner's own sake, content to be able to enrich the other with the gift of himself. — Pope Paul VI

I usually think of art as having a measurable content of nourishment, whether factual or emotional or whatever, and I try to make sure that whatever I do has as much nourishment as I can muster. — Jeffrey Lewis

I think fiction can help us find everything. You know, I think that in fiction you can say things and in a way be truer than you can be in real life and truer than you can be in non-fiction. There's an accuracy to fiction that people don't really talk about - an emotional accuracy. — A.M. Homes

You have to be able to look objectively at the problem, deflating the emotional part of it. — Pearl Zhu

I think, being emotional is this thing that people think you're not strong. They don't look at you as a strong person, and it's weird 'cuz honestly being emotional has nothing to do with your strength. — Melanie Martinez

People tell me that I'm always smilin' on the court. I don't think about it. I just get emotional out there. — Lamar Odom

It's amazing how once the mind is free of emotional pollution, logic and clarity emerge. — Clyde DeSouza

There's something that intervenes and is very important which has to do with value. Value in the true biological sense, which is that contrary to what many people seem to think, taking it at face value - sorry for the pun - we do not give the same amount of emotional significance to every event. — Antonio Damasio

Don't react to any angry actions, words and behaviours. Keep your quiet spirit, peace and calmness. — Lailah Gifty Akita

I think we start suffering as soon as we come out of the womb. I think that people tend to stereotype. When they think of suffering, they think of abuse - physical abuse, emotional abuse, poverty, that kind of thing. There's different levels of suffering. I don't think that it has to do with how much money you have - if you were raised in the ghetto or the Hamptons. For me it's more about perception: self-perception and how you perceive the world. — Lucinda Williams

I think it backfired. It wasn't what I expected, it was difficult. I didn't expect them to throw somany mind games into it. I didn't expect to be so emotional, but I asked for it really. I'ma glutton for punishment. — Sophie Anderton

I like to think of music as an emotional science. — George Gershwin

Maybe it was a good thing that Bones was putting Don's remains away instead of me. With my current emotional state, I'd probably think the only safe place for his ashes was tucked inside my clothes next to the garlic and weed. — Jeaniene Frost

Every time I work with Dr. Luke I learn something new. He's kind of like the Andy Warhol of pop music, where he mass produces his art but it always still has heart and always still has an emotional thread to it. I think he's really a genius and I'm so lucky to have gotten to work with him. — Bonnie McKee

Ringo: 'I do get emotional when I think back about those times. My make-up is emotional. I'm an emotional human being. I'm very sensitive and it took me till I was forty-eight to realize that was the problem! We were honest with each other and we were honest about the music. The music was positive. It was positive in love. They did write - we all wrote - about other things, but the basic Beatles message was Love. — Ringo Starr

I think maybe what happened was the convenience of technology overshadowed the experience of holding an album in your hands, and sitting on your bedroom floor, and staring at a picture of John Lennon or Gene Simmons or Johnny Rotten. That tangible experience can sometimes become an even more emotional experience, because it's really happening. — Dave Grohl

Reflecting on various aspects of our lives is essential for a person to grow and adjust to changing phases in their life. Self-analysis entails examining a person's existing level of self-esteem and documenting the inner voice that speaks to a person, which is frequently either affirming of self-defeating. Failure to periodically engage in self-analysis, make crucial revisions in our personas, and modify our thinking patterns when we encounter transformative events in life can lead to mood disorders, burnout, and other emotional maladies. — Kilroy J. Oldster

I think the book is less emotional than the film. With the film, the emotions are much more raw and in front. In the book, they are kind of ironized and seen through comedy. — Salman Rushdie

I guess he was such an open, emotional vessel that I think he tapped into human nature, so it just left people wondering what would have happened. I think James Dean would be 83 today. He could be here, what would he be doing? — Dane DeHaan

Death is, and must be, deeply emotional. To intentionally cause death is to engender a form of intimacy, one that we're not used to thinking about. To kill without emotion and without respect, or to ignore the intimacy inherent in the act, is to rob it of its dignity, and to rob the life that you are ending of its significance. By robbing death and life of significance we reduce ourselves to the machines Descartes dreamed about. And we deny our own significance. — Derrick Jensen

People just tell me I'm supposed to be sensitive, and I'm not. But I think I'm very emotional. I'm very caring. — Vince Staples

I became an actor at a very young age, but I also had a deep respect for nature and I think I was sort of a little biologist when I was younger. I watched documentaries on rainforest pollution and the loss of species and habitats for animals around the world. It affected me in a very hardcore, emotional way when I was younger. So, later in life I wanted to continue that path more and investigate and learn more about ecological issues. — Leonardo DiCaprio

I don't really identify with America, I don't really feel like an American or part of the American experience, and I don't really feel like a member of the human race, to tell you the truth. I know I am, but I really don't. All the definitions are there, but I don't really feel a part of it. I think I have found a detached point of view, an ideal emotional detachment from the American experience and culture and the human experience and culture and human choices. — George Carlin

Whether your focus is on preserving and strengthening family ties in a world of increasingly unstable relationships, gaining access to a decent job, growing and evolving as a person, or guiding a company through the stormy seas of a fiercely competitive global marketplace-whether your goals are material, emotional, or spiritual-the price of success is the same: thinking, learning. To be asleep at the wheel-to rely only on the known, familiar, and automatized-is to invite disaster. — Nathaniel Branden

The Republican Party is slightly ahead of Democrats when it come to devaluing any traditional understanding of foreign and national security policy. This is not surprising, because in all other matter of public policy, the GOP has strictly subordinated practical governance and problem solving to the emotional thematics of an endless political campaign. Whether the topic is Iran, Russia, or the proper level of defense spending at a time of high deficits, the GOP's stance has little to do with the merits of the situation; it is a projection of domestic political sloganeering. Taking a position on anything, whcther it be Ukraine or the efficacy of drones, boils down to a talking-point projection of focus groups-tested emotional themes: strength versus weakness, standing tall versus cutting and running, acting versus thinking." pp. 157-158 — Mike Lofgren

Politicians and others are stuck in a horrible world where being emotional in any way counts as being unbalanced, and unable to think clearly. For me, emotions are thought. — Hofesh Shechter

It is interesting to note that although our limbic system functions throughout our lifetime, it does not mature. As a result, when our emotional "buttons" are pushed, we retain the ability to react as though we were a two year old, even when we are adults. As our higher cortical cells mature and become integrated in complex networks with other neurons, we gain the ability to take "new pictures" of the present moment. When we compare the new information of our thinking mind with the automatic reactivity of our limbic mind, we can reevaluate the current situation and purposely choose a more mature response. — Jill Bolte Taylor

There really still is a deep wound, you know, in the collective psyche of Pakistan. And the violence has left enormous human and emotional and psychic damage. That's not going to go away. But that said, I think I'm cautiously optimistic that we're looking at a better future. — Mohsin Hamid

There are other kinds of emotional pain that emerge from our own mistaken thinking. As we surrender that pain, we are inviting into our thought system a guide who will lead us to different thoughts. It's like the song "Amazing Grace": I was blind and now I see. — Marianne Williamson

Alas, we think of ourselves as unique entities-minds unlike any others-and thus we often reject the lessons that the emotional experience of others has to teach us. — Daniel Gilbert

The central attitudes driving Mr. Right are:
You should be in awe of my intelligence and should look up to me intellectually. I know better than you do, even about what's good for you.
Your opinions aren't worth listening to carefully or taking seriously.
The fact that you sometimes disagree with me shows how sloppy your thinking is.
If you would just accept that I know what's right, our relationship would go much better. Your own life would go better, too.
When you disagree with me about something, no matter how respectfully or meekly, that's mistreatment of me.
If I put you down for long enough, some day you'll see. — Lundy Bancroft

I think the need to believe in religion is and always was a need to know.
Satisfying the NEED TO KNOW, be it by really knowing, by thinking we know or by believing we know, is very comforting for man.

Be it by "direct" knowledge,
Be it by "emotional" knowledge,
Be it by "gut-felt" knowledge,
Be it by "spiritual" knowledge,
Be it by "transcendental" knowledge,
Be it by "meditative" knowledge,
Be it by "inspiration",
Be it by "revelation",
Be it knowing by faith or
Be it by understanding,

We definitely are one humanity under "need to know". — Haroutioun Bochnakian

He was the monster that no one thought to look for in the light of day. It was a common mistake. People often believed they were safer in the light, thinking monsters only came out at night. But safety - like light - is a facade. Underneath, the whole world is drenched in darkness. — C.J. Roberts

Stop thinking like Alice in Wonderland, Celia told herself sternly. You're a grown-up, it's no use shutting your eyes, wishing things would happen — Maeve Binchy

One of the heaviest load so many people are carrying today is neither thoughts about things they lack nor things they wish to have, nor how to manage what they already have, but toxic words that have taken a greater portion of their thoughts and such words not just occupying a great part of their hearts, but also draining their very joy in life! — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

I just know from experience that reading a funny poem aloud, especially at the beginning of a public reading, can have a certain effect. Somehow narrowing the spectrum of possible emotional reactions. So while I like it when people laugh at my poems, and I definitely enjoy being funny in them, I don't really think that's the most important thing that's going on, at least not to me. — Matthew Zapruder

Finally we are being told the truth: life isn't always easy and pleasant. We already know this to be true, but somehow we tend to go through life thinking that there is something wrong with us when we experience sadness, grief, and physical and emotional pain. The first truth points out that this is just the way it is. There is nothing wrong with you: you have just been born into a realm where pain is a given. — Noah Levine

It's not enough to identify the Superobjective intellectually; you have to justify it, to find the emotional drive behind it. You need your own specific interpretation of the superobjective so that every time you think of it, it makes you emotional and drives you into action. — Larry Moss

A good leader ... maintains a balance between emotional drive and sound thinking. — Haile Selassie

You know, I think my biggest concern [if Mitt is elected], obviously, would just be for his mental well-being. I have all the confidence in the world in his ability, in his decisiveness and his leadership skills, in his understanding of the economy, in his understanding of what's missing right now in the economy - you know, pieces that are missing to get this jump-started. So for me I think it would just be the emotional part of it. — Ann Romney

As an animal lover and as a sometime-meat-eater, I've read so much about the emotional sophistication of pigs and cows and sheep that I do think twice when I do still eat them on occasion. — Bryan Fuller

I think the emotional toolbox I have is healthy for an actor, as far as the intensity of emotions go. It's other things I have to hone. I can swim in that comfortably. — Shannyn Sossamon

The critical mind is too thin and cold, thinking itself will help little and reason will be of small avail; only the spirit of reasonableness, a sort of warm, glowing, emotional and intuitive thinking, joined with compassion, will insure us against a reversion to our ancestral type. Only the development of our life to bring it into harmony with our instincts can save us. I consider the education of our senses and our emotions rather more important than the education of our ideas. — Lin Yutang

He could see her planting violets on his grave, a solitary figure in a grey cloak. What a ghastly tragedy. A lump came to his throat. He became quite emotional thinking of his own death. He would have to write a poem about this.
from a Difference in Temperament — Daphne Du Maurier

For me, I like to show what guys are like when no one is looking and how we really are, and that we can be emotional and have these emotional lives. I think it would be great to do a film where we see some females and what's going on there when we're not around. — David Ayer

But my heart is agitated, It has its dreams, it gets emotional, and it's become passionate over a woman of the desert. It asks things of me, and it keeps me from sleeping many nights, when I'm thinking about her — Paulo Coelho

These people are amazing. It's so emotional I was thinking about wearing waterproof mascara. — Victoria Beckham

Those who are truly alive are kindly and unsuspecting in their human relationships and consequently endangered under present conditions. They assume that others think and act generously, kindly and helpfully, in accordance with the laws of life. This natural attitude, fundamental to healthy children as well as primitive man, inevitably represents a great danger in the struggle for a rational way of life as long as the emotional plague subsists, because the plague-ridden impute their own manner of thinking and acting to their fellow men. A kindly man believes that all men are kindly, while one infected with the plague believes that all men lie and cheat and are hungry for power. In such a situation, the living are at an obvious disadvantage. When they give to the plague-ridden they are sucked dry, then ridiculed or betrayed. — Wilhelm Reich

According to this new evidence, most of our thinking (including our moral judgment) is not a pristinely rational process in the traditional sense, and therefore reasoning is not a bloodless, emotionless, purely formal logical process. Instead, we need an intact and functioning emotional apparatus in order for our reason to have any possibility of operating appropriately in a given situation. — Mark Johnson

The music is the imperative. It has the upper hand. I think all music, even though it's an abstraction, does motivate a particular meaning. Then it's the job of the musician to honor that meaning and to somehow implement lyrical material that can accommodate that emotional environment. — Sufjan Stevens

Everything I think I can't say 'cause it'd come out fucking emo, like, if I were to say what I've been thinking all day, every day: I don't know if I can go on like this forever; or, I'm also always thinking, it shouldn't be this hard just to have a brain. Everyone has a brain. — Elissa Washuta

You're over there in the corner either thinking about the dead dog or whatever, you're bringing up your personal life and you need the space, and then somebody throws you a joke. Especially if it's an emotional scene, you don't want the joke. — Marcia Gay Harden

I feel like we want to compartmentalise things and say, 'Well, that's emotional, artistic and subjective, while this is intellectual, objective and measured.' I have difficulty thinking that's the way we experience things. — Shane Carruth

We define emotional intelligence as the subset of social intelligence that involves the ability to monitor one's own and others' feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them and to use this information to guide one's thinking and actions. — Peter Salovey

I think that it drives from an emotional connection with everybody that pulls you through all of those events, whether it's the events or what would be more the action, or I guess the visual effects side of it. So it always starts with me from - emotionally - 'Why do you care about the people who are going through what they're going through?' Because it takes a hell of a lot to put them through that. So you better care for them when they're doing it. — Len Wiseman

My friend Wicker once said to be careful what and how you say what you're really thinking to a woman. After much screwing up in that department with Emma, I've learned it's not what you should hide, but what you say that makes her react the way she does. If I am unable to make myself clear, as I so often do, it's more likely going to go to pot if I try to explain how I really feel. Instead, I rework in my brain what she needs to hear. I don't always nail it, but I'm getting better at it. And it's always the truth even if it isn't how I see it.
Is it deceiving? No. It's being considerate and aware that she is an emotional creature, and that for some crazy reason, craves my attention. I love to make her happy. My jumbled up mess of a mind isn't important in the long run if it just confuses her. So I chose words carefully. When something goes right, I use it over and over again. -Ames — Cyndi Goodgame

Men are no more immune from emotions than women; we think women are more emotional because the culture lets them give free vent to certain feelings, "feminine" ones, that is, no anger please, but it's okay to turn on the waterworks. — Una Stannard

Why don't you ever wait a second and see what I'm planning, or thinking, before you burst in with your opinions and ideas? You never even give me a chance. — Sarah Dessen

She frowned, thinking of going down there and explaining herself all over again, reliving the horror of finding Mimi's body and trying not to think of how she'd looked when they'd dragged her up and out of the ravine. No sooner had she thought it than she heard Mimi's voice, chastising her over a year ago.

"You hide from life, Catherine. Even when you're in the middle of it, standing toe to toe with all the bad guys you bring in, you manage to keep an emotional distance. I understand why you do it, but ultimately, you're the one who will suffer. You're the one who's going to grow old alone."

Cat blinked back tears, remembering what she'd told her.

I won't be alone, Mimi. I'll always have you.

Obviously she had been wrong. — Sharon Sala

If the ego is to attain a condition of tranquillity in which to exercise discrimination, consciousness and the differentiated function must be as far removed as possible from the active field of emotional components. All differentiated functions are liable to be disturbed by them, but the disturbance is most evident in the case of thinking, which is by nature opposed to feeling and even more to emotionality. — Erich Neumann

One that we can admire aesthetically and participate viscerally in. So the goal here, and we've had some early, small screenings, what seems to be kind of happening is that you come in thinking you're going to see a cool robot boxing movie, you don't expect this emotional underdog, father/son movie. And it's not one that's soft and overly sentimental, but hopefully it's one that's poignant. — Shawn Anthony Levy

I think that both musicals and opera have a capacity to get to an inner emotional landscape. — Julie Taymor

In our culture we tend to equate thinking and intellectual powers with success and achievement. In many ways, however, it is an emotional quality that separates those who master a field from the many who simply work at a job. Our levels of desire, patience, persistence, and confidence end up playing a much larger role in success than sheer reasoning powers. Feeling motivated and energized, we can overcome almost anything. Feeling bored and restless, our minds shut off and we become increasingly passive. — Robert Greene

We think that this is just our world and we don't know what other people are thinking. Music actually is a phenomenal connector in that respect. It's a special language that defines certain boundaries and connects people in a particular way, a very emotional way, I have found. — Annie Lennox

The fact that I do place music at the end of my films is not to accentuate the emotion. It serves an opposite purpose which is to remove them from the emotional space and allow them to enter a space of thinking, because I believe that when the audience is watching the film they're watching it with their feelings. — Asghar Farhadi

Perceptions, our ways of thinking, and our behavior. It is a question of bringing about a complete reversal of mental habits by reducing emotions in a gradual process of study, reflection, and meditation - in other words, familiarization. That is how we refine the mind and purify it through a training that actualizes its potential. We learn to master the stream of our consciousness, to control the emotional obscurations, without letting ourselves be dominated by them. That is the path toward realization of the absolute nature. Our practice integrates all the aspects and all the various levels of the Buddha's teaching. — Dalai Lama XIV

Visionary feminism is a wise and loving politics. It is rooted in the love of male and female being, refusing to privilege one over the other. The soul of feminist politics is the commitment to ending patriarchal domination of women and men, girls and boys. Love cannot exist in any relationship that is based on domination and coercion. Males cannot love themselves in patriarchal culture if their very self-definition relies on submission to patriarchal rules. When men embrace feminist thinking and preactice, which emphasizes the value of mutual growth and self-actualization in all relationships, their emotional well-being will be enhanced. A genuine feminist politics always brings us from bondage to freedom, from lovelessness to loving. — Bell Hooks

The Hollywood atmosphere of crises and continuous anxiety is a kind of hysteria which prevents people from thinking, and is not too different from the way dictators use wars and continuous threats of war as an emotional basis for maintaining their power. — Hortense Powdermaker

The other extremely important point I wish to make is the importance of taking not only mental action on your own, but also taking emotional action on your own, and physical action on your own. For example, let's say you are looking for a job. It is definitely a good idea to pray to GOD and the Masters for help and they will help you. It is also essential, however, for you to not only do your own brainstorming and planning and thinking about what you want to do and how you are going to find this job, but it is essential to take physical action and do something. You may have to go for job interviews. You may have to go to parties or social gatherings and network with people. You have to act when opportunities arise. — Joshua Stone

I don't think that anyone can really understand anything until it's understood on a cellular, emotional level. — Rebecca Hall

What luck! If the theories of Epictetus, Karen Horney (who first talked about the "tyranny of the shoulds"), Alfred Korzybski (the founder of general semantics), and REBT are correct, you almost always bring on your emotional problems by rigidly adopting one of the basic methods of crooked thinking - musturbation. Therefore, if you understand how you upset yourself by slipping into irrational shoulds, oughts, demands, and commands, unconsciously sneaking them into your thinking, you can just about always stop disturbing yourself about anything. — Albert Ellis