Having A Good Mind Quotes & Sayings

When a phone call competes for attention with a real-world conversation, it wins. Everyone knows the distinctive high-and-dry feeling of being abandoned for a phone call, and of having to compensate - with quite elaborate behaviours = for the sudden half-disappearance of the person we were just speaking to. 'Go ahead!' we say. 'Don't mind us! Oh look, here's a magazine I can read!' When the call is over, other rituals come into play, to minimise the disruption caused and to restore good feeling. — Lynne Truss

N matter how stressed Claire became, the tropical trees and exotic island flowers decorating the lobby always managed to take her breath away and put her mind at ease. Nature had always been a good de-stressor for her coming in close behind having her hand held by Mr. Sam Stewart — Carolyn Gibbs

The desire of talking of ourselves, and showing those faults we do not mind having seen, makes up a good part of our sincerity. — Francois De La Rochefoucauld

And if I'm guilty of having gratuitous sex, then I'm also guilty of having gratuitous violence, and gratuitous feasting, and gratuitous description of clothes, and gratuitous heraldry, because very little of this is necessary to advance the plot. But my philosophy is that plot advancement is not what the experience of reading fiction is about. If all we care about is advancing the plot, why read novels? We can just read Cliffs Notes.
A novel for me is an immersive experience where I feel as if I have lived it and that I've tasted the food and experienced the sex and experienced the terror of battle. So I want all of the detail, all of the sensory things - whether it's a good experience, or a bad experience, I want to put the reader through it. To that mind, detail is necessary, showing not telling is necessary, and nothing is gratuitous. — George R R Martin

good mother will make a point of having sex with several different men, especially when she is pregnant, so that her child will enjoy the qualities (and paternal care) not merely of the best hunter, but also of the best storyteller, the strongest warrior and the most considerate lover. If this sounds silly, bear in mind that before the development of modern embryological studies, people had no solid evidence that babies are always sired by a single father rather than by many. — Yuval Noah Harari

Even years from now, once I've stopped drinking, I will never stop trusting extremes. I will always believe that anything worth having is worth having in excess. The good things are worth hoarding until you have a cookie-fat ass, sex-aching loins, joy that fires through you like popping popcorn, or love, the weakness at the sight of some boy who makes your chest ache like indigestion. If it's good for you, it ought to be good for you in any amount, and you should track down every available bit of it. And if it's toxic, if it turns your liver into a hard little rock of scar tissue, or curls your memory at the edges like something burned in a fire, or makes your stomach flop, or your mind ache, or your personality contorted, you shouldn't buy into the bullshit about temperance. — Koren Zailckas

I am blessed and being blessed is something more than just having something. It is a state of mind in which the good of the world is illuminated, it's understood. It is as if one is vouchsafed a vision of some sort, a vision of love, of 'agape', of the essential value of each and every living thing. — Alexander McCall Smith

We're glad you're here." Brastias stood beside her now, covered in blood, the majority of which she doubted belonged to him.
"Sorry I took so long, my friend." She tested the weight of her blades. As always they felt good in her hands. She was ready.
"Where is he, Brastias?"
"Up there." He pointed to a ridge where she could hear the war cries of men. But between her and her brother lay a battery of troops screaming for her blood.
One soldier ran for her, the blood lust having grabbed hold of his mind. She brought her two swords together, stepping aside as the man's head snapped off his body.
Annwyl smiled at Brastias. "Perhaps you should let me take this from here."
She wondered what he saw on her face when she looked at him, because he visibly blanched and backed away from her. "As always, Annwyl. They're all yours."
Annwyl smiled and charged in, killing all that stood in her way and did not wear the colors of her army. — G.A. Aiken

In doing zazen it is desirable to have a quiet room. You should be temperate in eating and drinking, forsaking all delusive relationships. Setting everything aside, think of neither good nor evil, right nor wrong. Thus having stopped the various functions of your mind, five up even the idea of becoming a Buddha. — Dogen

Suppose you're called on to navigate some particularly difficult life dilemma, your own, or that of a close confidant. You yearn to talk matters over with your mentor, spouse, or best friend. Yet, for whatever reason, you can't get a hold of these valued others - perhaps they're traveling, busy, or even deceased. Research shows that simply imagining having a conversation with them is as good as actually talking with them. So consult them in your mind. Ask them what advice they'd offer. In this way, a cherished parent or mentor, even if deceased, leaves you with an inner voice that guides you through challenging times. Your past moments of love and connection make you lastingly wiser. — Barbara L. Fredrickson

Least hypothesis held no place of preference; Occam's razor could not slice the prime problem, the Nature of the Mind of God (might as well call it that to yourself, you old scoundrel; it's a short, simple, Anglo-Saxon monosyllable, not banned by having four letters - and as good a tag for what you don't understand as any). — Robert A. Heinlein

I would sink into the relief I felt from having friends like these girls. Smart. Patient. Good daughters and sisters. That's who I ran with. That being said, I still went through the young-girl rites of passage, including being kicked out of the group. Almost every girl goes through this weird living nightmare, where you show up at school and realize people have grown to hate you overnight. It's a Twilight Zone moment when you can't figure out what is real. It is a group mind-fuck of the highest kind, and it makes or breaks you. I got through it by keeping my head down, and a few weeks passed and all the girls liked me again. We all pretended it never happened. There should be manuals passed out to teach girls how to handle that inevitable one-week stretch when up is down and the best friend who just slept over at your house suddenly pulls your hair in front of everyone and laughs. — Amy Poehler

I believe in having a few pupils at one time as it requires a constant alert observation of each individual in order to establish a direct relationship. A good teacher can never be fixed in a routine ... each moment requires a sensitive mind that is constantly changing and constantly adapting. — Bruce Lee

Good-girl-gone-queer Lindsay Lohan, divorced single mother Britney Spears, Caitlyn Jenner with her sultry poses, Kim Kardashian having the gall to show up on the cover of Vogue with her black husband: All of them are tied to the tracks and gleefully run over, less for what they've done than for the threat they pose to the idea that female sexuality fits within a familiar and safe pattern. If control over women's bodies were the sole point of the trainwreck, that would be terrifying enough. But it's only the beginning: Shame and fear are used to police pretty much every aspect of being female. After you've told someone what to do with her body, you need to tell her what to do with her mind. — Sady Doyle

Having placed in my mouth sufficient bread for three minutes' chewing, I withdrew my powers of sensual perception and retired into the privacy of my mind, my eyes and face assuming a vacant and preoccupied expression. I reflected on the subject of my spare-time literary activities. One Beginning and one ending for a book was a thing I did not agree with. A good book may have three openings entirely dissimilar and inter-related only in the prescience of the author, or for that matter one hundred times as many endings. — Flann O'Brien

Why should I keep myself so safe?" he asked her, but he was almost asking himself. What is there in my life worth preserving? With a good wife back there in the mountains, serviceable as an old spoon, dry in the heart from having been scared of marriage since she was six? With three children so shy of their father, the Prince of the Arjikis, that they will hardly come near him? With a careworn clan moving here, moving there, going through th same disputes, herding the same herds, as thy have done for five hundred years? And me, with a shallow and undirected mind, no artfulness in word or habit, no especial kindness toward the world? What is there that makes my life worth preserving?
"I love you," said Elphaba.
"So that's that then, and that's it," he answered her and himself. "And I love you. So I promise to be careful. — Gregory Maguire

Oh boy," Lula said when she saw me. "Think we got a good story walking in the door, here. What's with the handcuff?"
"I thought it would look good with the cheese balls in my hair. You know, dress up the outfit."
"I hope it was Morelli," Connie said. "I wouldn't mind being cuffed by Morelli."
"Close," I said. "It was Ranger."
"Uh-oh," Lula said. "Think I just wet my pants."
"It wasn't anything sexual," I said. "It was ... an accident. And then we lost the key."
Connie fanned herself with a manila folder. "I'm having a hot flash. — Janet Evanovich

Before I had satellite radio installed in my car, I thought I would lose my mind listening to commercials and having limited choices on the dial. Your car is your home in L.A., so you've got to have some good stuff to listen to. — Amy Landecker

There was no reason to think she would survive this. So she was surprised to notice that she was happy. Not the powerful, irrational, and dangerous joy of a euphoric attack, but a kind of pleasure and release all the same. At first, she thought it was because there wasn't anyone there with her, guarding her, judging her. And that, she decided, was part of it. But more than that, she was simply doing what needed to be done without having to concern herself about what anyone else thought. Even Jim. And wasn't that odd? She wanted nothing in the world more than for Jim to be there - followed by Amos and Alex and a good meal and a bed at a humane gravity - but there was a part of her that was also expanding into the silence of simply being herself and utterly alone. There were no dark thoughts, no guilt, no self-doubt tapping at the back of her mind. Either she was too tired for that, or something else had happened to her while she'd been paying attention to other things. — James S.A. Corey

We know that we are happy when our mind is peaceful, and unhappy when it is not. It is therefore clear that our happiness depends upon our having a peaceful mind and not on good external conditions. Even if our external conditions are poor, if we maintain a peaceful mind all the time we shall always be happy. — Geshe Kelsang Gyatso

I didn't feel like reading that night, so I went downstairs and watched a half-hour long commercial that advertised an exercise machine. They kept flashing a 1-800 number, so I called it. The woman who picked up the other end of the phone was named Michelle. And I told Michelle that I was a kid and did not need an exercise machine, but I hoped she was having a good night.
That's when Michelle hung up on me. And I didn't mind a bit. — Stephen Chbosky

Good is towing the line, being behaved, being quiet, being passive, fitting in, being liked, and great is being messy, having a belly, speaking your mind, standing up for what you believe in, fighting for another paradigm, not letting people talk you out of what you know to be true. — Eve Ensler

Elizabeth watched as Nick, alternating between teasing and coaxing, persuaded Lizzy to drink the entire glass of lemonade. He's so good with her - with all the children. Someday, he'll make a wonderful father. That unexpected warmth crept into her cheeks again. As if Nick read her mind, his eyes met hers. Elizabeth blushed. Surely he wasn't having similar thoughts about her? — Debra Holland

I have never understood the importance of having children memorize battle dates. It seems like such a waste of mental energy. Instead, we could teach them important subjects such as How the Mind Works, How to Handle Finances, How to Invest Money for Financial Security, How to be a Parent, How to Create Good Relationships, and How to Create and Maintain Self-Esteem and Self-Worth. Can you imagine what a whole generation of adults would be like if they had been taught these subjects in school along with their regular curriculum? — Louise L. Hay

I believe having a vision in mind, a goal let's say, is a good thing. Unfortunately, so many of us are blinded by the greatness of our vision that paralysis and inaction sets in. What I try to do is focus on the individual steps, the moments if you will, and let them lead one to the next. The vision that eventually appears may not be exactly what you had in mind, but it will be the right one for you, because you did the work and you took the necessary action. — Charles F. Glassman

I think of kids. It makes me feel selfish, to be so wary of having a family. Never mind do I have a job or not. I'll have a job soon, a good one. That's not it. I'm in awe of raising, basically, someone so tiny and soft. — Don DeLillo

I believe in having a more open mind and including others who don't share your faith and having dialogue with them. And just having a pure heart and being a good person can bring you closer to God. Because once you believe in one particular religion fully and not others, that requires you to start disliking people who don't share your views. — Ishmael Beah

About four days a week, I do pretty good at having a morning prayer time. But even at that, it's a rambling sort of thing. What I have learned to do better is to try to keep my mind turned toward God and ear inclined toward God throughout the day, and I think I'm doing better at that, but I've got a long way to go. — Max Lucado

And someone, somewhere, was having an even worse time of it than me. I tried to keep that in mind. No matter how crappy your life, someone will probably beat you in the my-life-is-crap category. Not that I don't let myself whine a little now and then, but sometimes it's good to keep your misery in perspective — Lish McBride

There were two things going on: 1) I had already established in my own mind where I wanted to go with the next series, and having James around as a Grey Eminence would have complicated matters. He had had an amazing life and it was time to bid him good-bye. — Raymond E. Feist

What I have always liked best is when he talks about having no memory. No memory of things he'd done just a second before. Good or bad. Because memory is time folding back on itself. To remember is to disengage from the present. In order to reach any success in automobile racing, a driver must never remember. Which is why drivers compulsively record their every move, their every race, with cockpit cameras, in-car video, data mapping; a driver cannot be a witness to his own greatness. This is what Danny says. He says racing is doing. It is being a part of a moment and being aware of nothing else but that moment. Reflection must come at a later time. The great champion Julian Sabella Rosa has said: When I am racing, my mind and my body are working so quickly and so well together, I must be sure not to think, or else I will definitely make a mistake. — Garth Stein

Imagine America as one house on a suburban lane. Years before he became a Jehovah's Witness, Prince knocked on America's door through his music. He came to the door holding a guitar and an umbrella while concealing a Bible. He flirted his way inside the door and told us he had a dirty mind and was controversial, and then he sat down in the living room on the good couch. And, when America's guard was down, because we thought we were having a conversation about sex, Prince eased out his Bible and said, "Let me also tell you about my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. — Toure

I like girls who want to get up and dance and don't mind singing in front of my family - you know, silly stuff. Some girls won't eat in front of boys or won't go bowling. They just want to go out and look pretty. I don't really get that. I want someone who is up for having a good time. — Olly Murs

Don't let your mind stop you from having a good time. — Jason Mraz

Try to meditate as you would engage in a good conversation: maintain a sense of openness, without judgment or anticipating what is going to be said next. As I already noted (but almost can't emphasize too much), having an agenda prevents you from observing objectively and accepting things as they are. When you first sit down to meditate, briefly check in with yourself. Don't engage in a long monologue about your state of mind; just see how you feel, literally. There's a good chance, especially if you're new to this, you'll find an uneasiness that comes from wanting to do something else or from hoping you'll get some kind of payoff from meditating. Observe what that wanting feels like without trying to change it. Just accept that this feeling or feelings is reality for you at this moment, and that's okay - this too will pass. If you're finding you're having a lot of difficulty concentrating, it can be helpful to check in this way again. — Marshall Glickman

What do you like doing best in the world, Pooh?"
"Well," said Pooh, "what I like best-" and then he had to stop and think. Because although Eating Honey was a very good thing to do, there was a moment just before you began to eat it which was better than when you were, but he didn't know what it was called. And then he thought that being with Christopher Robin was a very good thing to do, and having Piglet near was a very friendly thing to have; and so, when he had thought it all out, he said, "What I like best in the whole world is Me and Piglet going to see You, and You saying 'What about a little something?' and Me saying, 'Well, I shouldn't mind a little something, should you, Piglet,' and it being a hummy sort of day outside, and birds singing."
"I like that too," said Christopher Robin, "but what I like doing best is Nothing. — A.A. Milne

If we do not like what is happening to us, it is a sure sign that we are in need of a change of mental diet. For man, we are told, lives not by bread alone but by every Word that proceeds from the mouth of God. And having discovered the mouth of God to be the mind of man, a mind which lives on Words or inner talking, we should feed into our minds only loving, noble thoughts. For with Words or inner talking we build our world. Let love's lordly hand raise your hunger and thirst to all that is noble and of good report, and let your mind starve e'er you raise your hand to a cup love did not fill or a bowl love did not bless. That you may never again have to say, What have I said? What have I done, O All Powerful Human Word? — Neville Goddard

I focus on having a feminine body, a dancer's body. I do resistance and dance and cardio. I like hiking, swimming, being active. It clears your mind and it's a good way to decompress. — Ashley Greene

It seems to me that if one had kept silence up to now regarding religion, people would still be submerged in the most grotesque and dangerous superstition ... regarding government, we would still be groaning under the bonds of feudal government ... regarding morals, we would still be having to learn what is virtue and what is vice. To forbid all these discussions, the only ones worthy of occupying a good mind, is to perpetuate the reign of ignorance and barbarism. — Denis Diderot

Aryans?" I asked, thinking I must have heard the word incorrectly.
Christian and Allie nodded.
"Aryans as in white supremacist, those sorts of Aryans?"
"Yes," Christian said.
"Neo-Nazis?" My mind was having a hard time grasping the idea of a power-hungry vampire leading an army of Hitler's Youth. "Skinheads and their ilk?"
"Hasi, what is it you find so unbelievable?" Adrian asked, a smile in his voice.
"Oh, I don't know. I guess I just expected that any army Saer raised would be ... you know ... the evil undead." Everyone just looked at me. "Oh, yeah, I guess you're right. Neo-Nazis are more or less the evil undead. Right. So we have Saer about to attack at any moment with a bunch of goose-stepping Nazis. Great. Anyone here do a really good Winston Churchill impression? — Katie MacAlister

She sat silently in her rocking chair. Some people are good at talking, but Granny Weatherwax was good at silence. She could sit so quiet and still that
she faded. You forgot she was there. The room became empty.
Tiffany thought of it as the I'm-not-here spell, if it was a spell. She reasoned that everyone had something inside them that told the world they
were there. That was why you could often sense when someone was behind you, even if they were making no sound at all. You were receiving their
I-am-here signal.
Some people had a very strong one. They were the people who got served first in shops. Granny Weatherwax had an I-am-here signal that bounced off the mountains when she wanted it to; when she walked into a forest, all the wolves and bears ran out the other side. She could turn it off, too. She was doing that now. Tiffany was having to concentrate to see her. Most of her mind was telling her that there was no one there at all. — Terry Pratchett

Those who guide us, who inspire us, having gone our way before, are now partners with us in building a better world. Any success we have is theirs as well as ours. To copy or imitate them should be only the beginning-the apprentice stage of life. It is fine to think, "what will a Shaker do? What would Scott Nearing have said? What would Gandhi have thought?" These are good exercises for the mind, a way of weighing ideas and contemplated actions, valuable so long as we do not follow anyone blindly.
Only by standing on their shoulders can we build a better world, but we should use the wise as advisers, not masters. — William Coperthwaite

Bear in mind, people with eating disorders tend to be both competitive and intelligent. We are incredibly perfectionistic. We often excel in school,athletics,artistic pursuits. We also tend to quit without warning. Refuse to go to school,drop out,quit jobs,leave lovers,move,lose all our money. We get sick of being impressive. Rather,we tire of having to seem impressive. As a rule,most of us never really believed we were any good in the first place. — Marya Hornbacher

There is a twofold knowledge of good of which God has made the mind of man capable. The first, that which is merely notional . . . and the other is, that which consists in the sense of the heart, as when the heart is sensible of pleasure and delight in the presence of the idea of it. In the former is exercised merely . . . the understanding, in distinction from the . . . disposition of the soul. Thus there is a difference between having an opinion that God is holy and gracious, and having a sense of the loveliness and beauty of that holiness and grace. There is a difference between having a rational judgment that honey is sweet and having a sense of its sweetness. A man may have the former that knows not how honey tastes; but a man cannot have the latter unless he has an idea of the taste of honey in his mind. — Timothy Keller

He felt disgruntled and obscurely let down at having paid good money to discover that the vision that had so irradiated his consciousness was a second-hand one. On the other hand, he told himself, probably it was better to hear that a phantom memory had come floating up out of some lecture of his student days than to be informed that he was going out of his mind. — Robert Silverberg

Listen to me. I did not wish to be summoned by your Princess. Summoned, I did not wish to come. But having been summoned, and having come, I mean to give a good account of myself. That's how I was taught by my father, and the men of his age who slew Kings and swept away not merely Governments but whole Systems of Thought, like Khans of the Mind. I would have my son in Boston know of my doings, and be proud of them, and carry my ways forward to another generation on another continent. Any opponent who does not know this about me, stands at a grave disadvantage; a disadvantage I am not above profiting from. — Neal Stephenson

Wyatt was, in fact, finding the Christian system suspect. Memory of his fourth birthday party still weighted in his mind. It had been planned cautiously by Aunt May, to the exact number of hats and favors and portions of cake. One guest, no friend to Wyatt (from a family "less fortunate than we are"), showed up with a staunchly party-bent brother. (Not only no friend: a week before he had challenged Wyatt through the fence behind the carriage barn with - Nyaa nyaa, suckinyerma's ti-it-ty ... ) Wyatt was taken to a dark corner, where he later reckoned all Good works were conceived, and told that it was the Christian thing to surrender his portion. So he entered his fifth year hatless among crepe-paper festoons, silent amid snapping crackers, empty of Christian love for the uninvited who asked him why he wasn't having any cake. — William Gaddis

Was I totally against the idea of having kids with Kat one day? Other than breaking out in hives at the thought of that, the idea wasn't too horrible. Of course, I wanted the white picket fence bullshit ... if it occurred a good ten years from now, and the kids didn't have weird bowl haircuts and couldn't Jedi mind-screw people. — Jennifer L. Armentrout

She stiffened at the thought and cast him a chiding glare. "Put your weapon away."
He arched a daring brow at that. "Why should I when I have half a mind to make good use of it on you?"
"So you admit to having only half a mind, then?"
Rowena & Stryder — Kinley MacGregor

I began to meditate upon the writer's life. It is full of tribulation. First he must endure poverty and the world's indifference; then, having achieved a measure of success, he must submit to a good grace of its hazards...But he has one compensation, Whenever he has anything on his mind, whether it be a harassing reflection, grief at the death of a friend, unrequited love, wounded pride, anger at the treachery of someone to whom he has shown kindness, in short any emotion or any perplexing thought, he has only to put it down in black and white, using it as a theme of a story or the decoration of an essay, to forget all about it. He is the only free man. — W. Somerset Maugham

Lottie strode to the center of the study and stared at Gentry expectantly. She made her manner brisk. "When shall we leave?"
Gentry emerged from the corner. She saw from the flicker in his eyes that he had half-expected her to change her mind after speaking with Westcliff. Now that her choice had been reaffirmed, there was no turning back.
"Now," he said softly.
Her lips parted in the beginnings of an objection. Gentry intended to sweep her away without allowing any opportunity to say good-bye to anyone in the household, not even Lady Westcliff. On the other hand, it would be easier for her to simply disappear without having to explain anything to anyone. "Isn't it rather dangerous to travel at night?" she asked, then quickly answered her own question. "Never mind. If we met with a highwayman, I would probably be safer with him than you."
Gentry grinned suddenly. "You may be right."
-Lottie & Nick — Lisa Kleypas

She wasn't bored. She was surprised to find herself having fun, not being shushed for wisecracks
or expected to sit quietly and behave. It was, she thought, a lot like hanging out with Theo and their
father - only different. Good different. And she was smart enough to realize it was the first women's
outing she'd ever had. Smart enough to understand Pilar knew it, too.
She didn't even mind being dragged into the dress shop, or having the conversation turn absolutely
and completely to clothes and fabric and color and cut.
And when she watched Sophia dash in, windblown, flushed, happy, Maddy at not quite fifteen had
a revelation. She wouldn't mind being like her, like Sophia Giambelli — Nora Roberts

You've got to understand one of the tricks of the modern mind, a tendency that most people obey without noticing it. In the village or suburb outside there's an inn with the sign of St. George and the Dragon. Now suppose I went about telling everybody that this was only a corruption of King George and the Dragoon. Scores of people would believe it, without any inquiry, from a vague feeling that it's probable because it's prosaic. It turns something romantic and legendary into something recent and ordinary. And that somehow makes it sound rational, though it is unsupported by reason. Of course some people would have the sense to remember having seen St. George in old Italian pictures and French romances, but a good many wouldn't think about it at all. They would just swallow the skepticism because it was skepticism. Modern intelligence won't accept anything on authority. But it will accept anything without authority. That's exactly what has happened here. — G.K. Chesterton

Watch well each separate citizen, Lest having in his heart of hearts A secret spear, one still may come Saluting you with cheerful face, And utter with a double tongue The feigned good wishes of his wary mind. — Solon

Therefore the Sophists, with courageous sauciness, pronounce the reassuring words, "Don't be bluffed!" and diffuse the rationalistic doctrine, "Use your understanding, your wit, your mind, against everything; it is by having a good and well-drilled understanding that one gets through the world best, provides for himself the best lot, the pleasantest life." Thus they recognize in mind man's true weapon against the world. This is why they lay such stress on dialectic skill, command of language, the art of disputation, etc. They announce that mind is to be used against everything; but they are still far removed from the holiness of the Spirit, for to them it is a means, aweapon, as trickery and defiance serve children for the same purpose; their mind is the unbribable understanding. — Max Stirner

I once mentioned in a school report, how a young man in one of our English training colleges having to paraphrase the passage in Macbeth beginning,

Can'st thou not minister to a mind diseased?

turned this line into, "Can you not wait upon the lunatic?" And I remarked what a curious state of things it would be, if every pupil of our national schools knew, let us say, that the moon is two thousand one hundred and sixty miles in diameter, and thought at the same time that a good paraphrase for

Can'st thou not minister to a mind diseased?

was, "Can you not wait upon the lunatic?" If one is driven to choose, I think I would rather have a young person ignorant about the moon's diameter, but aware that "Can you not wait upon the lunatic?" is bad, than a young person whose education had been such as to manage things the other way — Matthew Arnold

My Creed

To live as gently as I can;
To be, no matter where, a man;
To take what comes of good or ill
And cling to faith and honor still;
To do my best, and let that stand
The record of my brain and hand;
And then, should failure come to me,
Still work and hope for victory.

To have no secret place wherein
I stoop unseen to shame or sin;
To be the same when I'm alone
As when my every deed is known;
To live undaunted, unafraid
Of any step that I have made;
To be without pretense or sham
Exactly what men think I am.

To leave some simple mark behind
To keep my having lived in mind;
If enmity to aught I show,
To be an honest, generous foe,
To play my little part, nor whine
That greater honors are not mine.
This, I believe, is all I need
For my philosophy and creed. — Edgar A. Guest

When you're having a bad day at work, a lot of times it's your head. When you're having good days, a lot of times it's the absence of the mind. — Curt Schilling

[F]or who ever heard of a Gold-finder that had the Impudence or Folly to assert, from the ill Success of his Search, that there was no such thing as Gold in the World? Whereas the Truth-finder, having raked out that Jakes his own mind, and being there capable of tracing no Ray of Divinity, nor any thing virtuous, or good, or lovely, very fairly, honestly, and logically concludes, that no such things exist in the whole creation. — Henry Fielding

It is the property of a great and good mind to covet, not the fruit of good deeds, but good deeds themselves, and to seek for a good man even after having met with bad men. — Seneca The Younger

If we allow everything access to our mind, we are simply asking to be kept in a state of mental turmoil or bondage. For nothing enters the mind without having an effect for good or evil. — Dallas Willard

There is a great good in returning to a landscape that has had extraordinary meaning in one's life. It happens that we return to such places in our minds irresistibly. There are certain villages and towns, mountains and plains that, having seen them walked in them lived in them even for a day, we keep forever in the mind's eye. They become indispensable to our well-being; they define us, and we say, I am who I am because I have been there, or there. — N. Scott Momaday