Quotes & Sayings About Not Concentrating

When you have been concentrating so hard on something you can't stop and your brain gets to racing like a fly-wheel with the weight gone. You'd better just not think. — Ernest Hemingway,

I try to think what the character is thinking. Then, hopefully, I begin to feel it. I act and react not because I'm recalling a dog killed by a fire engine, but because I'm concentrating on what the character is going through. — E. G. Marshall

MARIA. So. How is everyone? Can you hear me? I don't believe in microphones. Singing is first of all about projection. So is speech. People are forgetting how to listen. They want everything blasted at them. Listening takes concentration. If you can't hear me, it's your fault. You're not concentrating. — Terrence McNally

I'm the kind of person who likes to be by himself. To put a finer point on it, I'm the type of person who doesn't find it painful to be alone. I find spending an hour or two every day running alone, not speaking to anyone, as well as four or five hours alone at my desk, to be neither difficult nor boring. I've had this tendency ever since I was young, when, given a choice, I much preferred reading books on my own or concentrating on listening to music over being with someone else. I could always think of things to do by myself. — Haruki Murakami

An untrained observer will see only physical labor and often get the idea that physical labor is mainly what the mechanic does. Actually the physical labor is the smallest and easiest part of what the mechanic does. By far the greatest part of his work is careful observation and precise thinking. That is why mechanics sometimes seem so taciturn and withdrawn when performing tests. They don't like it when you talk to them because they are concentrating on mental images, hierarchies, and not really looking at you or the physical motorcycle at all. They are using the experiment as part of a program to expand their hierarchy of knowledge of the faulty motorcycle and compare it to the correct hierarchy in their mind. They are looking at underlying form. — Robert M. Pirsig

Straight away, remove yourself from the field of spiritual progression , stay away from contemplation and skillful discourse, do not do research or meditate on the divinities, and stop concentrating and reciting textbooks! Tell me, what is the absolute nature of reality which allows no room for doubt? Listen carefully! Stop holding on to this or that, inhabit your true absolute nature, and peacefully enjoy the essence of what it is to be alive! — Abhinavagupta

I still have a stammer that I can control by not opening a sentence with a hard consonant, or by concentrating for a moment, breathing softly down. Growing up, the 'Our Father' was lovely, made for me, the 'Hail Mary' was gorgeous, and 'Glory Be to the Father' was an absolute nightmare. — Colm Toibin

In North Carolina nobody bothers us; we're all about concentrating on the work or our auditions that we're trying to get a flight out for. So all that crap is not something that I'm confronted with on a daily basis. — Katie Holmes

It is the job of conscious rational thought to decide what you want, select the goals you wish to achieve-and concentrate upon these rather than upon what you do not want. To spend time and effort concentrating upon what you do not want is not rational. — Maxwell Maltz

Power consists in making oneself the goal of another person's social instincts, without seeking to satisfy one's own social instincts through him. The other then does everything one asks. Powerlessness consists in wanting or having to satisfy one's social instincts through another person whose social instincts one has not succeeded in concentrating on oneself - one then does everything the other asks. — Esther Vilar

I like dogs. You always know what a dog is thinking. It has four moods. Happy, sad, cross and concentrating. Also, dogs are faithful and they do not tell lies because they cannot talk. — Mark Haddon

I am not in search of friends and confidences. I'm concentrating on being. I live each hour, one by one. My mind is quiet and still. I am no longer waiting for time to pass — Rose Tremain

A lot of painters listen to music, I think, while they paint. But I hate to do that. It's a horror. I can't really listen to the music. I'm not really concentrating on it, and I'm not really concentrating on the painting. — David Lynch

Ask your brain to do math every day, and it gets better at math. Ask your brain to worry, and it gets better at worrying. Ask your brain to concentrate, and it gets better at concentrating. Not — Kelly McGonigal

Who can pray this request and mean it? Only he who looks at the whole of life from this point of view. Such a man will not fall into the trap of superspirituality, so concentrating on God's redemption as to disregard his creation; people like that, however devoted and well-meaning, are unearthly in more senses than one, and injure their own humanity. Instead, he will see everything as stemming ultimately from the Creator's hand, and therefore as fundamentally good and fascinating, whatever man may have made of it (beauty, sex, nature, children, arts, crafts, food, games, no less than theology and church things). Then in thankfulness and joy he will so live as to help others see life's values, and praise God for them, as he does. Supremely in this drab age, hallowing God's name starts here, with an attitude of gratitude for the goodness of the creation. — J.I. Packer

Our minds tell us, and history confirms, that the great threat to freedom is the concentration of power. Government is necessary to preserve our freedom, it is an instrument through which we can exercise our freedom; yet by concentrating power in political hands, it is also a threat to freedom. Even though the men who wield this power initially be of good will and even though they be not corrupted by the power they exercise, the power will both attract and form men of a different stamp. — Milton Friedman

We're not trying to harass the average American. We need to convert this now to a risk-based system, with TSA concentrating and focusing on intelligence, on security, setting up again the parameters of which we do this. — John Mica

My grandmother used to say that flaws are God's greatest gift to humanity, because they give us the opportunity to learn from ourselves and from each other. She said they're not obstacles to perfection, merely signs and guideposts on the path we take in pursuit of it.'
'But if nobody's perfect, no matter how hard we try, then what's the point?'
Harvey didn't look up; he was concentrating hard on his work. 'The universe is infinite; we'll never map its edges, yet NASA keeps on sending up spacecrafts,' he said, folding the metal precisely. 'The point is just to get a little closer. — Anna Jarzab

Liberals have shifted government into a position of being neutral between right and wrong. By concentrating power in government institutions, liberals chisel at the three pillars of society: the family unit, work ethic and faith. That's not good for America. — James G. Watt

Beware of any work for God that causes or allows you to avoid concentrating on Him. A great number of Christian workers worship their work. The only concern of Christian workers should be their concentration on God. This will mean that all the other boundaries of life, whether they are mental, moral, or spiritual limits, are completely free with the freedom God gives His child; that is, a worshiping child, not a wayward one. A worker who lacks this serious controlling emphasis of concentration on God is apt to become overly burdened by his work. He is a slave to his own limits, having no freedom of his body, mind, or spirit. Consequently, he becomes burned out and defeated. There is no freedom and no delight in life at all. His nerves, mind, and heart are so overwhelmed that God's blessing cannot rest on him. — Oswald Chambers

Are we concentrating more on the kingdom of this world than on the kingdom that is not of this world? — Philip Yancey

I would then say that there are two kinds of feeling. The first is to feel in the sense of concentrating your emotions on something immediately available for your understanding: you make your understanding out of the emotions you have about it. The second is to feel in the sense of being affected without trying to understand: something is felt, you do not know what, and it is more important to feel it than to try to understand it, since once you try to understand it you no longer feel it. — Laura Riding

If you are constantly looking over your shoulder at the competition you are not concentrating on the path ahead — Leonie Mateer

Thinking means concentrating on one thing long enough to develop an idea about it. Not learning other people's ideas, or memorizing a body of information, however much those may sometimes be useful. Developing your own ideas. In short, thinking for yourself. — William Deresiewicz

I'm trying to focus on the 100 and 200 breaststroke now. There's no point concentrating on the 50 when it's not in the Olympics. I'm not going to quit the 50 but it's not my priority any more. I'll do it but as part of my bid for gold at the other distances. — Cameron Van Der Burgh

I like my politicians and my judges and my lawyers to be simple. I think if you worry about where your hemline is you're really not concentrating on the world crisis. — Joan Rivers

You don't like my dress?"
The vines of Reed's couture streched toward the tutor, the rose's petal-mouths chomping.
It isn't that, Your Imperial Viciousness. The earthlings will not understand you. Not understanding you, they will be frightened and send their petty authorities to apprehend you."
Ha!"
Of course they'll fail. That isn't the point. But you'll have to wast engery dealing with them instead of concentrating on your niece's destruction. I doubt that the way to achive your aim is to spread your strength across many fronts so that, when it's time to battle Alyss, you many not be at the peak of your powers. Your niece, I gather, shouldn't be underestimated."
Vollrath hadn't graduated from the Tutor Corps for nothing. "I don't like when sound reasoning counters my wishes," Redd hissed. — Frank Beddor

The secret of change consists in concentrating one's energy to create the new, and not to fight against the old. — Dan Millman

Through concentrating on a specialty too early in life, a man becomes a kind of useful machine, but not a harmoniously developed personality. It is essential that the student acquire an understanding for, and a lively feeling for values. Otherwise, with his specialized knowledge, he more closely resembles a well-trained — Hyman George Rickover

THREE STAGES OF MEDITATION There are three stages in meditation. The first is what is called Dharana, concentrating the mind upon an object. I try to concentrate my mind upon this glass, excluding every other object from my mind except this glass. But the mind is wavering. When it has become strong and does not waver so much, it is called Dhyana, meditation. And then there is a still higher state when the differentiation between the glass and myself is lost - Samadhi or absorption. The mind and the glass are identical. I do not see any difference. All the senses stop and all powers that have been working through other channels of other senses are focused in the mind. Then this glass is under the power of the mind entirely. This is to be realised. It is a tremendous play played by the Yogis. — Swami Vivekananda

We must not be hampered by yesterday's myths in concentrating on today's needs. — Harold S. Geneen

Speakers are not supposed to waste time on platitudes, but the capacity of this generation for ignoring the obvious and concentrating on the negative and the obscure is immense. — Arthur Hays Sulzberger

Why is the human need to be in control relevant to a discussion of random patterns? Because if events are random, we are not in control, and if we are in control of events, they are not random, there is therefore a fundamental clash between our need to feel we are in control and our ability to recognize randomness. That clash is one of the principal reasons we misinterpret random events. In fact, inducing people to mistake luck for skills, or pointless actions for control, is one of the easiest enterprises a research psychologist can engage in ask people to control flashing lights by pressing a dummy button, and they will believe they are succeeding even though the lights are flashing at random. Show people a circle of lights that flash at random and tell them that by concentrating they can cause the flashing to move in clockwise direction, and they will astonish themselves with their ability to make it happen. — Leonard Mlodinow

I disagree that Blood Will Out is a memoir in the conventional sense. It's the story of a relationship, primarily, not an individual. The "me" in the book is a specialized version of me, the person who Clark manipulated and fooled. I could cover the same years of my life from an entirely different perspective in another book, by concentrating on my experience as a husband, say. But I was selective. I focused on my duping. — Walter Kirn

Queen had its time and place, and at the moment I'm not concentrating on that era. — Brian May

A good base stealer should make the whole infield jumpy. Whether you steal or not, you're changing the rhythm of the game. If the pitcher is concerned about you, he isn't concentrating enough on the batter. — Joe Morgan

Living simply means concentrating on what's important in light of eternity. And not taking the rest of life too seriously. — Annie Chapman

I hate those TV shows where characters talk about one thing, such as their patient on the operation table (let's say they're a doctor), then you realize they're actually talking about actually talking about themselves. The patient's open-heart surgery is nothing compared to their own messed-up heart or whatever. It's selfish. And means they're not concentrating, which is medical negligence. — Jaclyn Moriarty

The enemy was not waiting for death, they hit back, concentrating all their fire on the cruiser Never Tell Me The Odds, knocking back that ship's shields and forcing it to break away. — Craig Alanson

The blue face! The obscene protrusion of the tongue! The tumefaction of the penis! The penis, well now, that's a surprise, I'd forgotten I had one. What a pity I have no arms, there might still be something to be wrung from it. No, 'tis better thus. At my age, to start manstuprating again, it would be indecent. And fruitless. And yet one can never tell. With a yo heave yo, concentrating with all my might on a horse's rump, at the moment when the tail raises, who knows, I might not go altogether empty-handed away. Heaven, I almost felt it flutter! — Samuel Beckett

Ellie?" he said. Just the reflection of his ice-blue irises seared through me. "Do you know what's coming?" "Goodbye?" I said, only half-joking. Jubal smiled, concentrating again on the road. "Maybe not. — Jamie McGuire

But there is no danger of my not concentrating on cricket. I'm comfortable on the pitch, and that will never change. I have to remember what I do for a living — Andrew Flintoff

Ned passed the next few minutes quietly not dying in his office, and was pleased with how well it was going. He'd stayed alive longer, but now that he was concentrating on it, it felt more like an accomplishment. — A. Lee Martinez

If we spent the majority of our focus just concentrating on our side of the street, not so much on what the next guy is doing, I think I'd get a lot more done - we'd all get a lot more done - and we'd probably have a lot less criticism for everybody else. — Grant Bowler

... Like having to be able to say to yourself, 'I am pretending to sit here reading Albert Camus's The Fall for the Literature of Alienation midterm, but actually I'm really concentrating on listening to Steve try to impress this girl over the phone, and I am feeling embarrassment and contempt for him, and am thinking he's a poser, and at the same time I am also uncomfortably aware of times that I've also tried to project the idea of myself as hip and cynical so as to impress someone, meaning that not only do I sort of dislike Steve, which in all honesty I do, but part of the reason I dislike him is that when I listen to him on the phone it makes me see similarities and realize things about myself that embarrass me, but I don't know how to quit doing them - like, if I quit trying to seem nihilistic, even just to myself, then what would happen, what would I be like? — David Foster Wallace

If you can't put magnolia on a wall then there are always a million other colors you can use, if you can't pay your phone bill then just write letters telling them. I'm not playing down the importance of these things, yes you need money for food, yes you need food to survive, but you also need sleep to have energy, to smile to be happy, and to be happy so you can laugh, just so you don't keel over with a heart attack. People forget they have options. And they forget that those things really don't matter. They should concentrate on what they have and not what they don't have. And by the way, wishing and dreaming doesn't mean concentrating on what you don't have, it's positive thinking that encourages hoping and believing, not whining and moaning. — Cecelia Ahern

Stop concentrating on NOT thinking about something, because ultimately you'll end up thinking about it. The same philosophy holds true when it comes to freeing your mind from a negative past. By persistently trying to move away from what you don't want, you are forced to think about it so much that you end up carrying its weight along with you. But if you instead choose to focus your energy on what you do want, you'll naturally leave the negative weight behind as you progress forward. — Anonymous

I'm treading very carefully on glass here, and I'm not sure how long it will last before I lose concentrating and cut my foot. — Jaimie Roberts

When there are no avenues of escape or one is caught even before any attempt to escape can be made, then for the first time the use of self-defense techniques should be considered. Even at times like these, do not show any intention of attacking, but first let the attacker become careless. At that time attack him concentrating one's whole strength in one blow to a vital point and in the moment of surprise, escape and seek shelter and help. — Gichin Funakoshi

Students of media are persistently attacked as evaders, idly concentrating on means or processes rather than on 'substance'. The dramatic and rapid changes of 'substance' elude these accusers. Survival is not possible if one approaches his environment, the social drama, with a fixed, unchangeable point of view - the witless repetitive response to the unperceived. — Marshall McLuhan

Shut up and concentrate," I ordered, and his hips thrust harder. Oh yeah. "Now who's bossy?" he grunted. "You're not concentrating." He pulled out and then slammed back in. "Oh yeah, baby, I fuckin' am. — Kristen Ashley

The biggest mistake I made was not having a full-time producer. I was securing locations and wardrobe and making sure people get called to show up on time and getting the film to the lab and getting the camera, and all this stuff that I'm happy to do, but if I'm doing every little thing, I'm not concentrating on my story. So it never gets any better than the script. — Shane Carruth

People forget they have options. And they forget that those things don't really matter. They should concentrate on what they have and not what they don't have. And by the way, wishing and dreaming doesn't mean concentrating on what you don't have, it's positive thinking that encourages hoping and believing, not whinging and moaning. — Cecelia Ahern

Drive-ins," Vlad said, his lip curling in a way that said he hadn't been a fan of them even when they were popular. "I suppose that's better than a regular theater. Less people at drive-ins, and if they're anything like I remember, most of the humans there won't be concentrating on anything but fornicating anyway."
His disdainful tone almost made me laugh. Who knew the reputated scourge of the underworld looked down his nose at drive-in nookie?
"Not everyone had their own castle to go back to when they were young and horny," I said, my lips twitching.
The look he threw me was more than cynical. "My youth was spent in constant war, not the pursuit of tender seductions. — Jeaniene Frost

Becky ... " Luke looks at me carefully. "Have you ever been on a horse in your life?"
"Yes! Of course I have!"
Once. When I was ten. And I fell off.
But I probably wasn't concentrating or something.
"Just be careful, won't you?" he says. "I'm not quite ready to become a widower. — Sophie Kinsella

The contemptuous way in which you spoke of gluttony as a means of catching souls, in your last letter, only shows your ignorance. One of the great achievements of the last hundred years has been to deaden the human conscience on that subject, so that by now you will hardly find a sermon preached or a conscience troubled about it in the whole length and breadth of Europe. This has largely been effected by concentrating all our efforts on gluttony of Delicacy, not gluttony of Excess. Your patient's mother, as I learn from the dossier and you might have learned from Glubose, is a good example. — C.S. Lewis

Why can't I go to Idris with you, then? Because it's not safe for you there O and it's safe for me here? I've been nearly killed almost a dozen times in the past month. That's because Valentine has been concentrating on the two Mortal Instruments that were here. He's going to shift his focus to Idris now. We all know it
We're hardly as certain of anything as all that. And the Clave wants to meet Clarissa. You know that, Jace. The Clave can screw itself. — Cassandra Clare

I began seriously concentrating on music study after I entered senior high school. I went to a class in the arts section at the YMCA and learned music theory and composition. Today, there are many classes like this available, but this was not so much the case in those days. — Isao Tomita

I think if I ever stopped pushing myself, I would revert quickly to quite repetitive, restrictive behaviour. But in pushing myself and concentrating on what I can do, I think I can contribute to society. And that gives me the desire to keep pushing, to see what I'm capable of. The thing to do is not to stop. — Daniel Tammet

Meditation does not have to be long or complicated for you to receive its benefits. If you haven't done it before, I suggest you begin by meditating for five minutes a day. A good time to engage in this practice is in the morning just after you've awakened, but you can do it at any time that works for you. Find a comfortable position where you are sitting with your spine straight. Close your eyes and concentrate on your breath. Just follow your breath in and out for five minutes. If you find that you have started to think of something other than your breath during those five minutes, gently pull yourself back to concentrating on your breath. What you are seeking is five minutes of relaxed, easy focus on your breath. In, out, in, out, in, out. Summarizing how important this centeredness practice is, the Zen master Pao-chih simply said, "If the mind is never aroused toward objects, then wherever you walk is the site of enlightenment. — Anonymous

I find theatre easier than films, because it gives you an environment of a dark hall, the audience concentrating with you ... whereas, film sets are not conducive to long rehearsals, and it is difficult to pick up the emotions amidst all that is going on around you. — Randeep Hooda

My contract is just for this year, but I have an option for next year. It is not signed at this moment, but I am only concentrating on this year. I don't know exactly what I will do in the future. — Jean Alesi

He has a funny look in his eyes as if to say, "Come off it, Shiva, I know what you are up to, I know what you are doing." And you say, "What, me?" So he looks at you in this funny way until finally you get the feeling that he sees all the way through you; and that all your selfishness and evil, nasty thoughts are transparent to his gaze. Then you have to try and alter them. He suggests that you practice the control of the mind, that you become interiorly silent, and that you give up selfish desires of the skin-encapsulated self. Then you may have some success in quieting your mind and in concentrating. But after that, he will throw a curve at you, which is: Are you not still desiring not to desire? Why are you trying to be unselfish? Well, the answer is, "I want to be on the side of the big battalions. I think it is going to pay off better to be unselfish than to be selfish. — Alan W. Watts

You know, because you outline a movie, it kinda comes at the same time. I mean, there are days when you are just concentrating on 'ok, let's worry about just comedy today,' and there are days when you're like 'you know what, we gotta just beef up the story.'. But, it's not like process wise it's that technically separate. One informs the other, so they kinda all happen together ideally. — Todd Phillips

It's really easy to complain. If you're not careful, then you end up complaining about your whole life. Concentrating on the good things is really good. Catch people doing good. — Lisa Williams

She stood in his kitchen, watching him toy with the ring in his lip. It wasn't quite that he was biting it, but sucking it into his mouth. He did that when he was concentrating. It isn't sexy. He's not sexy. But he was, and she was staring at him like a fool. "wow" she whispered ( ... )"Wow, huh?" His voice was low, husky. His chair creaked as he stood. His footsteps seemed strangely loud as he closed the couple yards between them. Then he was beside her. "I can work with wow — Melissa Marr

I am not sure that digging in our past guilts is a useful occupation for the very old, given that one can do so little about them. I have reached a stage at which one hopes to be forgiven for concentrating on how to get through the present. — Diana Athill

Complaining and arguing will not help. We are fully concentrating on the game against the Czechs. — Oliver Kahn

This segregation is confirmed by the common stereotypes of these two disciplines and their representatives. While scientists are perceived as absentminded, casually dressed individuals who live in a refined world of abstract theory with little practical reality, lawyers are usually perceived as formally dressed people who are practically oriented, concentrating mainly on trivialities (such as negotiating their retaining fee) and engaging professionally in all sorts of nitty-gritty social intercourse - the kind of things that normal people, although worried by them, would rather not have to deal with themselves. — Fritjof Capra

When I'm concentrating, I can be fixed in place for hours. In fact, there was a joke in my office that everybody would come and chat outside my door because they knew - no matter how loud they talked - if I was concentrating, it would not disturb me at all. — Sonia Sotomayor

By concentrating on precision, one arrives at technique, but by concentrating on technique one does not arrive at precision. — Bruno Walter

And right now you're doing it backwards. You are only concentrating on why the problem is impossible. You are not thinking of the solution. — Terry Goodkind

Often we imagine that we will work hard until we arrive at some distant goal, and then we will be happy. This is a delusion. Happiness is the result of a life lived with purpose. Happiness is not an objective. It is the movement of life itself, a process, and an activity. It arises from curiosity and discovery. Seek pleasure and you will quickly discover the shortest path to suffering. Other people, friends, brothers, sisters, neighbors, spouses, even your mother and I are not responsible for your happiness. Your life is your responsibility, and you always have the choice to do your best. Doing your best will bring happiness. Do not be overconcerned with avoiding pain or seeking pleasure. If you are concentrating on the results of your actions, you are not dedicated to your task. — Ethan Hawke

If I am preoccupied with the changes my storm has created and concentrating on my scars, I will not be able to recognize Jesus. — Jan Harrison

The concentrating of powers in the same hands is precisely the definition of despotic government. It will be no alleviation that these powers will be exercised by a plurality of hands, and not by a single one. — Thomas Jefferson

It's as though aesthetic value, quality, could be preserved only by concentrating on 'absolute' or 'autonomous' art: thus on visual art ... that held and moved and stirred the beholder as sheer decoration could not. — Clement Greenberg

I'm not photographing anything naked these days. I haven't been concentrating on bodies recently. — Robert Mapplethorpe

Once we're safely out of earshot, I crouch down and tilt his head up to mine. "Tim, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to confuse you like that."

He looks down at his boots. "It's okay."

"We should have told you right away that we're just friends."

"I still would've been confused." He pauses. Says confused a second time, correcting the lisp that tends to sneak back in when he's not concentrating.

"Why?"

He gazes up at me with those pale green eyes, a mysterious blend of innocent and wise. "Because Colin loves you. — Claire Kells

It had seemed so foreign to me - the idea that you could move forward without a painful airing of grievances on both sides. But maybe - maybe it wasn't necessary to pick apart pain. Maybe some things just weren't worth fighting about. Some friends weren't friends anymore, but family - and there were different rules for family. It didn't make sense to sit down with family and detail all the reasons they'd upset you - for many reasons, not least among them the fact that they could whip out a checklist of your transgressions themselves. And after you'd both picked apart the carcasses, why would you want to be friends again? Maybe the important thing was to recognize that everyone felt wronged and slighted - but the point worth concentrating on was that everyone loved each other. If we worked from that premise, we should be fine. Or anyway, I hoped we would. — Megan Crane

Being a winner in life means finding a way to keep yourself in the personal space where you're being the best and most vibrant you instead of the smallest you. That is the secret to success in anything you want to do in life. That means not comparing yourself to anyone else and concentrating on you. Because when your self-esteem is in the shitter and you don't feel worthy, you look to others for validation, you settle for crappy things and all you get is crappy things and who wants that? — Greg Behrendt

Sculpture is a parable in three dimensions, a symbol of a spiritual experience, and a means of conveying truth by concentrating its essence into visible form ... It must be the reflection of the artist who creates it and of the era in which he lives, not an echo or a memory of other days and other ways. — Malvina Hoffman

You've got so many groups that have no voice in this world - the indigenous, the poor. So how can I use the resources that I have and bring them up, highlight them. And it's not that difficult. It's just choosing and concentrating and focusing. — Anita Roddick

We cannot discover the source of our natural life through common sense and reasoning, and Jesus is teaching here that growth in our spiritual life comes not from focusing directly on it, but from concentrating on our Father in heaven. Our heavenly Father knows our circumstances, and if we will stay focused on Him, instead of our circumstances, we will grow spiritually - just as the lilies of the field. — Oswald Chambers

These examples suggest what one needs to learn to control attention. In principle any skill or discipline one can master on one's own will serve: meditation and prayer if one is so inclined; exercise, aerobics, martial arts for those who prefer concentrating on physical skills. Any specialization or expertise that one finds enjoyable and where one can improve one's knowledge over time. The important thing, however, is the attitude toward these disciplines. If one prays in order to be holy, or exercises to develop strong pectoral muscles, or learns to be knowledgeable, then a great deal of the benefit is lost. The important thing is to enjoy the activity for its own sake, and to know that what matters is not the result, but the control one is acquiring over one's attention. — Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

They headed back into the maze of gardens. The shrubberies seemed to crawl. Victoria ignored them, pushing past thorns and brambles and suspiciously roachlike leaves, concentrating not on them but on the pinching grip of Lawrence's fingers. Hmm, she thought. I suppose this is actually somewhat useful. She didn't so much mind holding his hand from that moment on. — Claire Legrand

Capitalism is not about free competitive choices among people who are reasonably equal in their buying and selling of economic power, it is about concentrating capital, concentrating economic power in very few hands using that power to trash everyone who gets in their way. — David Korten

I've learnt that it is important not to go over the top with aggression, because then either you are going to miss a lot of games, or you are not going to be concentrating on the game you are playing. — Wayne Rooney

Any Arthurian enthusiast who has watched 'Merlin' has probably concluded that it's not accurate whatsoever - but, it's not meant to be. It's not meant to be a true telling. It's in a fantasy setting, it's really concentrating on the fantasy element. — Colin Morgan

If you are thinking about mistakes during games then you are not concentrating on what is important which is the next shot or the next cross or whatever you have to deal with in that game. The mental side of things is massive, probably the biggest. — Shay Given

I'm mostly concentrating now on continuing to make history in Hip-Hop, making everybody proud of me, I'm not just a rapper now, I'm in history now. — Big Pun

The Trader held the ring horizontal and let the fingertips of his right hand circle over it. As he did so, he closed his eyes, murmured something to himself, and was silent again. His eyes remained closed; he did not move.
"What's he doing?" whispered Walker.
Soledad shrugged her shoulders. "Something terribly powerful."
"Wrong." replied the Trader. "I'm concentrating on the mosquito bite on my left heel, so it will stop itching."
"Oh," Walker said seriously.
"Mosquito bite?" Soledad repeated.
"I can't catch ghosts if my foot is itching. I beg you for a little more understanding."
"But of course," Walker said spitefully. — Kai Meyer

During meditation, if we can concentrate all our attention on one point, and put all problems in front of it, then they can be solved immediately. Our power is great, but we never use it. If we do not use our power by concentrating on it, then it seems we do not have any power at all. — Ching Hai

Concentration is not thinking of one thing. On the contrary, it is excluding all thoughts, since all thoughts obstruct the sense of one's true being. All efforts are to be directed simply to removing the veil of ignorance. Concentrating the mind solely on the Self will lead to happiness or bliss. Drawing in the thoughts, restraining them and preventing them from straying outwards is called detachment (vairagya). Fixing them in the Self is spiritual practice (sadhana). Concentrating on the heart is the same as concentrating on the Self. Heart is another name for Self. — Ramana Maharshi