Our Reactions Quotes & Sayings

You haven't seen my resume," Gary objected. "I'm not looking to charity."
The silver eyes glinted, a brief, hard humor. "I had your formula inside my body, Gary. That was all the proof of your genius I needed. The society had access to that blood for some time before you did, but none of them were able to come up with anything that worked on us."
"Great,I get that dubious pleasure. Someday you're going to introduce me to one of your friends and you can say, 'By the way,this is the one who invented the poision that is killing our people.'"
Gregori did laugh then,a low, husky sound so pure, it was beautiful to hear. It brought a lightness into gary's heart, dispelling the gloom that had been gathering. "I never thought of that. We might get a few interesting reactions."
Gary found himself grinning sheepishly. "Yeah,like a lynching party with me as the guest of honor. — Christine Feehan

Sometimes what we want lies behind a door our own actions have locked tight. — Natasha Knight

Remember that our reactions are a product of our perceptions, and our perceptions are a result of what is at the center of our life. — Stephen Covey

Sometimes we're just along for the ride. We can't control everything; we can only do our best to control our reactions when life doesn't go our way. — Renee Carlino

The shame-based person is nearly always enmeshed in some way with one or more people. While we are in a dysfunctional, shame-based relationship, we may f eel like we are losing our mind, going crazy. When we try to test reality, we are unable to trust our senses, our feelings and our reactions. — Charles L. Whitfield

May there not be some subconscious jealousy that motivates our reactions to other people? Why do we eat chocolate sundaes when we know that we should reduce? Are we free from the influence of parental training? The Scriptures say, "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it." Parental training and all education proceed on the assumption that the will is not free, but can be trained, motivated, and directed. Finally, beyond both physiology and psychology there is God. Can we be sure that he is not directing our choices? Do we know that we are free from his grace? The Psalm says, "Blessed is the man whom you choose and cause to approach you." Is it certain that God has not caused us to choose to approach him? Can we set a limit to God's power? Can we tell how far it extends and just where it ends? Are we outside his control? — Gordon H. Clark

Are human reactions what they've always been, or has a century or more of movies influenced our response to every stimulus — Dean Koontz

Our reactions reflect our repentance. Our practices reveal our priorities. Changed lives change lives. — Dillon Burroughs

Emotional baggage, which is carried over from the past, colors our perceptions. Likewise, past conclusions and beliefs, based on reasoning that may or may not have been accurate, also tint our perception of reality. Retaining our capacity for reason is common sense, but definite conclusions and beliefs keep us from seeing life as it really is at any given moment.
Emotional reactions can be unreasonable, and reason can be flawed. It's difficult to have deep confidence in either one, especially when they're often at war with each other. But the universal mind exists in the instant, in a moment beyond time, and it sees the universe as it literally is. It's the universe perceiving itself. It is, moreover, something we can have absolute confidence in, and with that confidence, we can maintain a genuinely positive attitude. — H.E. Davey

The pace at which science has progressed has been too fast for human behaviour to adapt to it. As I said we are still apes. A part of our brain is still a paleo-brain and many of the reactions come from our fight or flight instinct. As long as this part of the brain can take over control the rational part of the brain (we will face these problems). — Jean-Marie Lehn

People cannot be controlled. Only our reactions can. — Mary Mihalic

So between critiques, the camera flew around on its arm like some sort of drunk helicopter, getting reaction shots from each contestant, and then from the judges. They asked us to hold our reactions as best we could until they got to us. Ever smile for a photograph for someone who doesn't know how to work their camera? Twenty times longer than that. My mouth started to tremble from trying to hold a smile. During one of these awkward frozen moments, one of the contestants grinned at me and mouthed the words "I love you," and I tried as best I could to communicate my thanks while also maintaining my frozen face. — Lauren Graham

What we see and hear is what we think about. What we think about is what we feel. What we feel influences our reactions. Reactions become habits and it is our habits that determine our destiny. — Bob Gass

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

Desperation, despair, fear, powerlessness - these reactions are functions of our perceptions. You must realize: Nothing makes us feel this way; we choose to give in to such feelings. — Ryan Holiday

..All of us are vulnerable to intense, non-productive angry reactions in our current relationships if we do not deal openly and directly with emotional issues from our first family - in particular, losses and cutoffs. If we do not observe and understand how our triangles operate, our anger can keep us stuck in the past, rather than serving as an incentive and guide to form more productive relationship patterns for the future. — Harriet Lerner

The tree in the field is to be treated with respect. It is not to be romanticized as the old lady romanticizes her cat (that is, she reads human reactions into it) ... But while we should not romanticize the tree, we must realize that God made it and it deserves respect because he made it as a tree. Christians who do not believe in the complete evolutionary scale have reason to respect nature as the total evolutionist never can, because we believe that God made these things specifically in their own areas. So if we are going to argue against evolutionists intellectually, we should show the results of our beliefs in our attitudes. The Christian is a man who has a reason for dealing with each created thing on a high level of respect. — Francis A. Schaeffer

We do express our emotions, our reactions to events, breakups and infatuations, but the way we do that - the art of it - is in putting them into prescribed forms or squeezing them into new forms that perfectly fit some emerging context. That's part of the creative process, and we do it instinctively; we internalize it, like birds do. And it's a joy to sing, like the birds do. — David Byrne

Some cognitive scientists believe human response to music provides evidence that we are more than just flesh and blood - that we also have souls. Their thinking is as follows: All reactions to external stimuli can be traced back to an evolutionary rationale. You pull your hand away from fire to avoid physical harm. You get butterflies before an important speech because the adrenaline running through your veins has caused a physiological fight-or-flight response. But there is no evolutionary context within which people's response to music makes sense - the tapping of a foot, the urge to sing along or get up and dance, there's just no survival benefit to these activities. For this reason, some believe that our response to music is proof that there's more to us than just biological and physiological mechanics - that the only way to be moved by the spirit, so to speak, is to have one in the first place. There — Jodi Picoult

The choices we made ... These were the right choices. They were positive and proactive. And it was, for a time, good for everyone, most especially our boy. But were these choices really? Or were they reactions? Reactions to something that life had thrown at us, something we didn't choose and didn't want. Is there a difference between reaction and choice? I don't know the answer. — Lisa Unger

I became almost immediately fascinated by the possibilities of trying out all conceivable reactions with them, some leading to explosions, others to unbearable poisoning of the air in our house, frightening my parents. — Richard Ernst

Our unguarded reactions are the most honest ones. — Lisa Mantchev

Why be seduced by something as small as a front door in another country? Why fall in love with a place because it has trams and its people seldom have curtains in their homes? However absurd the intense reactions provoked by such small (and mute) foreign elements may seem, the pattern is at least familiar from our personal lives. There, too, we may find ourselves anchoring emotions of love on the way a person butters his or her bread, or recoiling at his or her taste in shoes. To condemn ourselves for these minute concerns is to ignore how rich in meaning details may be. — Alain De Botton

When the entire process becomes a prescribed ritual that does not allow for spontaneous variations and reactions, the vitality of the medium and our relation to it suffers. — Jerry Uelsmann

I don't know why I'm trying to hide my reaction from him, but isn't that what people do? We try so hard to hide everything we're really feeling from those who probably need to know our true feelings the most. People try to bottle up their emotions, as if it's somehow wrong to have natural reactions to life. — Colleen Hoover

Our reactions to trials, tests, and tribulations are products of the price we're willing to pay to stay delivered. — Okisha Jackson

The magnitude of our relationship with others depends on the lattitude of our actions ... quote for today — Oladosu Feyikogbon

How we view ourselves and define ourselves is perhaps the most essential paradigm we have as human beings. It determines all of our actions and reactions. — David Clark

When it comes right down to it, the challenge of mindfulness is to realize that "this is it" Right now is my life. The question is, What is my relationship to it going to be? Does my life just automatically "happen" to me? Am I a total prisoner of my circumstances or my obligations, of my body or my illness, or of my history? Do I become hostile or defensive or depressed if certain buttons get pushed, happy if other buttons are pushed, and frightened if something else happens? What are my choices? Do I have any options? We will be looking into these questions more deeply when we take up the subject of our reactions to stress and how our emotions affect our health. For now the important point is to grasp the value of bringing the practice of mindfulness into the conduct of our daily lives. Is there any waking moment of your life that would not be richer and more alive for you if you were more fully awake while it was happening? — Jon Kabat-Zinn

Some things hurt, you know, and there's pain. But we magnify the suffering of it often, I think, by our reactions. — Sharon Salzberg

Salvation is from our side a choice, from the divine side it is a seizing upon, an apprehending, a conquest by the Most High God. Our 'accepting' and 'willing' are reactions rather than actions. The right of determination must always remain with God. — Aiden Wilson Tozer

The mounting evidence of an erosion of skills, a dulling of perceptions, and a slowing of reactions should give us all pause. As we begin to live our lives inside glass cockpits, we seem fated to discover what pilots already know: a glass cockpit can also be a glass cage. — Nicholas Carr

A dojo [pracice hall] is a miniature cosmos where we make contact with ourselves - our fears, anxieties, reactions, and habits. It is an arena of confined conflict where we confront an opponent who is not an opponent but rather a partner engaged in helping us understand ourselves more fully. — Joe Hyams

The more different you and I are, the less we will be able to identify with each other, and the more difficult it will to understand each other. If we can't see ourselves in another person at all - if his beliefs and background and reactions and emotions conflict too radically with our own - we often just withdraw the assumption that he is like us in any important way. That kind of dehumanization generally leads nowhere good. — Kathryn Schulz

The politicians on the front page of the morning edition however weren't laughing, they were serious. They were calling each other liars in large black letters. They seemed to be illustrating that arcane evolutionary theory that politicians are really ugly larval prototypes of our simpler more primitive selves, controlled by gut-level chemical reactions, and broadcast from the inner depts. of the sub-libido in order to impose order on what is really simply ridiculous. — Carl Watson

No one else "makes" us do anything. They can't make us nag them, or make us angry, or make us have to strike out at them, or make us drink alcohol, or make us yell at them, or anything else. We are responsible for our choices, including our responses and reactions. — Cathy Burnham Martin

We can't control the world, but we can control our reactions to it. — Susan Jeffers

Our efforts for inclusive growth are holistic and not piecemeal; well planned and not knee jerk reactions; not for small changes but for quantum leap; making people the partners in growth not just beneficiaries; addressing the local needs by using global ideas and technology. And this is why our efforts in e-governance have been applauded the world over. — Narendra Modi

Mindfulness helps us freeze the frame so that we can become aware of our sensations and experiences as they are, without the distorting coloration of socially conditioned responses or habitual reactions. — Henepola Gunaratana

Yoga provides us with a set of tools for creating space between the input of life experiences and the output of our reactions. In that space, we can pay attention. We can notice what we are feeling, think for a moment, and make decisions. Once we can learn to find that space, we can use it to take control of our own lives. — Jennifer Cohen Harper

Anger is our reaction to the violation of our boundaries. — Kathleen Dowling Singh

We're never a hundred percent in control in life, Nina. We just think we are. Something bigger than us is always in the driver's seat. What we can control is our perception, our reactions to things. We can also control whether we choose to live life or live in fear. — Penelope Ward

About 90 percent of all soy is genetically modified (GMO). Soy is also one of the top seven allergens, and is widely known to cause immediate hypersensitivity reactions. While in the last forty years soy has occupied an important place in the transition from an unhealthy meat-based diet to vegetarian and vegan cuisine, it is time for us to upgrade our food choice to one having more benefits, and fewer negative possibilities. In 1986, Stuart Berger, MD, placed soy among the seven top allergens - one of the "sinister seven." At the time, most experts listed soy around tenth or eleventh. — Gabriel Cousens

Decidedly we shall not be safe if we forget the things of the mind. Indeed, if we want to save our souls, the mind must lead a more athletic life than it has ever done before, and must more passionately than ever practice and rejoice in art. For only through art can we cultivate annoyance with inessentials, powerful and exasperated reactions against ugliness, a ravenous appetite for beauty; and these are the true guardians of the soul. — Walter Lippmann

Our political concepts, according to which we have to assume responsibility for all public affairs within our reach regardless of personal "guilt", because we are held responsible as citizens for everything that our government does in the name of the country, may lead us into an intolerable situation of global responsibility. The solidarity of mankind may well turn out to be an unbearable burden, and it is not surprising that the common reactions to it are political apathy, isolationist nationalism, or desperate rebellion against all powers that be rather than enthusiasm or a desire for a revival of humanism. — Hannah Arendt

I would like to start by emphasizing the importance of surfaces. It is at a surface where many of our most interesting and useful phenomena occur. We live for example on the surface of a planet. It is at a surface where the catalysis of chemical reactions occur. It is essentially at a surface of a plant that sunlight is converted to a sugar. In electronics, most if not all active circuit elements involve non-equilibrium phenomena occurring at surfaces. Much of biology is concerned with reactions at a surface. — Walter Houser Brattain

Inevitably, the flood of literary pornography loosed on us is dulling our reactions of surprise or shock. Its writers are forced to raise the ante, to provide stronger and stronger stimulants. Or try to provide them, since both the manner, the naming of parts and the few inexpressive four-letter words, and the matter, are narrowly limited. — Storm Jameson

No matter what challenge you may be facing, you must remember that while the canvas of your life is painted with daily experiences, behaviors, reactions, and emotions, you're the one controlling the brush. If I had known this at 21, I could have saved myself a lot of heartache and self-doubt. It would have been a revelation to understand that we are all the artists of our own lives - and that we can use as many colors and brushstrokes as we like. — Oprah Winfrey

I believe we can proactively choose to believe whatever we want instead of merely letting our beliefs coalesce as reactions to events. — Steve Pavlina

We certainly strive for reality in terms of asking our audience to believe the motivations, reactions, and behavior of our characters, but do I know when Veronica has time to do her homework? Not really. — Rob Thomas

Note which states of mind accompany each moment of like and disliking. When we recall the statement, "Physician, heal thyself," this is where the healing begins. It is particularly important to notice that this constant liking and disliking that leaves us exhausted at the end of the day. It is from this mechanical response / reaction that our actions and reactions arises. — Stephen Levine

The universe seeks equilibriums; it prefers to disperse energy, disrupt organization, and maximize chaos. Life is designed to combat these forces. We slow down reactions, concentrate matter, and organize chemicals into compartments; we sort laundry on Wednesdays. "It sometimes seems as if curbing entropy is our quixotic purpose in the universe," James Gleick wrote. We live in the loopholes of natural laws, seeking extensions, exceptions and excuses. The laws of nature still mark the outer boundaries of permissibility - but life, in all its idiosyncratic, mad weirdness, flourishes by reading between the lines. — Siddhartha Mukherjee

Depression is something that seems really obscure when you see it in a theater, but when you talk to people who come to see it and hear their reactions, you realize that it is such a prevalent part of life and our society today that it really needed to be told, and still needs to be told. — Aaron Tveit

If things are ever going to get better, we have to acknowledge our underbellies that fuel our unglued reactions. — Lysa TerKeurst

And so we use them for a kind of pleasure which can be called "fun." But it is not the creative kind of fun often connected with play; it is, rather, a shallow, distracting, greedy way of "having fun." And it is not by chance that it is that type of fun which can easily be commercialized, for it is dependent on calculable reactions, without passion, without risk, without love. Of all the dangers that threaten our civilization, this is one of the most dangerous ones: the escape from one's emptiness through a "fun" which makes joy impossible. — Paul Tillich

If sophistication is a matter of being in control of our primary reactions, we may now be sophisticated. At least we shall be fairly confident of ourselves and may, with any luck, be confident of others. Our object will be to enjoy our selves. But to make sure that our names are permanently on the cast list, it will be advisable to be of interest to others. This aim must never be confused with the desire to be popular. — Quentin Crisp

Problems assault us to the degree they preoccupy us. The key to release, rest, and inner freedom is not the elimination of all external difficulties. It is letting go of our pattern of reactions to those difficulties. — Hugh Prather

House of Commons: 'You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory there is no survival.' Later this speech was generally cited as a classic example of determination and courage, but the reactions at the time were not all that enthusiastic. In his diary, Harold Nicolson noted: 'When Chamberlain enters the House he gets a terrific reception, when Churchill comes in the applause is less.' Many of the British, including King George VI and most of the Conservatives, considered Churchill in those days to be a warmonger and a dangerous adventurer. There was a strong undercurrent in favour of reaching an accord with Hitler. — Geert Mak

The continual intrusion into our minds of the hammering noises of arguments and propaganda can lead to two kinds of reactions. It may lead to apathy and indifference, the I-don't-care reaction, or to a more intensified desire to study and to understand. Unfortunately, the first reaction is the more popular one. — Joost Meerloo

God Is Love But For This Love To Be Real To Us Depends Largely On Our Responses and Reactions to Him. — Jaachynma N.E. Agu

When our responses turn into reactions and we set out to teach people a lesson, we lose. We lose because the act of teaching someone a lesson rarely succeeds at changing them, and always fails at making our day better, or our work more useful. — Seth Godin

Perhaps we ought not to welcome small catastrophes in case they increase our vigilance to the point of making us prevent the medium-scale catastrophes that would have been needed to make us take the strong precautions necessary to prevent existential catastrophes? (And of course, just as with biological immune systems, we also need to be concerned with over-reactions, analogous to allergies and autoimmune disorders.) — Nick Bostrom

That's something we all want to know, isn't it? Is there a "purpose" to our form and substance? Or are we simply the random result of billions of years of chemical reactions and accidents influenced by pressures from the environment? ... "
-Jules, BOOM — Peter Sinn Nachtrieb

Patients with complex trauma may at times develop extreme reactions to something the therapist has said or not said, done or not done. It is wise to anticipate this in advance, and perhaps to note this anticipation in initial communications with the patient. For example, one may say something like, "It is likely in our work together, there will be a time or times when you will feel angry with me, disappointed with me, or that I have failed you. We should except this and not be surprised if and when it happens, which it probably will." It is also vital to emphasize to the patient that despite the diagnosis and experience of dividedness, the whole person is responsible and will be held responsible for the acts of any part. p174 — Elizabeth F. Howell

Quoting God's Word in the present tense infuses our hearts with holy restraint and diffuses our reactions so we don't spew. — Lysa TerKeurst

The function of intellect is to provide a means of modifying our reactions to the circumstances of life, so that we may secure pleasure, the symptom of welfare. — Edward Thorndike

It may be our actions that define us, but it is our reaction that changes the course of things. — Dianna Hardy

Positive change always encounters resistance, conflict, and obstacles. We must embrace difficult and heated situations in life, for that is the method of igniting our reactions in order to transform them. — Yehuda Berg

The deepest-lying and most pervasive part of character is disposition: it accompanies us everywhere, and shows itself in all we do. It is the attitude of the soul toward life, the way in which we accept our situation and our daily experiences. On the inner side it gives color and tone to our own conscious life: on the outer side it pervades and modifies our conduct toward others and our reactions to events. A good disposition is indispensable to good character, though of course not all of character; without it one cannot hope for perfection; even with it one may fail through lack of higher elements. It is a sort of foundation layer. — Edward O. Sisson

Yet all of us are vulnerable to intense, nonproductive angry reactions in our current relationships if we do not deal openly and directly with emotional issues from our first family - in particular, losses and cutoffs. — Harriet Lerner

Matter does not control us; we control matter through our thinking and choosing. We cannot control the events and circumstances of life but we can control our reactions. In fact, we can control our reactions to anything, and in doing so, we change our brains. It's not easy; it is hard work, but it can be done through our thoughts and choices. — Caroline Leaf

It occurs to me that as different as we are in our behavior and decisions, our most basic, knee-jerk emotional reactions to really big things are often remarkably similar. And it is in these moments that I am most grateful for my sister. — Emily Giffin

Because we fear other people's reactions and don't know how to respond, we allow them to violate our limits and boundaries. — Sue Patton Thoele

Our unconscious reactions come out of a locked room, and we can't look inside that room. but with experience we become expert at using our behavior and our training to interpret - and decode - what lies behind our snap judgment and first impressions. — Malcolm Gladwell

Ashram Cat
When the guru sat down to worship each evening, the ashram cat would get in the way and distract the worshipers. So he ordered the cat be tied up during evening worship. Long after the guru died, the cat continued to be tied up during evening worship. And when the cat eventually died, another cat was brought to the ashram so that it could be dutifully tied up during evening worship. Centuries later, learned treatises were written by the guru's disciples on the essential role of a cat in all properly conducted worship.
That's often the way we operate in the church. We don't ask the right questions, and we overlay our past experiences-or reactions
against them-on what we think we should do for the future. — Mark Pierson

What he felt during his Spanish encounter with left-wing anti-Christianity was similar to his reactions to the anti-Christianity of the right. The "novelty and shock of the Nazis", Auden wrote, and the blitheness with which Hitler's acolytes dismissed Christianity "on the grounds that to love one's neighbor as oneself was a command fit only for effeminate weaklings", pushed him inexorably toward unavoidable questions. "If, as I am convinced, the Nazis are wrong and we are right, what is it that validates our values and invalidates theirs?" The answer to this question, he wrote later, was part of what "brought me back to the church. — Ross Douthat

It would undoubtedly be prudent for neither of us to attempt a sexual coup on one another again from the evidence of our reactions. Most definitely any outcome of an intended purpose would bound to be foiled from lack of focus. — Scarlett Dawn

We raise our children, especially girls, to ignore their spontaneious reactions-we teach them not to rock the societal boat ... By the time she is thirty, the valient little girl's "Ick!"-her tendency to respond, to rock the boat, when someone's actions are really mean, may have been exciese from her behavior, and perhaps from her very mind. — Martha Stout

Back therefore we find ourselves returning. Back to the wisdom of the plough; back to the wisdom of those who follow the sea. It is all a matter of the wheel coming full-circle. For the sophisticated system of mental reactions to which we finally give our adherence is only the intellectualised reproduction of what more happily constituted natures, without knowing what they possess, possess. Thus between true philosophers and the true simple people there is a magnetic understanding; whereas, the clever ones whose bastard culture only divorces them from the wisdom of the earth remain pilloried and paralysed on the prongs of their own conceit. — John Cowper Powys

I'm helped by a gentle notion from Buddhist psychology, that there are "near enemies" to every great virtue - reactions that come from a place of care in us, and which feel right and good, but which subtly take us down an ineffectual path. Sorrow is a near enemy to compassion and to love. It is borne of sensitivity and feels like empathy. But it can paralyze and turn us back inside with a sense that we can't possibly make a difference. The wise Buddhist anthropologist and teacher Roshi Joan Halifax calls this a "pathological empathy" of our age. In the face of magnitudes of pain in the world that come to us in pictures immediate and raw, many of us care too much and see no evident place for our care to go. But compassion goes about finding the work that can be done. Love can't help but stay present — Krista Tippett

Actions define our life, not reactions. — Debasish Mridha

Since belief is measured by action, he who forbids us to believe religion to be true, necessarily also forbids us to act as we should if we did believe it to be true. The whole defence of religious faith hinges upon action. If the action required or inspired by the religious hypothesis is in no way different from that dictated by the naturalistic hypothesis, then religious faith is a pure superfluity, better pruned away, and controversy about its legitimacy is a piece of idle trifling, unworthy of serious minds. I myself believe, of course, that the religious hypothesis gives to the world an expression which specifically determines our reactions, and makes them in a large part unlike what they might be on a purely naturalistic scheme of belief. — William James

As NVC replaces our old patterns of defending, withdrawing or attacking in the face of judgment and criticism. We come to perceive ourselves and others, as well as our intentions and relationships, in a new light. Resistance, defensiveness, and violent reactions are minimized. — Marshall B. Rosenberg

Experiment with this - on such and such a day I slept so many hours and felt this way afterward. I ate x amount of food and was able to work for this long. In my forties my face began to line - science has told us this is the beginning of old age. How can the science that measures and combines and mixes and observes tell us what is behind the sleep?" Alexander laughed. "Ouspensky, science can measure how long we sleep, but can it tell us what we dreamed about? It will observe our reactions, it can tell if we twitched or laughed, or cried, but can it tell us what was inside our own head? — Paullina Simons

Some time ago we discovered the carbon cycle - a long-term set of chemical reactions that govern climates based on how much carbon is free in the atmosphere. At that point, it became clear that humans were affecting our environments far more profoundly than we realized. By releasing so much carbon and greenhouse gas into the environment, we're making long-term changes to every aspect of the natural world. — Annalee Newitz

The more we witness our emotional reactions and understand how they work, the easier it is to refrain. — Pema Chodron

When we learn to respond to each other rather than react, we will move much more quickly in our conflict toward resolution and reconciliation. Reactions only stoke the fires of conflict; responses, particularly godly ones, help us snuff out the conflict. — Matt Chandler

James teaches us that we can be victors instead of victims, if we will mentally prepare ourselves by: 1. celebrating the reason behind our trials; 2. calculating the results of our trials; 3. calling on God's resources in our trials; 4. considering our reactions to our trials; 5. contemplating the reward of our trials. — David Jeremiah

I mean we certainly always shoot a lot of extra material, but our goal was to make kind of like a big kind of rock-and-roll road trip comedy that has heart and that has hopefully you feel bad for Russell and you feel bad for Aldeus and also I wanted to surprise people with some of the turns in the movie and I think when I watched it with audiences they certainly ... the reactions made me think that we did and so all that I'm just very excited about it. — Nicholas Stoller

We often get caught up in our own reactions and forget the vulnerability of the person in front of us. — Sharon Salzberg

There was always an outrageousness to our response to minor events. Flamboyance and exaggeration were the tail feathers, the jaunty plumage that stretched and flared whenever a Wingo found himself eclipsed in the lampshine of a hostile world. As a family, we were instinctive, not thoughtful. We could never outsmart our adversaries but we could always surprise them with the imaginativeness of our reactions. We functioned best as connoisseurs of hazard and endangerment. We were not truly happy unless we were engaged in our own private war with the rest of the world. Even in my sister's poems, one could always feel the tension of approaching risk. Her poems all sounded as though she had composed them of thin ice and falling rock. They possessed movement, weight, dazzle and craft. Her poetry moved through streams of time, wild and rambunctious, like an old man entering the boundary waters of the Savannah River, planning to water-ski forty miles to prove he was still a man. — Pat Conroy

Meditation is taking the truth down into our hearts until it catches fire there and begins to melt and shape our reactions to God, ourselves, and the world. — Timothy Keller

To put it simply, my mother worried. She worried about our neighbors' reactions. Would they break me with their disparaging glances, their cruel intolerance? She worried I was just like every other teenage girl, all tender heart and fragile ego. She worried I was more myth and figment than flesh and blood. She worried about my calcium levels, my protein levels, even my reading levels. She worried she couldn't protect me from all of the things that had hurt her: loss and fear, pain and love. Most especially from love. — Leslye Walton

Habits are familiar and comfortable, putting our reactions on autopilot and often leading us, instead, to great discomfort. — Charles F. Glassman

Even a trashy movie can make you cry. There were deep emotional reactions that ducked the censure of the higher reasoning processes and forced us to enact, however vestigially, our roles - me, the indignant secret lover revealed; Clarissa the woman cruelly betrayed. — Ian McEwan

Nobody can control their emotional reactions, we can only control our actions, and my current action was to slap my jealousy in the face and shove her in a vat of shut the fuck up. — Abigail Barnette

Compassion allows us to use our own pain and the pain of others as a vehicle for connection. This is a delicate and profound path. We may be adverse to seeing our own suffering because it tends to ignite a blaze of self-blame and regret. And we may be adverse to seeing suffering in others because we find it unbearable or distasteful, or we find it threatening to our own happiness. All of these possible reactions to the suffering in the word make us want to turn away from life. — Sharon Salzberg

Fascinating to watch the reactions of people suddenly seized by fear. Some can't take it. They let themselves go to a point of hysteria, then in panic flee to - God knows where. Most take it, with various degrees of courage and coolness. In the lobby tonight: the newspapermen milling around trying to get telephone calls through the one lone operator. Jews excitedly trying to book on the last plane or train. The wildest rumours coming in with every new person that steps through the revolving door from outside, all of us gathering around to listen, believing or disbelieving according to our feelings. — William L. Shirer

Our emotional mind will harness the rational mind to its purposes, for our feelings and reactions
rationalizations
justifying them in terms of the present moment, without realizing the influence of our emotional memory. — Daniel Goleman

I've come up with a set of rules that describe our reactions to technologies: 1. Anything that is in the world when you're born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works. 2. Anything that's invented between when you're fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it. 3. Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural order of things. — Douglas Adams