Quotes & Sayings About Presence Of Mind

When you find inner peace, neither the presence nor absence of any person, place or thing, condition, circumstance, or situation can be the Creator of your state of mind or the cause of your experience of being. — Neale Donald Walsch

There are ... otherwise quite decent people who are so dull of nature that they believe that they must attribute the swift flight of fancy to some illness of the psyche, and thus it happens that this or that writer is said to create not other than while imbibing intoxicating drink or that his fantasies are the result of overexcited nerves and resulting fever. But who can fail to know that, while a state of psychical excitement caused by the one or other stimulant may indeed generate some lucky and brilliant ideas, it can never produce a well-founded, substantial work of art that requires the utmost presence of mind. — E.T.A. Hoffmann

The words, gestures, and threats of our officers were thrown away upon men who had lost all presence of mind and only longed for absence of body. — Andrew Potter

ACCIDENT A condition of affairs in which presence of mind is good, but absence of body better. — Gideon Wurdz

Notice also how often your attention is in the past or future. Don't judge or analyze what you observe. Watch the thought, feel the emotion, observe the reaction. Don't make a personal problem out of them. You will then feel something more powerful than any of those things that you observe: the still, observing presence itself behind the content of your mind, the silent watcher. — Eckhart Tolle

The parent can change his mind in the context of respectful appeal, but not in the presence of blatant rebellion. — Tedd Tripp

Gideon, you old dog, you have taken a mate," the Prince accused with humor sparkling from those fathomless eyes. "And I believe she finds me quite attractive."
Gideon heard Legna gasp in shock and tried to repress a feral smile as he became aware of the burning blush she sprouted.
"I would not cross that particular line even as a joke, Damien," Gideon warned him smoothly.
"My apologies. I could not resist." Damien looked steadily into Gideon's eyes for a moment. "She must be young, not to realize I would be able to read her presence within your mind."
"She is young, but I would not underestimate her if I were you. — Jacquelyn Frank

One of the things I love about bound books is their sheer physicality. Electronic books live out of sight and out of mind. But printed books have body, presence. Sure, sometimes they'll elude you by hiding in improbable places: in a box full of old picture frames, say, or in the laundry basket, wrapped in a sweatshirt. But at other times they'll confront you, and you'll literally stumble over some tomes you hadn't thought about in weeks or years. I often seek electronic books, but they never come after me. The may make me feel, but I can't' feel them. They are all soul with no flesh, no texture and no weight. They can get in your head but can't whack you upside it. — Will Schwalbe

Roy writes: When you no longer need to feign an identity that isn't yours, you'll discover confidence and the ability to say, "This is who I am," and speak out on any issue that stirs your heart and mind. By announcing your presence, others will come out to you who you didn't previously know shared your nontheism. You'll finally be able to meet other nontheists and build relationships based on truth and honesty. You can love and be loved by people who know the real you. No matter what you've been told, that person deserves to see the light of day. — Roy Speckhardt

The Hebrews knew that by rest, God meant not only the protection of their boundaries from invading hordes but the emotional, mental, and spiritual confidence they would have knowing that God was irreversibly with them. Rest was inseparable from God's presence. One always accompanies the other. — Will Davis Jr.

But before Derby go, would they mind telling the rest of the Premier League - the league which it has debased with its pathetically-inadequate presence for the past 12 months - where the money has gone? You know, the £30m or so in prize money that every team, even the one at the bottom of the table from August to May, automatically receives by being in the Premier League ... So what happened to that money? Or put another way, why was such a meaningless fraction of it spent on recruiting new players? It's one thing not to compete; it's quite another not to even attempt to do so. — Pete Gill

she says, her words tinged with sorrow. I stop, go and sit on the edge of her bed. We sit, silent. "I promise, I'm right here and I won't leave you." I let her feel my presence. No one could describe Alzheimer's better than this. She's lost inside her own mind. How cruel. How fucking cruel. — Carol O'Dell

The expression of a gentleman's face is not so much that of refinement, as of flexibility, not of sensibility and enthusiasm as of indifference; it argues presence of mind rather than enlargement of ideas. — William Hazlitt

Outliers are those who have been given opportunities - and who have had the strength and presence of mind to seize them. — Malcolm Gladwell

Hemlock's attentions had not only healed Aelfric's body of its wounds but also given him curious sensitivity. Aside from the voice in his mind, he felt things in the natural surroundings: the presence of beasts, the whispers of trees to the overcast skies, anger in the earth and sea. Ravens followed him around as they did wolves. And he had developed a rough ability to see in the dark. — F.T. McKinstry

Literature takes a habit of mind that has disappeared. It requires silence, some form of isolation, and sustained concentration in the presence of an enigmatic thing. — Philip Roth

At first Silas liked the subjects simply because of their strangeness, but slowly he began to believe in the possibilities of what he was reading, in a world filled with secrets and magic. When he was younger, he'd suspected his father believed in many of these things too, so that made it easy for them to talk. As he grew older, Silas began to see the glimmers of hieroglyphic logic behind the occult. There was a reason for these oddities to exist, perhaps as strange connections between the mind and the things people feared or desired. Magic was a conversation. Ghosts were real, and they were watching because something had happened that necessitated their presence. — Ari Berk

She knows what she wants but won't compromise herself to get it. But she's feminine, like "Steel Magnolia"
flowery on the outside, steel on the inside. She uses this very femininity to her own advantage. It isn't that she takes undue advantage of men, because she plays fair. She has one thing the nice girl doesn't: a presence of mind because she isn't swept away by a romantic fantasy. This presence of mind enables her to wield her power when it is necessary. — Sherry Argov

JANUARY 24 He Will Reward You So repent (change your mind and purpose); turn around and return [to God], that your sins may be erased (blotted out, wiped clean), that times of refreshing (of recovering from the effects of heat, of reviving with fresh air) may come from the presence of the Lord. ACTS 3:19 Success principles alone will not work in your life if you don't spend time with God, allowing His Holy Spirit to be your Counselor and to give you revelation and understanding of what to do each day. But if you flow in God's plan, you will learn to stop trying to figure out how everything will work together for your good. Learn to seek God's face and not His hand all the time. Then keep your hands open and be ready to receive from Him. God is good; you can trust what He speaks to your heart to do. — Joyce Meyer

By conversing with the mighty dead, we imbibe sentiment with knowledge. We become strongly attached to those who can no longer either hurt or serve us, except through the influence which they exert over the mind. We feel the presence of that power which gives immortality to human thoughts and actions, and catch the flame of enthusiasm from all nations and ages. — William Hazlitt

[W]hen the mind is really absent, in that silence, in that unlimited space, your potential starts glowing, radiating, flowering. Suddenly you are full of cherry blossoms, a new presence, a new fragrance. — Rajneesh

With the situation as gray as it could be, no one was more conspicuous in his calm presence of mind than Washington. They must be "cool but determined" he had told the men before the battle, when spirits were high. Now, in the face of catastrophe, he was demonstrating what he meant by his own example. Whatever anger or torment or despair he felt, he kept to himself. — David McCullough

A perverse nature can be stimulated by anything. Any book can be used as a pornographic instrument, even a great work of literature if the mind that so uses it is off-balance. I once found a small boy masturbating in the presence of the Victorian steel-engraving in a family Bible. — Anthony Burgess

Silence is not the absence of something but the presence of everything . . . It is the presence of time, undisturbed. It can be felt within the chest. Silence nurtures our nature, our human nature, and lets us know who we are. Left with a more receptive mind and a more attuned ear, we become better listeners not only to nature but to each other. Silence can be carried like embers from a fire. Silence can be found, and silence can find you. Silence can be lost and also recovered. But silence cannot be imagined, although most people think so. To experience the soul-swelling wonder of silence, you must hear it. — Gordon Hempton

When you approach something to photograph it, first be still with yourself until the object of your attention affirms your presence. Then don't leave until you have captured its essence. — Minor White

One way to recollect the mind easily in the time of prayer, and preserve it more in tranquillity, is not to let it wander too far at other times. You should keep it strictly in the presence of God; and being accustomed to think of Him often, you will find it easy to keep your mind calm in the time of prayer, or at least to recall it from its wanderings. — Brother Lawrence

Certain coincidence is wonderful. Certain meetings are memorable. Sometimes you meet some people for just a moment and they leave indelible footprints on your mind. They give you the reasons to ponder over and over. They become your food for thought. Though they go, their presence is felt within the innermost of the heart and the soul; especially when such people were a reason for a smile, or they were a perfect fit for a vacuum or probably they were a heavenly sent or maybe they were an epitome of a great union; when their light could shine to brighten the dark side of our lives; when they knew how to arouse interest even in the face of dull atmosphere; when they did understand silence and know the value and power of words; when even their absence is felt more than their presence. You can't just forget about such people. Though they leave, they live within our hearts, mind, body and soul. — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

Running is ultimately a personal experience. It is a revival of the spirit, a private oasis for the thirsty mind. Yet, its healing power only increases in the presence of others. Run together and the oasis grows cooler and more satisfying. — Amby Burfoot

The beating heart of Christ's planting of churches is found in corporate prayer. It is through corporate intercession that the leader and the team of shepherds find release from fears, misconceptions, prejudices, pride, and self-will. This release comes as Christ Himself visits them. He makes them one in heart and mind as they pray together. What are they seeking? For God to work in others, of course, but as a presupposition of His working they must be seeking a manifestation of Christ's presence in their own hearts and lives. — C. John Miller

Even the primary visual areas in the brain show the special organizing function of space. Each patch of cortical real estate is dedicated to a fixed spot in the visual field, and contours in the world are represented as contours across the surface of the brain, at least on a large scale. Time also has a presence in the mind that is more than just any old attribute of an experience. Neuroscientists have found biological clocks ticking in the brains of organisms as simple as fruit flies. And just as we see stuff that is connected in space as an object, we see stuff that is connected in time as a motion, such as a trajectory or gesture, or, in the case of sound, as a melody or stretch of speech. — Steven Pinker

The preparations for working put him simultaneously in the right frame of mind for creating ... that collectedness and presence of mind ... the right frame of mind for the artist is only reached when the preparing and the creating, the technical and the artistic, the material and the spiritual, the project and the object, flow together without a break. — Eugen Herrigel

The beauty of Mars exists in the human mind," he said in that dry factual tone, and everyone stared at him amazed. "Without the human presence it is just a collection of atoms, no different than any other random speck of matter in the universe. It's we who understand it, and we who give it meaning. All our centuries of looking up at the night sky and watching it wander through the stars. All those nights of watching it through the telescopes, looking at a tiny disk trying to see canals in the albedo changes. All those dumb sci-fi novels with their monsters and maidens and dying civilizations. And all the scientists who studied the data, or got us here. That's what makes Mars beautiful. Not the basalt and the oxides — Kim Stanley Robinson

As was the case in Requiem for a Dream, Pollock, A Beautiful Mind, House of Sand and Fog, The Hulk and Dark Water, Jennifer Connelly's mere presence in a film guarantees that things will turn out badly for the male lead, as Connelly is always cast as the Angel of Death. Fun to hang out with, great eyes, amazing eyebrows, but the Angel of Death. — Joe Queenan

You can buy a man's time; you can buy his physical presence at a given place; you can even buy a measured number of his skilled muscular motions per hour. But you cannot buy enthusiasm ... you cannot buy loyalty ... you cannot buy the devotion of hearts, mind or souls. You must earn these. — Clarence Francis

Strange how the deepest part of us isn't able to speak more clearly to the part of us that lives only here in the shallows of the world. — Dean Koontz

Thinking in art and morals and even mathematics is neither the reflection in consciousness of a mechanical order in the brain nor the tracing with the mind's eye of some empirical order in its object, but an endeavour to realize in thought an ideal order which would satisfy an inner demand. The nearer thought comes to its goal, the more it finds itself under constraint by that goal, and dominated in its creative effort by aesthetic or moral or logical relevance. These relations of relevance are not physical or psychological relations. They are normative relations that can enter into the mental current because that current is ... teleological. Their operation marks the presence of a different type of law, which supervenes upon physical and psychological laws when purpose takes control. — Brand Blanshard

The metaphoric mind includes rationality, linearity, and logic - for it created them. But like some children, the rational mind often seems embarrassed by the presence of its parents. — Bob Samples

Presence of mind, penetration, fine observation, are the sciences of women; ability to avail themselves of these is their talent. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Jyothishmati pragnya means to see your whole mind as light, as a flame. Your consciousness is a flame. Your mind is a flame. You forget this! Your entire body is functioning because of this presence of the mind as a flame in you. Otherwise, you'll be like an unlit candle. What is a flame? How does a flame work? A flame lives on oxygen, doesn't it? What does it do? A flame uses some matter from the substance earth, and it uses oxygen and lives. And what is life? Life is also the same! It uses oxygen and lives on some matter. Just like a flame lives from the wax and wick, and uses oxygen, so too, your life, the mind, uses the body and food in the body as wax, and the air as oxygen. And it exhibits activities in the body like the flame (consciousness) exhibits life. — Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

Prayer COME TO ME WITH A THANKFUL HEART, SO THAT YOU CAN ENJOY MY PRESENCE. This is the day that I have made. I want you to rejoice today, refusing to worry about tomorrow. Search for all that I have prepared for you, anticipating abundant blessings and accepting difficulties as they come. I can weave miracles into the most mundane day if you keep your focus on Me. Come to Me with all your needs, knowing that My glorious riches are a more-than-adequate supply. Stay in continual communication with Me, so that you can live above your circumstances even while you are in the midst of them. Present your requests to Me with thanksgiving, and My Peace, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your heart and mind. See also Psalm 118:24; Philippians 4:19, 6, 7 (From Jesus Calling by Sarah Young) — Anonymous

Valiant! The word mocked me, for I knew myself to be anything but valiant. What I had done, I had done in a fit of insane bitterness, not with cool courage, not with brave quick thinking, not with presence of mind - but with absence of it. — Kenneth Roberts

A mind that is characterized by unrest will not be tranquil even in the presence of great calm. — Dalai Lama

To take hold of your mind, you must practice mindfulness of the mind. You must know how to observe and recognize the presence of every feeling and thought which arises in you. — Thich Nhat Hanh

She thought suddenly that she was wrong about his lack of emotion: the hidden undertone of his manner was enjoyment. She realized that she had always felt a sense of light-hearted relaxation in his presence and known that he shared it. He was the only man she knew to whom she could speak without strain or effort. This, she thought, was a mind she respected, an adversary worth matching. — Ayn Rand

When our Heavenly Father placed Adam and Eve on this earth, He did so with the purpose in mind of teaching them how to regain His presence. Our Father promised a Savior to redeem them from their fallen condition. — Ezra Taft Benson

WHEN I WAS A boy, after my mother died, I always tried hard to hold her in my mind as I was falling asleep so maybe I'd dream of her, only I never did. Or, rather, I dreamed of her constantly, only as absence, not presence: a breeze blowing through a just-vacated house, her handwriting on a notepad, the smell of her perfume, streets in strange lost towns where I knew she'd been walking only a moment before but had just vanished, a shadow moving away against a sunstruck wall. — Donna Tartt

To the truly benevolent mind, indeed, nothing is more satisfactory than to hear of a miser denying himself the necessaries of life a little too far and ridding us of his presence altogether. — James Payn

The museums in children's minds, I think, automatically empty themselves in times of utmost horror - to protect the children from eternal grief.
For my own part, though: It would have been catastrophe if I had forgotten my sister at once. I had never told her so, but she was the person I had always written for. She was the secret of whatever artistic unity I had ever achieved. She was the secret of my technique. Any creation which has any wholeness and harmoniousness, I suspect, was made by an artist or inventor with an audience of one in mind.
Yes, and she was nice enough, or Nature was nice enough, to allow me to feel her presence for a number of years after she died - to let me go on writing for her. But then she began to fade away, perhaps because she had more important business elsewhere. — Kurt Vonnegut

Objectivity and presence of mind are essential in such positions where sacrificial temptations are not always resistable. — Leonid Shamkovich

You're just going to stand there?" I asked.
Uriel folded his arms and tapped his chin with one fingertip. "Mmmm. It does seem that perhaps she deserves some form of aid. Perhaps if I'd had the presence of mind to see to it that some sort of agent had been sent to balance the scales, to giver her that one tiny bit of encouragement, that one flicker of inspiration that turned the tide ... " He shook his head sadly. "Things might be different now."
And, as if on cue, Mortimer Lindquist, ectomancer, limped out of the lower hallway and into the electrical-junction room, with Sir Stuart's shade at his right hand.
Mort took a look around, his dark eyes intent, and then his gaze locked onto Molly.
"Hey," he croaked. "You. Arrogant bitch ghost. — Jim Butcher

Whatever action we are doing, we should be sure to keep the thought of God alive within. Whenever we sit or get up, we should prostrate in that place. It is good to cultivate the habit of considering our pen, books, clothes, vessels, and the tools of our job as imbued with divine presence and use them with care and respect. This will help keep the thought of God alive throughout our body, mind and atmosphere. — Mata Amritanandamayi

Jeeves," I said, "listen attentively. I don't want to give the impression that I consider myself one of those deadly coves who exercise an irresistible fascination over one and all and can't meet a girl without wrecking her peace of mind in the first half-minute. As a matter of fact, it's rather the other way with me, for girls on entering my presence are mostly inclined to give me the raised eyebrow and the twitching upper lip. — P.G. Wodehouse

For true peace of mind we must acknowledge whatever fault we live upon, whatever time bomb ticks in our closet, and enjoy our Shangri-la nonetheless. It isn't the absence of the problem; it is how one lives in its presence that matters. — Chungliang Al Huang

Meditation is the activity of calling to mind, and thinking over, and dwelling on, and applying to oneself, the various things that one knows about the works and ways and purposes and promises of God. It is an activity of holy thought, consciously performed in the presence of God, under the eye of God, by the help of God, as a means of communion with God. — J.I. Packer

What is a living reality without experience? If there is anything about which we feel to be true, it is that the world we endure is authentic. We can see, touch and hear it. Our conscious existence of presence is an exhibition within the mind, but in many other occurrences, some of us rarely accept that we create our own realities. — Henry Johnson Jr

I avowed that I was not mad at God. In fact, I felt God's presence at that time more than I ever had. I was never angry, and that didn't make sense to many people. But I knew that God didn't do this. We as humans have free choice, and when people make bad choices, other humans suffer. It doesn't make sense, and we can ask why God didn't fix it or change it. The fact is we do not have the mind of God; as smart as we think we are, we know nothing in terms of what God knows. — Abby Rike

There is only one reason I did not go down in flames over the Angers, and that is because I knew I had Julie in the back. Would never have had the presence of mind to put that fire out if I hadn't been trying to save her life. — Elizabeth Wein

Her smile wasn't just a physical thing, a curve of our lips. It was a warmth at the edge of my mind, where I felt her presence with the same assurance I felt out heartbeat. I remember. — Kat Zhang

I found out the differences between "the truth" and "all the truth." You can know some pretty terrible things about a person, and you can know they're true. But sometimes it makes a huge difference if you know what else is true too. I read something in a book once about an old lady who was walking along the street minding her own business when a young guy came charging along, knocked her down, rolled her in a mud puddle, slapped her head and smeared handsful of wet mud all over her hair. Now what should you do with a guy like that?
But then if you find out that someone had got careless with a drum of gasoline and it ignited and the old lady was splashed with it, and the guy had presence of mind enough to do what he did as fast as he did, and severely burned his hands in the doing of it, then what should you do with him?
Yet everything reported about him is true. The only difference is the amount of truth you tell. — Theodore Sturgeon

It is by presence of mind in untried emergencies that the native metal of man is tested. — James Russell Lowell

Our dominant idea about the mind fail to recognise the conflict between the two sides of the mind - the mind as machine and the mind as anti-machine, delighting in its powers of combination and transgression. They fail as well to appreciate the extend to which the relative presence of these two sides of the mind is influenced by the organisation of society and of the culture, with the result that the history of politics is internal to the history of the mind. In these as in many other respects, our beliefs about ourselves resist acknowledging the relation between our context-shaped and our context-transcending identities and powers. — Roberto Mangabeira Unger

Oh may I join the choir invisible Of those immortal dead who live again In minds made better by their presence. — George Eliot

I remember her, not a girl but the girl. The brains behind the all time top ten comic book vixens only wish they could conjure a a siren the likes of Susan Glenn, beneath my feet my own private earthquake registered an eight when Susan Glenn was near. In her presence all was beautiful before she arrived turned grotesque and in her shadows others became goblinesque, if she approached Susan Glenn she didn't walk she floated, accompanied by Pyrotechnics spectacals that left me feeling a foot tall. She embodied every desireable quality I have ever wanted. In my mind I was a peasant before a Queen. And so Susan Glenn and I were never a thing, if I could do it again, I'd do it differently. — Keifer Sutherland

The object of geometry in all its measuring and computing, is to ascertain with exactness the plan of the great Geometer, to penetrate the veil of material forms, and disclose the thoughts which lie beneath them? When our researches are successful, and when a generous and heaven-eyed inspiration has elevated us above humanity, and raised us triumphantly into the very presence, as it were, of the divine intellect, how instantly and entirely are human pride and vanity repressed, and, by a single glance at the glories of the infinite mind, are we humbled to the dust. — Benjamin Peirce

When we meditate to expand our consciousness, we perceive reality from an evolved perspective. The yogic mindset is able to create the miraculous magic of each moment at all times. Even when doing mundane chores, a yogi is able to tap into the flow of inspiration. Holding unwavering focus, the mind of consciousness is efficient and effective in dealing with every day realities by being. The vast void mind of awareness is aligned to the world of all enlightened beings of the past as in the moment of now- alight as a Lamp.The magic of Now is consciousness. — Nandhiji

It is such a supreme folly to believe that nuclear weapons are deadly only if they're used. The fact that they exist at all, their presence in our lives, will wreak more havoc than we can begin to fathom. Nuclear weapons pervade our thinking. Control our behavior. Administer our societies. Inform our dreams. They bury themselves like meat hooks deep in the base of our brains. They are purveyors of madness. They are the ultimate colonizer. Whiter than any white man that ever lived. The very heart of whiteness. — Arundhati Roy

Prayer is standing in the presence of God with the mind in the heart; that is, at that point of our being where there are no divisions or distinctions and where we are totally one. There God's Spirit dwells and there the great encounter takes place. There heart speaks to heart, because there we stand before the face of the Lord, all-seeing, with us. — Henri J.M. Nouwen

It is a great mistake to regard a certain object as pleasurable in itself and to store the idea of it in the mind in hope of fulfilling a want by its actual presence in the future. If objects were pleasurable in themselves, then the same dress or food would always please everyone, which is not the case. — Paramahansa Yogananda

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

For to my mind, however beautiful a view may be, it requires the presence of man to make it complete, but perhaps that is because I have lived so much in the wilderness, and therefore know the value of civilisation, though to be sure it drives away the game. The Garden of Eden, no doubt, looked fair before man was, but I always think that it must have been fairer when Eve adorned it. To — H. Rider Haggard

[H]uman experience is determined as much by the nature of the mind and the structure of its senses as by the external objects whose presence the mind reveals. — Alan W. Watts

Nothing fires the warrior's heart more with courage than to find himself and his comrades at the point of annihilation, at the brink of being routed and overrun, and then to dredge not merely from one's own bowels or guts but from one's discipline and training the presence of mind not to panic, not to yield to the possession of despair, but instead to complete those homely acts of order which Dienekes had ever declared the supreme accomplishment of the warrior: to perform the commonplace under far-from-commonplace conditions. — Steven Pressfield

After travelling a few miles, he fell asleep; and Emily, who had put two or three books into the carriage, on leaving La Vallee, had now the leisure for looking into them. She sought for one, in which Valancourt had been reading the day before, and hoped for the pleasure of re-tracing a page, over which the eyes of a beloved friend had lately passed, of dwelling on the passages, which he had admired, and of permitting them to speak to her in the language of his own mind, and to bring himself to her presence. — Eliza Parsons

BRING ME YOUR MIND for rest and renewal. Let Me infuse My Presence into your thoughts. As your mind stops racing, your body relaxes and you regain awareness of Me. This awareness is vital to your spiritual well-being; it is your lifeline, spiritually speaking. — Sarah Young

If you want to concentrate deeply on some problem, and especially some piece of writing or paper-work, you should acquire a cat. Alone with the cat in the room where you work ... the cat will invariably get up on your desk and settle placidly under the desk lamp ... The cat will settle down and be serene, with a serenity that passes all understanding. And the tranquility of the cat will gradually come to affect you, sitting there at your desk, so that all the excitable qualities that impede your concentration compose themselves and give your mind back the self-command it has lost. You need not watch the cat all the time. Its presence alone is enough. The effect of a cat on your concentration is remarkable, very mysterious. — Muriel Spark

By degrees, he acquired a certain influence over me that took away my liberty of mind: his praise and notice were more restraining than his indifference. I could no longer talk or laugh freely when he was by, because a tiresomely importunate instinct reminded me that vivacity (at least in me) was distateful to him. I was so fully aware that only serious moods and occupations were acceptable, that in his presence every effort to sustain or follow any other became vain: I fell under a freezing spell. When he said 'go', I went; 'come', I came; 'do this', I dit it. But I did not love my servitude [ ... ]. — Charlotte Bronte

Understand: your mind is weaker than your emotions. But you become aware of this weakness only in moments of adversity
precisely the time when
you need strength. What best equips you to cope with tthe heat of battle is neither more knowledge nor more intellect. What makes your mind stronger, and more able to control your emotions, is internal discipline and toughness.No one can teach you this skill; you cannot learn it by reading about it. Like any discipline, it can come only through practice, experience, even a little suffering. The first step in building up presence of mind is to see the need for ii
to want it badly enough to be willing to work for it. — Robert Greene

Words engage our minds, but in the silence we hear the Presence of God. — Ram Dass

So that's what she was doing with the sports bag. Emptying the flat of pills so that I wouldn't kill myself. I want to laugh. You're so stupid, I want to say. There are kitchen knives, aren't there? Windows that open? Glasses which can be broken? Do you honestly think that by taking away all the pills you will somehow stop me from killing myself?
Then another thought occurs to me. That in her hurt, angry state, Jennah still had the presence of mind to do this. Don't kill yourself, she says to me through the empty drawer. Don't kill yourself over me. — Tabitha Suzuma

In bed that night, in the darkness, with the illuminated dial of her alarm clock glowing from the bedside table, she asked herself whether one could force oneself to like somebody, or whether one could merely create conditions for affection to come into existence and hope that it did, spontaneously. Open then our hearts - these words came into her mind, dredged from somewhere in her memory, from some unknown context. If one opened one's heart, then friendship, and love, too, might alight and make their presence known. It was the act of opening that came first; that was the important thing, the first thing. But who was it who said, Open then our hearts? Where did that come from? — Alexander McCall Smith

Winter solstice: the darkest time of the year. No sooner has he woken up in the morning than he feels the day beginning to slip away from him. There is no light to sink his teeth into, no sense of time unfolding. Rather, a feeling of doors being shut, of locks being turned. It is a hermetic season, a long moment of inwardness. The outer world, the tangible world of materials and bodies, has come to seem no more than an emanation of his mind. He feels himself sliding through events, hovering like a ghost around his own presence, as if he were living somewhere to the side of himself - not really here, but not anywhere else either. A feeling of having been locked up, and at the same time of being able to walk through walls. He notes somewhere in the margins of a thought: a darkness in the bones. — Paul Auster

Don't worry about wearing the sign; be the sign. You don't have to wear a sandwich board saying, "I am religious and spiritual and know what you should do." You do have to be the best of the mystical presence that your tradition brings. Certainly in Christianity, that means that you begin to go through life putting on the mind of Jesus, trying to see the world as Jesus saw the world. — Joan D. Chittister

The thirst we shared for one another made it clear that the distraction would only come from deprivation. Charlotte was always on my mind. In my dreams, her name balancing fatally on my lips at all times, the scent of her drove me on through my everyday tasks. It was in denying myself of her soft skin and intoxicating presence that I truly began to lose touch. — Shawn Kirsten Maravel

Honestly, working with Eddie Murphy was mind-blowing just in terms of the budget alone. To see the respect he commands, to witness his presence, you understand why he and people like Martin Lawrence are stars. — Nicole Ari Parker

The source of wisdom and power, of love and beauty, is within ourselves, but not within our egos. It is within our consciousness. Indeed, its presence provides us with a conscious contrast which enables us to speak of the ego as if it were something different and apart: it is the true Self whereas the ego is only an illusion of the mind. — Paul Brunton

THE PEACE THAT I GIVE YOU transcends your intellect. When most of your mental energy goes into efforts to figure things out, you are unable to receive this glorious gift. I look into your mind and see thoughts spinning round and round: going nowhere, accomplishing nothing. All the while, My Peace hovers over you, searching for a place to land. Be still in My Presence, inviting Me to control your thoughts. Let My Light soak into your mind and heart, until you are aglow with My very Being. This is the most effective way to receive My Peace. Now may the Lord of peace himself give you peace at all times and in every way. The Lord be with all of you. - 2 THESSALONIANS 3:16 Submit to God and be at peace with him; in this way prosperity will come to you. - JOB 22:21 — Sarah Young

Nurturing words show that you believe in the other party's capacity to learn, change and grow. One's mind is like a computer. Every message you send goes into one of two files: discounting or nurturing. The file with the most data will direct how one sees and feels about himself or herself. Messages that nurture are based on unconditional love which must be worked at, especially if you come from a discounting family. You will need to rely on Jesus to fill the void in your life with His presence and help you learn how to love unconditionall like He loves us. — H. Norman Wright

The sky is the most glorious blue I've ever seen." Nick must have heard her quiet words. "I used to think there couldn't be a more beautiful blue in all the world." The sound of his voice pulled Elizabeth into his presence. She said with a curious glance. "What changed your mind?" He flushed though his green gaze remained steady on her, "I saw your eyes. — Debra Holland

The very power of [textbook writers] depends on the fact that they are dealing with a boy: a boy who thinks he is 'doing' his 'English prep' and has no notion that ethics, theology, and politics are all at stake. It is not a theory they put into his mind, but an assumption, which ten years hence, its origin forgotten and its presence unconscious, will condition him to take one side in a controversy which he has never recognized as a controversy at all. — C.S. Lewis

[Trading] With the French one had to be especially careful. French oarswomen were known to take men aside, point to whatever they wanted, and then peel off their own shirts. It took great presence of mind to bargain with a half-naked Frenchwoman. — Stefan Kieszling

Ironically, the memory of the women heroes of World War I was largely eclipsed by the very women they had inspired. The more blatant evil enacted into law by Nazi Germany during the Second World War ensured that those who fought against it would continue to fascinate long after the first war had become a vague, unpleasant memory - one brought to mind only by fading photographs of serious, helmeted young men standing in sandbagged trenches or smiling young women in ankle-length nursing uniforms, or by the presence of poppies in Remembrance Day ceremonies. — Kathryn J. Atwood

There are twenty ways of going to a point, and one is the shortest; but set out at once on one. A man who has that presence of mind which can bring to him on the instant all he knows, is worth for action a dozen men who know as much, but can only bring it to light slowly. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

And how do you confess to a beautiful woman that you can't fulfill a relationship because you're tormented by the presence of another woman that doesn't even exist? — Victoria Caro

I gave a speech once," he said suddenly and apparently unconnectedly. "You may not instantly see why I bring the subject up, but that is because my mind works so phenomenally fast, and I am at a rough estimate thirty billion times more intelligent than you. Let me give you an example. Think of a number, any number." "Er, five," said the mattress. "Wrong," said Marvin. "You see?" The mattress was much impressed by this and realized that it was in the presence of a not unremarkable mind. It willomied along its entire length sending excited little ripples through its shallow algae-covered pool. — Douglas Adams

I had often heard Mentor say, that the voluptuous were never brave, and I now found by experience that it was true; for the Cyprians whose jollity had been so extravagant and tumultuous, now sunk under a sense of their danger and wept like women. I heard nothing but the screams of terror and the wailings of hopeless distress. Some lamented the loss of pleasures that were never to return; but none had presence of mind either to undertake or direct the navigation of the menaced vessel. — Francois Fenelon

One crucial thing to keep in mind as you read any Hebrew narrative is the presence of God in the narrative. In any biblical narrative, God is the ultimate character, the supreme hero of the story. — Gordon D. Fee

One idea I taught was the importance of regaining presence and clarity of mind after making a serious error. — Josh Waitzkin

I thought Oliver was trying hard before, but now I realize it's quite the opposite
he doesn't try, he just is, makes up his mind and doesn't check if it's going to work for his image or come off wrong. Since the rest of us are being so self-aware, his presence seems calculated. No one can possibly be that breezy, saying what he thinks, feeling what he feels. I can see why people don't like him for this very reason
it's so much easier to call him a poser.
Because if he's the real deal, then that makes the rest of us fakes. — Lindsey Leavitt

In confession occurs the breakthrough of the Cross. The root of all sin is pride, superbia. I want to be my own law, I have a right to my self, my hatred and my desires, my life and my death. The mind and flesh of man are set on fire by pride; for it is precisely in his wickedness that man wants to be as God. Confession in the presence of a brother is the profoundest kind of humiliation. It hurts, it cuts a man down, it is a dreadful blow to pride ... In the deep mental and physical pain of humiliation before a brother - which means, before God - we experience the Cross of Jesus as our rescue and salvation. The old man dies, but it is God who has conquered him. Now we share in the resurrection of Christ and eternal life. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

In particular, if consciousness is an ontological fundamental-that is, a primary element of reality-then it may have the power to achieve what is both the best-documented and at the same time the spookiest effect of the m ind on the material world: the ability of consciousness to transform the infinite possibilities for, say, the position of a subatomic particle as described by quantum mechanics into the single reality for that position as detected by an observer. If that sounds both mysterious and spooky, it is a spookiness that has been a part of science since almost the beginning of the twentieth century. It was physics that first felt the breath of this ghost, with the discoveries of quantum mechanics, and it is in the field of neuroscience and the problem of mind and matter that its ethereal presence is felt most markedly today. — Jeffrey M. Schwartz