Quotes & Sayings About Reacting To Others

If there's no world 'out there' what are you reacting to? Ask yourself that question every moment of every day when your peace is disturbed. — Kenneth Wapnick

A tone of voice or a look in another's eyes can activate powerful implicit memories. The person experiencing this type of memory may believe that he is just reacting to something in the present, remaining completely in the dark about what the rush of feelings that flood his mind and body really represents. Implicit memory is responsible for much of human behavior, its workings all the more influential because unconscious. — Gabor Mate

To achieve respectability, to be admitted to the debate, they must accept without question or inquiry the fundamental doctrine that the state is benevolent, governed by the loftiest intentions, adopting a defensive stance, not an actor in world affairs but only reacting to the crimes of others ... If even the harshest of critics tacitly adopt these premises, then the ordinary person may ask, who am I to disagree? — Noam Chomsky

The trick to being a good actor is getting so involved in your character that the camera disappears, the 50 bored guys eating doughnuts disappear, friends disappear. To get to that point when you don't have to think about it, you're just acting and reacting in those circumstances. — Val Kilmer

All emotions that feel unpleasant are signals of inconsistencies within the collective consciousness. These inconsistencies are often false beliefs of duality in the Universe/God and in opposition to the natural unity of the Principle of Oneness. If you attack or wish ill of someone, you are attaching and sabotaging yourself. If you hate others, you hate yourself. Instead of reacting with dislike or hate, choose instead to just allow that part of you to exist without any judgement. This is the enlightened choice. — Russell Anthony Gibbs

Whatever actions may have been appropriate for your survival when you were a child, are probably no longer necessary. However, the ego cannot know that. It is like a computer program, reacting to life robotically; doing what it deems is most applicable in the present circumstance, according to past experience. The problem is, it often blocks you from feeling what is appropriate in the present moment, through its preconceived notions of what worked best in the past, and may not necessarily pertain any longer. For example you may resist intimacy now by pushing others away, in effect shut them out, because as a five year old you did the same in order to protect your vulnerability. — Paula Horan

Becca took the opportunity to say good-bye to Derric by touching his hand. The heart monitor raced suddenly. She looked from it to Rhonda.
Rhonda's expression said what her voice did not. Who are you really and why is my son reacting to the touch of your hand? — Elizabeth George

It's better to act than it is to react. Acting gets you in trouble. Reacting all too frequently gets you dead. — Seanan McGuire

When we recognize that we have a habit of replaying old events and reacting to new events as if they were the old ones, we can begin to notice when that habit energy comes up. We can then gently remind ourselves that we have another choice. We can look at the moment as it is, a fresh moment, and leave the past for a time when we can look at it compassionately. — Thich Nhat Hanh

Acting is about listening and reacting. John Wayne was right: Acting is just reacting. You don't have to do much - as long as you stay out of the way of others. That's why it works. — Anthony Hopkins

As an actor, you can really play the intensity and gravity and seriousness of the moment, and just rely on the circumstances being funny. The joke is kind of the situation you're in, or the way you're reacting to something, as opposed to the characters just saying something witty. — Ed Helms

People aren't crazy, they're just reacting normally to an abnormally crazy world. — J.S.B. Morse

All bodies are different, all bodies have their own individual way of reacting to the work we make them do. — Anna Kessel

You've given it some thought, you've tried to prepare as well as you can, but you're reacting to what you see so you can't really prepare that much. It's purely live broadcasting which is very nerve-wracking but hugely rewarding. The game finishes and eventually, maybe an hour later, you're all finished. — Jill Douglas

I remember classes in college where the professor was espousing certain theories about how blacks were inherently less intelligent. But I learned a long time ago to give people the benefit of the doubt, not to assume that somebody was reacting to you because of race. — Condoleezza Rice

When you lurch from one thing to the next, constantly scheming, or reacting to incoming fire, the mind gets exhausted. You get sloppy and make bad decisions. — Dan Harris

The elevator doors opened on the first floor and Van Holtz was waiting there with several bags of groceries in his hands.
"Oh. You," he said. He started to walk in and, without thinking, simply reacting, Bo shoved him back out of the elevator by his head and hit the elevator button again.
"You asshole!" Bo heard as the door closed. — Shelly Laurenston

Very few people stutter when they are standing alone in a room speaking to themselves, so how much did Ted's blindness free him from reacting to the perceptions of others? — Katherine Preston

Faith is reacting positively to a negative situation. — Robert H. Schuller

You can't change a negative situation with bad feelings. If you keep reacting negatively, your bad feelings will magnify and multiply the negativity. — Rhonda Byrne

one path toward unlocking our latent abilities is returning to a simple practice that came so naturally to us as children: We need to rekindle our ability to emulate the positive attributes of those we admire in others, and apply those same attributes to our life and work. When we are conscious of the qualities we want to emulate, they become points of traction to help us coordinate our daily activities around a set of principles rather than reacting spontaneously to circumstances throughout the day. They comprise the operating system that guides how we engage our work, how we interact with others, and how we make decisions with our focus, time, and energy. — Todd Henry

I came up in the theater, and I learned pretty quickly that reading a review, whether it's good or bad, can strangely affect the next performances, because you're reacting to something that's been said about you. So I tend to avoid that stuff pretty studiously. — Dallas Roberts

I learned that I wasn't happy. It's a terrifying thing to admit. It puts everyone around you in a state of paralysis because they think that they are somehow responsible for your sadness and can fix it. Of course they cannot. I know happiness exists somewhere and if I knew where, I would go to it and claim it. I realize I have spent my life reacting to things and not initiating them. — Adriana Trigiani

Patient acceptance is often considered a weak and passive response to problems that we do not have the power or courage to solve. In reality, however, being patient is far from being passive. There is nothing strong or courageous in reacting to hardship or insults with anger - all we are doing is being defeated by our delusions. — Geshe Kelsang Gyatso

I took her face in my hands and tilted it up so I could stare into her eyes. "Listen to me. My reacting to someone putting their hands on you is not me being dramatic; it's me loving you."
"Oh, Romeo," she sighed my name and my cock hardened.
I pulled her into my chest and wrapped my arms around her. "Being an asshole is just part of my charm, baby," I said matter-of-fact, unable to keep the smile out of my voice. "This is just me loving you."
"You love real good," she mumbled against my chest, pushing a little closer. — Cambria Hebert

Leaders thrive when they feel creatively empowered, when they trust the people around them, when their confidence is swelling. Leaders make mistakes when they lose that same confidence, when they're fretting about their power base, when they're reacting instead of acting. — Bill Simmons

Our inner life is what makes us human and, to me, it's even more important for the way we live now. We're constantly assaulted by all kinds of things - cell phones, televisions, ads, cars, news of war, the bad economy, shootings. It's endless. Can you imagine just continuously reacting to these things? You lose your soul. — E. Journey

It's such a wonderful feeling to watch a child discover that reading is a marvelous adventure rather than a chore. I know that many writers for children say they do not write specifically with a child audience in mind ... This isn't true for me. I am very aware of my audience. Sometimes I can almost see them out there reacting as I write. Sometimes I think, 'Oh, you're going to like this part. — Zilpha Keatley Snyder

When we are devoted to the development of kindness, it becomes our ready response, so that reacting from compassion, from caring, is not a question of giving ourselves a lecture: 'I don't really feel like it, but I'd better be helpful, or what would people think?' — Sharon Salzberg

You're on the stage and you've got all those people yelling at you, so you better be right in the moment, reacting to that. It's completely live and organic. Even 20 years later, it's the same thing. You may be even better on your instrument. Hopefully, you are. — Andy Summers

Both had trouble generating conviction of their own but no trouble at all reacting to what they viewed as the false conviction of others. — Michael Lewis

Let me formulate the artistic disposition as follows: it is reacting with one's ideal to the flaw in oneself and in the world, and somehow making that reaction formation solid enough in the medium so that it indeed becomes an improved bit of real world for others. — Paul Goodman

You have a choice in life. You can either live on-purpose, according to a plan you've set. Or you can live by accident, reacting to the demands of others. The first approach is proactive; the second reactive. — Michael Hyatt

Before you look down upon the cripple, understand why you walk. Before you judge the dumb, understand why you talk. Before you judge the deaf, understand why you listen and hear. Before you judge the blind, understand why you look and see. Before you speak negative, understand why positive speech exists. Before you think negative, understand why positive thinking exists. Before you react negatively, understand why reacting positively exist. There exist positive and negative choices always. You have a choice. Good or bad, you choose! — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

I found that whenever I encountered a situation, rather than just reacting to it, it was tremendously useful to think carefully about how I should react to it and other situations like it. Besides providing me with more thoughtful responses in each of these cases, approaching things this way provided me and others with guidance on how to deal with similar situations when they came up in the future. — Ray Dalio

No matter how unreasonable others may seem, I am responsible for not reacting negatively. Regardless of what is happening around me I will always have the prerogative, and the responsibility, of choosing what happens within me. I am the creator of my own reality. When I [review my day], I know that I must stop judging others. If I judge others, I am probably judging myself. Whoever is upsetting me most is my best teacher. I have much to learn from him or her, and in my hearts, I should thank that person. — Bill W.

Control your time. If you're working off your in-box, you're working off the priorities of others. Be sure the staff is working on what you move to them from the President, or the President will be reacting, not leading. — Donald Rumsfeld

The romantics were reacting against a modern culture that divided individuals from themselves (through specialisation in the division of labor), from others (the competitive market place) and from nature, which had been reduced down to a machine through technology. The antidote to such division is unity and wholeness, which means feeling at home again in the world. — Frederick C. Beiser

There are spiritual laws at work that most people know nothing about. So when others hurt us, our tendency is to strike back because we assume that we must defend ourselves, defend our name, our honor, our career, and so on. In reality we strike back at ourselves ... What we consider as justifiable defense of our rights may in reality plunge us into a vicious cycle that can undermine our very spiritual foundation. By reacting to aggression with aggression we lose the opportunity to spiritually benefit from the experience. this law also explains why saints, when hit, often would literally turn the other cheek. (Fr. Maximos) — Kyriacos C. Markides

Others will always show you exactly where you are stuck. They say or do something and you automatically get hooked into a familiar way of reacting - shutting down, speeding up, or getting all worked up. When you react in the habitual way, with anger, greed, and so forth, it gives you a chance to see your patterns and work with them honestly and compassionately. Without others provoking you, you remain ignorant of your painful habits and cannot train in transforming them into the path of awakening. — Pema Chodron

Reacting to others and then blaming them for the way you handled yourself — Amy Morin

If we didn't spend so much time reacting to things, we would spend less time feeling bothered. We would be able to relax in our lives the way our mind relaxes in meditation. — Angelina Love

was a little excited but mostly blorft. "Blorft" is an adjective I just made up that means "Completely overwhelmed but proceeding as if everything is fine and reacting to the stress with the torpor of a possum. — Tina Fey

Day by day, morning by morning, begin your walk with Him in the calm trust that God is at work in everything ... It is your personal business, as a discipline of your heart, to learn to be peaceful and safe in God in every situation ... Remember, friend, where your real living is going on. In your thinking, in your reacting, in your heart of hearts - here is where your walk with God begins and continues. So when you start to move into trusting Him, stay there. Don't wander out again into worry and doubt! — Anne Ortlund

This simple idea served to provide information on the geometrical shape of reacting molecules, and I was able to make the role of the frontier orbitals in chemical reactions more distinct through visualization, by drawing their diagrams. — Kenichi Fukui

Long-term goals are dangerous. They limit you. They hinder you from reacting to new conditions. — Ben Casnocha

Most of us don't spend any time knowing ourselves. We just keep reacting. — Jewel

Since 1950 I have been keeping a film diary. I have been walking around with my Bolex and reacting to the immediate reality: situations, friends, New York, seasons of the year. On some days I shoot ten frames, on others ten seconds, still on others ten minutes. Or I shoot nothing. Walden contains material from the years 1964-1968 strung together in chronological order. — Jonas Mekas

T. Rex and the Crater of Doom, shows an angry-looking tyrannosaurus reacting with horror to the impact.) — Elizabeth Kolbert

Reacting is automatic, but thinking is not. — David Allen

We often add to our pain and suffering by being overly sensitive, over-reacting to minor things, and sometimes taking things too personally. — Dalai Lama

Painting is a fine art: not merely because it gives us trees and faces and lovely things to see, but because paint is a finely tuned antenna, reacting to very unnoticed movement of the painter's hand, fixing the faintest shadow of a thought in color and texture. — James Elkins

Amos and Naomi were at a table in a corner. No sign of Alex. No sign of Holden. That made it easier. Not easy, but closer. He made his way toward them. Naomi saw him first, and Miller read the discomfort in her expression, covered over as quickly as it appeared. Amos turned to see what she'd been reacting to, and the corners of his mouth and eyes didn't shift into a frown or a smile. Miller scratched his arm even though it didn't itch. — James S.A. Corey

Patriotism, whether it is of the Western kind, or of the Eastern kind, is the same, a poison in human beings that is really distorting thought. So patriotism is a disease, and when you begin to realize, become aware that it is a disease, then you will see how your mind is reacting to that disease. When, in time of war, the whole world talks of patriotism, you will know the falseness of it, and therefore you will act as a true human being — Jiddu Krishnamurti

I've finally come to fully understand that you can't fix another person. You can't fix the past. You can only change your way of reacting to it. — Lisa Wingate

If you want your life to be different you have to start reacting to life differently. — Bryant McGill

We have each had the experience of others reacting to us; often there seems to be no logic to it. But in fact, people do pick up on our subtle energy, and even if they can't see it or put it into words, they feel it and, subliminally, they know. They vote yes, no or maybe according to the qualities and strength of the energy we project. — Stuart Wilde

who always seem so fascinating on talk shows because the show's host is usually adept at reacting to whatever they say as if it's the most relevant, entertaining, urgent thing they've ever heard. — Matt Wallace

Race is a constant factor in American life. Yet reacting to every incident,real or imagined, is crippling, tiring, and ultimately counterproductive. — Condoleezza Rice

There's this freshness that happens within the first few takes of the actors actually listening to each other and actually really reacting. — Jennifer Lawrence

Men, I think, are not capable of doing nothing, of saying nothing, of not reacting to injustice, of not protesting against oppression, of not striving for the good of society and the good life in the ways they see it. — Nelson Mandela

anymore, just reacting. Suddenly the beating stopped and hands were grabbing at his legs. He kicked back at them, but it was no use. He simply wasn't strong enough. When they pulled him out from under the coal car, one of the Jap sergeants was standing there with a pistol in his hand. Gar figured this was it and, at that juncture, almost didn't care. The other prisoners had stopped working when Gar had cold-cocked the little Jap. The sergeant said something to Gar in Japanese. One of the Brits, who apparently understood, told Gar to stand — P.T. Deutermann

All my books are accidental books - they come from reacting to things and thinking about things and engaging in a real way. They are not about, 'Oh, did it get a good review in the Guardian?' I don't care. — Arundhati Roy

His presence made me feel self-concious: of my appearance, of the way I was sitting, of my movements and gestures ... It was the behavior of a woman reacting to a man who attracts her. — Alice Steinbach

We all have an eraser incorporated within us, a delete key, but we forget how to use it. Ho'oponopono helps us to remember the power that we have to choose between erasing (letting go) or reacting, being happy or suffering. It is only a matter of choice in every moment of our lives. — Mabel Katz

This was what was keeping me awake at night,' Walter said. 'This fragmentation. Because it's the same problem everywhere. It's like the internet, or cable TV- there's never any center, there's no communal agreement, there's just a trillion little bits of distracting noise. We can never sit down and have any kind of sustained conversation, it's all just cheap trash and shitty development. All the real things, the authentic things, the honest things are dying off. Intellectually and culturally, we just bounce around like random billiard balls, reacting to the latest random stimuli. — Jonathan Franzen

Therefore, reading and reacting to other people's behaviors, emotions, and attitudes have been hardwired into our brains. We are not only wired to connect, but we are also wired to attune to, resonate with, and learn from others. — Louis Cozolino

We are usually on bended knee before laws or angrily reacting against them, both immature responses. — Richard Rohr

Acting is reacting, and it's always easier to react when someone is doing a good job. — Martin Freeman

Thought is not what inhabits a certain conduct and gives it its meaning; rather, it is what allows one to step back from this way of acting or reacting, to present it to oneself as an object of thought and to question it as to its meaning, its conditions, and its goals. Thought is freedom in relation to what one does, the motion by which one detaches from it, establishes it as an object, and reflects on it as a problem. — Michel Foucault