Think Less Do More Quotes & Sayings

If I were to name my favorite pastime, I'd have to say talking about myself. I love it and I think most other people do too. We need, people like us, more listeners and less talkers. — Hedy Lamarr

Redefine normal. None of us know the full measure of our power until we start pushing our boundaries and pressing our luck, and the more we do, the less we care what others think. The freedom feels too good. — Penelope Douglas

Keats's odes are among my favorite poems ever. As are Neruda's. So yes, I think my poems are odes, though I really just see those titles as ways of more or less orienting the poem. I've never thought about this until now, but I guess you could say that one effect of all the titles, their pervasiveness in the book, might be to once again, as so many other things do, put into question the meaning of the word "for," which I suppose is one of the great human questions: what is all this for? Why, and for whom, are we doing whatever we are doing? — Matthew Zapruder

Aspiring only to second-place goals is a first-rate way to hedge our bets. Among the least appreciated reasons for doing superficial, second-rate work of any kind is the comfort of knowing that it's not our best that's on the line. Far more is at risk when we do what we really want to do rather than something less. I don't think we'll ever fully appreciate the role of not daring to risk a shattered dream in limiting people to second-choice careers and third-choice lives. — Ralph Keyes

Biggest lesson? Discovering that the less I think about myself and the more I think about what I can do for others, the more I get out of life. Ultimately, it makes me a happier person. You have to give it away if you want to get it back. After all, humility isn't thinking less of yourself, it's thinking of yourself less. — Kevin Griffin

One would almost think that a man's children were supposed to be literally, and not metaphorically, a part of himself, so jealous is opinion of the smallest interference of law with his absolute and exclusive control over them; more jealous than of almost any interference with his own freedom of action: so much less do the generality of mankind value liberty than power. — John Stuart Mill

In the words of psychologists John Brebner and Chris Cooper, who have shown that extroverts think less and act faster on such tasks: introverts are "geared to inspect" and extroverts "geared to respond." But the more interesting aspect of this puzzling behavior is not what the extroverts do before they've hit the wrong button, but what they do after. When introverts hit the number nine button and find they've lost a point, they slow down before moving on to the next number, as if to reflect on what went wrong. But extroverts not only fail to slow down, they actually speed up. — Susan Cain

Do you think that the things people make fools of themselves about are any less real and true than the things they behave sensibly about? They are more true: they are the only things that are true. — George Bernard Shaw

Think of the most discouraging thing that you are currently carrying or the biggest project you can't seem to tackle. Forget about how it happened, forget about how you got there, just look at the clock, and before that number changes, do one little thing to make it better. After you do, enjoy your moment of victory, and then do it again. In less than the time it takes you to blink, the past will burden you no more. — Dan Pearce

More or less we are all Selfish. When it's come to Friendship, I do think that fish cant jump onto the ship! — Shah Moazzem

I'm not dark; I'm not. The main thing I consider in accepting a role is less the tone of the movie and more whether I think it's a good film, whether I like the character and whether I think I could do it. I don't think, 'Oh, I've done X amount of dark films.' — Rachel Hurd-Wood

I couldn't love anyone more than I do you, it would kill me. And I couldn't love anyone less because it would always feel like less. Even if I loved some other girl, that's all I would ever think about, the difference between loving her and loving you. — Rainbow Rowell

I think if we all gardened more, they and all of the other birds that fly in the air above and light in my garden below would be better off. I know that God values them no less than I do. So when I plant in spring I also hope to taste of God in fruit of summer sun and sight of feathered friends. — Vigen Guroian

I don't believe in post-racial or post-gay or post-anything, but I do think within a certain group of friends, what matters less is the specificities of race and sexuality, and what matters more is the shared experience, shared language and shared cultural touch points. — Hanya Yanagihara

I have concluded through careful empirical analysis and much thought that somebody is looking out for me, keeping track of what I think about things, forgiving me when I do less than I ought. Giving me strength to shoot for more than I think I'm capable of. I believe they know everything that I do and think, and they still love me, and I've concluded, after careful consideration, that this person keeping score is me — Adam Savage

speak less about what you have done. think more about what you can do — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

And we daily in our experiments electrise bodies plus or minus, as we think proper. [These terms we may use till your Philosophers give us better.] To electrise plus or minus, no more needs to be known than this, that the parts of the Tube or Sphere, that are rubb'd, do, in the Instant of Friction, attract the Electrical Fire, and therefore take it from the Thin rubbing; the same parts immediately, as the Friction upon them ceases, are disposed to give the fire they have received, to any Body that has less. — Benjamin Franklin

He could be anywhere by now, so that is where I look for him. Anywhere...
There are times when I don't recognize this woman who plays with such self-possession. She is something that I have faked. She is William Tyne's daughter, I supposed; his idea of her. I put her forward when I am performing so that he will approach me. I strive to make her taller than she is, more graceful, less unsure. I don't think other people have to try so hard in their lives. Or do they? Are we all living like this? So close to this mesh of nerves?
So I played for my father another concerto, though he was never one for sitting still in a chair. He would make an exception for me, though, his firstborn. He would see the progress I have made. — Claire Kilroy

Am I corrupted if I believe that the people who think alike are more admirable and estimable than those who think for themselves? If no one thought differently, then where would our innovations come from? How would we ever advance beyond the status quo? Corruption isn't just moral or ethical in nature
rust is a form of corruption, one that eats away at its host like a parasite, constantly making it less than it was the day before. The belief that they should hold in greater esteem those who think alike is a form of rust, something that doesn't allow our young people to grow beyond the limitations already established by those who do think alike. — Tom Walsh

You are not singular in your suspicions that you know but little," he had told Caroline, in response to her quandary over the riddles of life. "The longer I live, the more I read, the more patiently I think, and the more anxiously I inquire, the less I seem to know. . . . Do justly. Love mercy. Walk humbly. This is enough. . . . So questions and so answers your affectionate grandfather." Adams — David McCullough

It's rare that anyone says what this medical study does, even if in the driest way possible "Being male has been identified as a risk factor for violent criminal behavior in several studies, as have exposure to tobacco smoke before birth, having antisocial parents, and belonging to a poor family". It's not that I want to pick on men. I just think that if we noticed that women are, on the whole, radically less violent, we might be able to theorize where violence come from and what we can do about it a lot more productively. Clearly the ready availability of guns is a huge problem for United States, but despite this availability to everyone, murder is still a crime committed by men 90 percent of the time. — Rebecca Solnit

Uh," I said, feeling somewhat off balance. "What do I think of gay guys?" "Yes." "Boink and let boink, more or less. — Jim Butcher

The thing that I think a lot of us forget is that part of the fault is the books ... you get this sort of cycle that as they become less important commercially they begin protecting their egos by talking more and more to each other and establishing themselves as this kind of tight cloistered world that doesn't really have anything to do with regular readers. — David Foster Wallace

I'm not talking about being against development. I'm talking about the politics of development. I'm talking about more development, not less. More democracy, not less. More modernization, not less. How do you break down this completely centralized, undemocratic process of decision-making? How do you make sure that it's decentralized and that people have power over their lives and their natural resources? I don't even believe in the modern business-like notion of "efficiency". It dovetails with totalitarianism, fascism. Peopl say, "If it's decentralized it will be inefficient." I think that's fine. Let it be inefficient. — Arundhati Roy

Let me tell you what I do know: I am more than one thing, and not all of those things are good. The truth is complicated. It's two-toned, multi-vocal, bittersweet. I used to think that if I dug deep enough to discover something sad and ugly, I'd know it was something true. Now I'm trying to dig deeper. I didn't want to write these pages until there were no hard feelings, no sharp ones. I do not have that luxury. I am sad and angry and I want everyone to be alive again. I want more landmarks, less landmines. I want to be grateful but I'm having a hard time with it. — Richard Siken

So I think that if I do feel more freedom right now in my career, it's not so much because I have less at stake but more a sense that I've learned more. — Mary Chapin Carpenter

Dominant people, it appears, use snap judgements and conform to received wisdom more than do the less dominant. Those who need power, and those who have it, think differently. — Margaret Heffernan

American girls are much more financially savvy - for example, if a girl went to Paris and she was going to do a fragrance campaign, she would say she wouldn't do it for less than half-a-million dollars. Whereas a girl from the Czech Republic would do it for $100,000. I think that's a really big imbalance that created the demise of the modeling industry - and it also created a gap in giving girls an opportunity to become or gain super-status. — Michael Flutie

There's a natural tendency for children to, in some sense, inherit the cultural values of their parents. I'm not against that, that's fine, that's wonderful. What I am against is labelling. Nobody ever labels a child a cricketer because his father is a cricketer, but they do label a child a Catholic because his parents are Catholic. I think it's more or less unique. Nobody ever labels a child a socialist or a conservative or a liberal because that's what their parents are. — Richard Dawkins

Good journalism is crucial. Good journalism isn't easy so I think it's less about what story and more about the layers and context that need to be explored in the story. That's one of the reasons why I'm excited to be a part of CNN. This is the kind of place that you can do that. — George Stroumboulopoulos

At the social/political/ juridical, etc., level, the organizing principle was less to do with games and more to do with the nature of taboos - enormously powerful, often enormously arbitrary, and (crucially) regularly quietly broken, without undermining the fact of the taboo itself. That last element, I think, is sometimes underestimated in the discussions of cultural norms, where they are both asserted and breached. Both those elements are foundational.
- author interview — China Mieville

I think the best explanation for karma I've ever heard was that karma is kind of like a box. When you do something good, you put it in the box. When you do something bad, you put it in the box.

Periodically, you'll reach into the box and pull something out. If you do more good things, you increase your chances of getting something good out of the box. If you do bad things frequently, you're more likely to get something less than ideal out of the box.

Make sense? — Unknown

But when you're in love, you're not in control of what you think or say or do. And there is nothing I love more than control, and nothing I love less than not having it. So you tell me - what is a person like me supposed to do with a feeling like that? — Kami Garcia

I think one begins to feel when things aren't important. I'm not sure how to put it. When you've spent thirty years entering rooms filled with strangers you feel less pressure than when you've had only half that number of years of experience. You know what the room and the people in it probably hold for you and you go looking for it. If it's not there, you sense it earlier and leave to go about your business. You just know more about what is, what isn't, and how little time there is to learn the difference. Do you understand, Merin? Do you follow me even a little bit? — Dan Simmons

In fact I don't think of literature, or music, or any art form as having a nationality. Where you're born is simply an accident of fate. I don't see why I shouldn't be more interested in say, Dickens, than in an author from Barcelona simply because I wasn't born in the UK. I do not have an ethno-centric view of things, much less of literature. Books hold no passports. There's only one true literary tradition: the human. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

People should think less about what they ought to do and more about what they ought to be. If only their being were good, their works would shine forth brightly. Do not imagine that you can ground your salvation upon actions; it must rest on what you are. — Meister Eckhart

Human beings do not live forever, Reuven. We live less than the time it takes to blink an eye, if we measure our lives against eternity. So it may be asked what value is there to a human life. There is so much pain in the world. What does it mean to have to suffer so much if our lives are nothing more than the blink of an eye?
I learned a long time ago, Reuven, that a blink of an eye in itself is nothing. But the eye that blinks, that is something. A span of life is nothing. But the man who lives that span, he is something. He can fill that tiny span with meaning, so its quality is immeasurable though its quantity may be insignificant. Do you understand what I am saying? A man must fill his life with meaning, meaning is not automatically given to life.
It is hard work to fill one's life with meaning. That I do not think you understand yet. A life filled with meaning is worthy of rest. I want to be worthy of rest when I am no longer here. — Chaim Potok

Normally, we think of the religious as people who care more, not less than the rest of us. This is not true, not exactly. The truly religious care more deeply about fewer things and do't give a hoot about the rest. — Eric Weiner

The less you think and the more you do, the better things tend to become. — Silvia Hartmann

The right art," cried the Master, "is purposeless, aimless! The more obstinately you try to learn how to shoot the arrow for the sake of hitting the goal, the less you will succeed in the one and the further the other will recede. What stands in your way is that you have a much too willful will. You think that what you do not do yourself does not happen. — Eugen Herrigel

Writings by philosophers and psychologists on the differences between intelligence and wisdom might also encourage you to become a better listener. Intelligent people say lots of smart things and produce the right answers to questions more often than less intelligent people, but they are not necessarily good listeners. In contrast, wise people are better listeners and are better at formulating questions than people who aren't so wise.6 So, if you and your firm want to get smarter, the wise thing to do is to shut up, listen, and learn to ask smart questions - not to keep showing off how much you know and how fast you can think. — Robert I. Sutton

Why do we always think our pain will be less if we can make others suffer more? — Michael J. Collins

People are more used to seeing men who are masters at an instrument than women. When people say, 'Oh, she plays like a dude,' it's usually dudes who are the ones saying it. They're saying, 'Oh, she's as good as us.' Of course, that's a stupid statement. It's totally stereotypical to say, 'We have an advantage on this, and if anyone else can do it well, it's only because they're like us.' I think more men are starting to learn that this attitude is totally hollow and based in imagination. As more women are involved in music, this kind of thing gets said less and less. — Esperanza Spalding

Today is my thirtieth birthday and I sit on the ocean wave in the schoolyard and wait for Kate and think of nothing. Now in the thirty-first year of my dark pilgrimage on this earth and knowing less than I ever knew before, having learned only to recognize merde when I see it, having inherited no more from my father than a good nose for merde, for every species of shit that flies - my only talent - smelling merde from every quarter, living in fact in the very century of merde, the great shithouse of scientific humanism where needs are satisfied, everyone becomes an anyone, a warm and creative person, and prospers like a dung beetle, and one hundred percent of people are humanists and ninety-eight percent believe in God, and men are dead, dead, dead; and the malaise has settled like a fall-out and what people really fear is not that the bomb will fall but that the bomb will not fall - on this my thirtieth birthday, I know nothing and there is nothing to do but fall prey to desire. — Walker Percy

Take a look at all of them: Marichal, Jenkins, Spahn - what do you think made them successful? They conditioned their arms by pitching more, not less, starting from when they signed their first contract. — Tom Seaver

I think in this country [UK] we could do with rather less political correctness and more straight talking across the board. — Philip Davies

Staying motivated in business is really less about what you hear and think, and more about what you do and achieve. — Kevin J. Donaldson

Perhaps the most fundamental value of a liberal education is that it makes life more interesting. It allows you to think things which do not occur to the less learned ... it makes it less likely that you will be bored with life. — Kingman Brewster Jr.

One of the biggest mistakes made by people who wish to help an abused woman is to measure success by whether or not she leaves her abusive partner. If the woman feels unable or unready to end her relationship, or if she does separate for a period but then goes back to him, people who have attempted to help tend to feel that their effort failed and often channel this frustration into blaming the abused woman. A better measure of success for the person helping is how well you have respected the woman's right to run her own life - which the abusive man does not do - and how well you have helped her to think of strategies to increase her safety. If you stay focused on these goals you will feel less frustrated as a helper and will be a more valuable resource for the woman. — Lundy Bancroft

I think a lot of us need to forget about God's will for my life. God cares more about our response to His Spirit's leading today, in this moment, than about what we intend to do next year. In fact, the decisions we make next year will be profoundly affected by the degree to which we submit to the Spirit right now, in today's decisions. It is easy to use the phrase "God's will for my life" as an excuse for inaction or even disobedience. It's much less demanding to think about God's will for your future than it is to ask Him what He wants you to do in the next ten minutes. It's safer to commit to following Him someday instead of this day. — Francis Chan

The longer I live, the more I read, the more patiently I think, and the more anxiously I inquire, the less I seem to know ... Do justly. Love mercy. Walk humbly. This is enough. — John Adams

It's pretty easy to decide to roll with the punches, to look at the enormity of natural disaster and choose to hunker down and do less. It's more important than ever, I think, to persist and make a dent in the universe instead.
We've all been offered access to so many tools, so many valuable connections, so many committed people. What an opportunity. — Seth Godin

The simple solution: do more, think less. — Marty Rubin

We can do better in higher education. And it is more than just technology. It's also an attitude on the part of faculty. We need to think through how we can produce a better quality product at less cost. — Roy Romer

I don't think literature would be possible in a determined world. We might go through the motions but the heart would be out of it. Nobody could then 'smile darkly and ignore the howls.' Even if there were no Church to teach me this, writing two novels would do it. I think the more you write, the less inclined you will be to rely on theories like determinism. Mystery isn't something that is gradually evaporating. It grows along with knowledge. — Flannery O'Connor

The Christian Gospel is that I am so flawed that Jesus had to die for me, yet I am so loved and valued that Jesus was glad to die for me. This leads to deep humility and deep confidence at the same time. It undermines both swaggering and sniveling. I cannot feel superior to anyone, and yet I have nothing to prove to anyone. I do not think more of myself nor less of myself. Instead, I think of myself less. — Timothy Keller

And the more I started to think of our relationship as a success and less as a dysfunctional fuck-fest, I was basically like. Yeah, sometimes I do want to punch Tegan, but 99.9 times out of 100, I don't. — Sara Quin

I think comedy has evolved like every art form, and people probably do less standing around and telling jokes, and more things that have to do with reality. — Adam Carolla

Brooding is more something I do when I'm working. I know so much more about sitting around worrying about a work project than I do about worrying about kids. This could just be a fact of life for older moms. We've worked and worked and worked and if we are lucky enough to finally have a child or two, we find ourselves suddenly catapulted into a most alien kind of chaos.
Work is so much easier. Anyone will tell you that. To have a desk, where you have everything all lined up, and a schedule you more or less get to agree to. Work. I am a worker. This is so funny because I never really think of my work as work. I certainly never though of myself as having a career. Writing, work, this is just who I am. I am a person who sits at a desk and makes phone calls and taps at a computer keyboard and sips coffee and calls her mom at five. That I am anything better or smaller than that has come as sudden news to me.
Brand new.
News. — Jeanne Marie Laskas

It is my feeling that as we grow older we should become not less radical but more so. I do not, of course, mean this in any political-party sense, but rather in a willingness to struggle for those things in which we passionately believe. Social activism and the struggle for social justice are often thought of as the natural activities of the young but not of the middle-aged or the elderly. In fact, I don't think this was ever true. — Margaret Laurence

Every phase and question of life is brought more and more into the limelight. Theatres, cinemas, the radio, and even lectures, assist the process. But they do not, and should not replace reading, because when we are just watching and listening, somebody is taking very good care that we should not stop and think. The danger in this age is not of our remaining ignorant; it is that we should lose the power of thinking for ourselves. Problems are more and more put before us, but, except to crossword puzzles and detective mysteries, do we attempt to find the answers for ourselves? Less and less. The short cut seems ever more and more desirable. But the short cut to knowledge is nearly always the longest way round. There is nothing like knowledge, picked up by or reasoned out for oneself. — John Galsworthy

I was probably more scared of my high school exams than I was of the Oscars. At the time you think it's everything and if you don't do well, your life's over. Opportunities are gone. So the more you do it, the less the fear is present. — Hugh Jackman

Write a lot. And I mean a ridiculous amount. You have to write so much that you don't mind throwing away and changing things that you've written - which is the second thing you have to do. A lot of young writers are very precious about their words. Don't be - you've got to be ready to burn stuff. You're not as good as you think you are, at least not yet. The more you write, the faster you'll write, and the less you'll mind throwing stuff out. — Josh Lieb

If you want to become life sensitive, a simple process that you do is this: make whatever you think and whatever you feel less important. Try and see for one day. Suddenly you will feel the breeze, the rain, the flowers and the people, everything in a completely different way. Suddenly the life in you becomes much more active and alive for your experience. — Jaggi Vasudev

What I like to do with music is make people feel better. Make people realize that all humans have the same problems, more or less. A lot of people deal with the same thing. A lot of times people think problems are specific to them and they if they hear a song about a problem common to them, they feel good because they know that someone else has gone through it. — Jack Johnson

When at the typewriter I am no longer where I site but am away across the mountains, in ancient cities or on the Great Plains among the buffalo. Often I think of what pitiful fools are those who use mind-altering drugs to seek feelings they do not have, each drug taking a little more from what they have of mind, leaving them a little less. Give the brain encouragement from study, from thinking, from visualizing, and no drugs are needed. — Louis L'Amour

What do you think? More cheese? Less cheese? Different cheese?" Keith held up a measuring cup of shredded mozzarella and looked inquiringly at Veronica across the kitchen island. She was slicing tomatoes but paused mid chop to look up with one raised brow. "When is the answer ever less cheese?" "Fair point." He dumped the entire cup into the mixing bowl and started to stir. — Rob Thomas

Children get dealt grossly unequal hands, but that is all the more reason to treat them equally in school, Chris thought. "I think the cruelest form of prejudice is ... if I ever said, 'Clarence is poor, so I'll expect less of him than Alice.' Maybe he won't do what Alice does. But I want his best." She knew that precept wasn't as simple as it sounded. Treating children equally often means treating them very differently. But it also means bringing the same moral force to bear on all of them, saying, in effect, to Clarence that you matter as much as Alice and won't get away with not working, and to Alice that you won't be allowed to stay where you are either. — Tracy Kidder

I'm a fan of the word selfish. Self. Ish. When I say I have gotten a lot more self-ish, I mean I am less concerned with what people think of me. I'm not worried about how I'm perceived. Selfish has always gotten a bad rap. You should do for you. — Matthew McConaughey

right" will have little to do with being found out. Ironically, you'll find that as you care less about what others think of you, you will care more about what others think of themselves and their worlds, including their — Stephen R. Covey

It is truly no feat to crack a nut, and therefore no one would think to gather an audience for the purpose of entertaining them with nutcracking. But if he should do so, and if he should succeed in his aim, then it cannot be a matter of mere nutcracking. Or alternatively, it is a matter of nutcracking, but as it turns out we have overlooked the art of nutcracking because we were so proficient at it that it is this new nutcracker who is the first to demonstrate what it actually entails, whereby it could be even more effective if he were less expert in nutcracking than the majority of us. — Franz Kafka

I never did use earphones until into the Eighties or Nineties. I don't like to use earphones. I've never heard anybody sing with earphones effectively. They just give you a false sense of security. A lot of us don't need earphones. I don't think Springsteen or Mick do. But other people more or less have given in. But they ought not to. They don't need to. Especially if they have a good band. — Bob Dylan

Eating smart is all about having an awareness of your body. The most obvious way to do that is by seeing it. So when you're trying to lose weight, spend more time wearing less. I don't think I could eat a plate of nachos naked - could you? — Marisa Miller

I insist on a lot of time being spent, almost every day, to just sit and think. That is very uncommon in American business. I read and think. So I do more reading and thinking, and make less impulse decisions than most people in business. I do it because I like this kind of life. — Warren Buffett

I sound awful saying it but I think it can be like that. I see a lot of people in unstimulating relationships. And not just boyfriend-girlfriend relationships. They find themselves in stagnant friendships. If people were a little less scared [of ending things] they'd get more out of life ... You meet the right person at the right time and they fulfil a certain something in your life. You fulfil something in theirs. But there's a time limit to that. Unless you choose to be bloody good company for the rest of your life, do you know what I mean? — Laura Marling

I don't think you need $35 million bucks to make a movie. I think what people should do is make a lot more movies for a lot less money. You can really do it. — William Monahan

But I think it is more difficult to do a career as a lieder singer, and there have been less lieder singers. — Victoria De Los Angeles

Why do we cry when we're happy?" I asked. "It's one of those things. I don't think it makes us less one way, or more the other. I think it just is. I don't think emotions have a gender preference. — Dan Skinner

Happiness increases and decreases depending on the level of power one has. When you have more power, more control on your life, you feel more happy and self-confident, as your power decreases and the control of your life slips away, you get less and less happy and when you no longer have any power to rely on you reach depression and despair. This is the point where your power meter has hit 0. You now need to rely on the good favors of others to live. For those who believe in the power of god, it sustains them through this dark hour. For those who do not believe, they think they have reached the end and may take their lives. That's why all conflict in life is about power and many lose life in its pursuit. Power is life itself. — Bangambiki Habyarimana

Why do people let me speak to them so rudely? If they'd let me get away with less, I might think what I said mattered more. — Leah Stewart

I try never to focus on the radio, just find great songs, find emotion and just write the best songs you can. I think when you get fixated on trying to do something too accurate, it becomes more washed out and less what you intended it to be. So I think each time the challenge for me is to try and reinvent a little bit. — Gary Allan

A French newspaper accidentally ran a picture of Amy and me from the Katie Couric sketch thinking it was a picture of Couric and Palin. Although I think that had less to do with the "power of satire" and more to do with the fact that to the French, we are all indistinguishable fat dough balls. — Tina Fey

I haven't come across any recent new ideas in film that strike me as being particularly important and that have to do with form. I think that a preoccupation with originality of form is more or less a fruitless thing. A truly original person with a truly original mind will not be able to function in the old form and will simply do something different. Others had much better think of the form as being some sort of classical tradition and try to work within it. — Stanley Kubrick

I don't necessarily put on an act when I go on Jay Leno or dress differently in public than I do in private. I'd like to think I'm the same person, more or less. — Mila Kunis

A certain man who was learning archery faced the target with two arrows in his hand. But his instructor said, ' A beginner ought never to have a second arrow; for as long as he relies upon the other, he will be careless with his first one. At each shot he ought to think that he is bound to settle it with this particular shaft at any cost.' Doubtless he would not intentionally act foolishly before his instructor with one arrow, when he has but a couple. But, though he may not himself realize that he is being careless, his teacher knows it.
You should bear this advice in mind on every occasion. (In the same way) he who follows the path of learning thinks confidently in the evening that the morning is coming, and in the morning that the evening is coming, and that he will then have plenty of time to study more carefully ; less likely still is he to recognize the waste of a single moment. How hard indeed is it to do a thing at once-now, the instant that you think of it ! — Yoshida Kenko

I do not think that less is necessarily more. But I don't think that more is necessarily more either. - Mohsin Hamid — Mohsin Hamid

On the job people feel skillful and challenged, and therefore feel more happy, strong, creative, and satisfied. In their free time people feel that there is generally not much to do and their skills are not being used, and therefore they tend to feel more sad, weak, dull, and dissatisfied. Yet they would like to work less and spend more time in leisure.
What does this contradictory pattern mean? There are several possible explanations, but one conclusion seems inevitable: when it comes to work, people do not heed the evidence of their senses. They disregard the quality of immediate experience, and base their motivation instead on the strongly rooted cultural stereotype of what work is supposed to be like. They think of it as an imposition, a constraint, an infringement of their freedom, and therefore something to be avoided as much as possible. — Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

I think when you're younger, as an actor you have much more of a notion that you are doing something to the audience. But with experience, I think you begin to worry less about what the audience's experience is and concentrate on working with the other actors, and that tends to let the audience do more work. — Peter Riegert

We must waste less. We must do more for ourselves and for each other. It is either that or continue merely to think and talk about changes that we are inviting catastrophe to make. The great obstacle is simply this: the conviction that we cannot change because we are dependant on what is wrong. But that is the addict's excuse, and we know that it will not do. — Wendell Berry

Some say knowledge is power. Some tell us that all power comes from the gods. Others say it derives from law. Yet that day on the steps of Baelor's Sept, our godly High Septon and the lawful Queen Regent and your ever-so-knowledgeable servant were as powerless as any cobbler or cooper in the crowd. Who truly killed Eddard Stark, do you think? Joffrey, who gave the command? Ser Ilyn Payne, who swung the sword? Or ... another?"
Tyrion cocked his head sideways. "Did you mean to answer your damned riddle, or only to make my head ache worse?"
Varys smiled. "Here, then. Power resides where men believe it resides. No more and no less."
"So power is a mummer's trick?"
"A shadow on the wall," Varys murmured, "yet shadows can kill. And ofttimes a very small man can cast a very large shadow."
Tyrion smiled. "Lord Varyls, I am growing strangely fond of you. I may kill you yet, but I think I'd feel sad about it. — George R R Martin

Have you come over time to think that you know more now than you did when you were young, know less now than when young, know now there is so much more to know than you knew there was to know when young that it is moot whether you think you knew more then than now or less, or do you now know that you never knew anything at all and never will and only the bluster of youth persuaded you that you did or would? — Padgett Powell

I think sometimes less is more. I don't think it helps to overdo exercising - I think you need to do it to keep your body healthy and fit, but there is a fine line between, you know, healthy and obsession. You have to build your foundation first. Your brain has to sort of connect to your body. — Martha Hunt

We both insist on a lot of time being available almost every day to just sit and think. That is very uncommon in American business. We read and think. So Warren and I do more reading and thinking and less doing than most people in business. — Charles T. Munger

I'd seen entire constellations of possibility I'd never previously been aware of, so blinded had I been by the bright, glaring stars of expectation. Freedom, I was beginning to think, had less to do with where you were, and was more about who you were trying to be. — Nenia Campbell

No one would wish a bad marriage on anyone. But where do we think good marriages come from? They don't spring full blown from the head of Zeus any more than does a good education ... Why should a marriage require fewer tears and less toil and shabbier commitment than your job or your clothes or your car? — Jeffrey R. Holland

I think evangelicals would do better if they concentrated less on bolstering the formal authority of the Scripture - which I certainly would want to affirm - and more on displaying how biblical texts can shape lives in salutary ways, how they are fruitful texts, how they are texts one can live according to. — Miroslav Volf

I more or less think that the trombone was chosen for me. I first selected a violin, which I didn't do too well with, and, ironically, the only thing left was the trombone. My next choice was a saxophone, but they didn't have any; so I think that the Creator had a lot to do with what I did ... Because things just happened, you know, and I had no control over it. And I ended up with my instrument that I play now. — Curtis Fuller

He laughed softly. "My dearest Mistress Ashbrooke, while I will admit to a certain misguided attraction to your more earthly charms, I would not now, or ever, consider them worth relinquishing my freedom. I would not relinquish that for you or, indeed, any other woman."
The candor heightened the flush in her cheeks. "You have an aversion to marriage, sir?"
"Distinct and everlasting, madam. But aside from that, do I honestly strike you as the type of man who would take an unwilling wife to hearth and home?"
"I suppose ... if I thought about it ... "
He laughed again. "If women thought about a tenth of the things they should think about, I warrant the world would be a far less complicated place to live in. — Marsha Canham

This was not the way to think things out for himself, and that was what he had to do. Take each piece of happening that, by itself, was just a meaningless hurt and find its place in the big picture. Do it over and over and over, because that way one came to understand things, and they hurt less. He had ... come to understand a lot and the knowledge he now held within himself was not made of sharp, separate hurts. It was just one big, heavy sadness. It made him stand very straight, braced against the weight in his heart proudly ... Each bit of knowledge he had gathered, each new hurt he had mastered, made him lift his chin a little higher, hold himself more closely knit and proud, because he had found out all by himself that his pride could be used as a shield to soften and deflect each new blow. His proud, strong body, his still, calm face, was the shield; he had no other weapon against the monsters in this dark tunnel of time that was so much like the shivery, scary part of a story. — Kate Seredy

The pressure to perform is relentless in today's workplace - regardless of where you work. We are all being asked to do more with less. I think what we could borrow from the culture of Silicon Valley is "eat your own dog food ." That is an expression used by tech types to mean using what you make or sell. — Willow Bay