Quotes & Sayings About Thinking Clearly

We understand God best, Dorothy Sayers suggests, by thinking of God as a creative artist. Imagine God as an engineer or watchmaker or immovable force, and you will go astray. God's image shines through us most clearly in the act of creation-comprising the three stages of Idea, Expression, and Recognition-and by reproducing this act we may begin to grasp, by analogy, the Trinity. — Philip Yancey

The history of intellectual growth and discovery clearly demonstrates the need for unfettered freedom, the right to think the unthinkable, discuss the unmentionable, and challenge the unchallengeable. — C. Vann Woodward

I have a lot to say about the world, clearly. I can't put together a clear sentence about it all, but through the work I can say what I think. — Meryl Streep

I think the years I have spent in prison have been the most formative and important in my life because of the discipline, the sensations, but chiefly the opportunity to think clearly, to try to understand things. — Jawaharlal Nehru

You will never be able to see clearly when people around you distort your view of truth with their own clouded version. You will begin to read into everything incorrectly and find yourself lost in a delusional story stitched together from the crumbs of over analyzed words once spoken, misunderstandings or speculation. Life should not be wasted by collecting clues or piecing together a puzzle about how someone feels. Love is straightforward and it is clearly seen on the cloudiest days of your life. If someone loves you it will be obvious. They won't let you go, until you ask them to. — Shannon L. Alder

To understand the magic way of thinking you have to know non-magic thinking. If you see that clearly, you will see how many magic thoughts are necessary elements even of natural science today. — Asger Jorn

Not sure. Using it is trickier than most people think," I said. "You've got to keep it from drying out, and you've got to get it undiluted. It was raining, so if someone wanted my blood, they'd have had to get to it pretty quick - and it looked like Sith was keeping them busy."
"Sith?" Butters asked.
"Not what you're thinking," I said.
"Oh," he said, clearly disappointed. — Jim Butcher

I need to be casual but not too casual. Dressy but not too dressy. I need him to think I just threw on the first thing I found and that I'm not taking this too seriously or overthinking it or even that I was thinking about it at all. Because I'm not. I'm totally not thinking about him, and I don't want him to think I was thinking about him, but I don't want him to think that I'm not thinking about him, because clearly he thought about me enough to ask me out and it would be mean not to be thinking about him at all, so I need just the right amount of thinking, and I'm not sure if that means boots and a skirt or skinny jeans and ballet flats. Help! — Gemma Halliday

It's because you aren't thinking very clearly tonight."
"I know. Being Drunk is weird."
"Oh my god. I love you so much. Especially when you say stuff like that."
"Like what?"
"Nothing. Never mind. Although I'm dying to know why your shoe is green. — Jessica Sorensen

Motivating yourself, I think having big strong legs, that's pretty cool. Having a big VMOs [the teardrop-shaped muscle above your knee] is always nice. But, the thing is, when you see guys who are clearly gym junkies who only do bicep curls all day every day, and you see them walking down the street ... 'Mate, what about the legs?'. — Greg Rutherford

Cam restored her clothing slowly, his strong hands lifting her from the beech. Crushing her close, he muttered something incomprehensible against her hair. Another spell to bind her, she thought hazily, her cheek pressed to his smooth, hard chest. "You're speaking in Romany," she mumbled.
Cam switched to English. "Amelia, I - " He stopped, as if the right words eluded him. "I can't stop myself from being jealous, any more than I can stop being half Roma. But I'll try not to be overbearing. Just say you'll be my wife."
"Please," Amelia whispered, her wits still scattered, "let me answer later. When I can think clearly."
"You do too much thinking." He kissed the top of her head. "I can't promise you a perfect life. But I can promise that no matter what happens, I'll give you everything I have. We'll be together. You inside me ... me inside you. — Lisa Kleypas

Being mindful is not a matter of thinking more clearly about experience; it is the act of experiencing more clearly, including the arising of thoughts themselves. — Sam Harris

The French have a penchant for absolutism, for thinking that things are all one way or all another, which is why their politics are marked by a general inability to compromise and why they tend to hold their personal opinions until the bitter end, even after they have clearly lost an argument. — Mark Zero

I think when you embrace celibacy other elements of the relationship have to come forth. There isn't an opportunity for you to be blinded by your sexual desires there is an opportunity to see things more clearly. — Edwina Findley

Real education is about getting people involved in thinking for themselves- and that's a tricky business to know how to do well, but clearly it requires that whatever it is you're looking at has to somehow catch people's interest and make them want to think, and make them want to pursue and explore. — Noam Chomsky

When people say things like "don't let this moment pass without acting on gun control," what they're really saying is our arguments are so unpersuasive that they can only succeed when people aren't thinking clearly. — Glenn Reynolds

Four things a man must learn to do If he would make his record true; To think without confusion clearly; To love his fellowmen sincerely; To act from honest motives purely; To trust in God and Heav'n securely. — Henry Van Dyke

SDN is a major shift in the networking industry. At Juniper, we think the impact of SDN will be much broader than others have suggested. It will redefine networking and create new winners and losers. We're embracing SDN with clearly defined principles, a four-step roadmap to help customers adopt SDN within their business, and the networking industry's first comprehensive software-centric business model. We're incredibly excited about the value that SDN will deliver to our customers and are committed to leading the industry through this transition. — Bob Muglia

All that we do outwardly is but the expression and completion of our inward thought. To work effectively, we must think clearly; to act nobly, we must think nobly. — William Ellery Channing

The way I would characterize what you said about me is I do try to say what I think as clearly as I can without first thinking, "Uh-oh, which way is the wind blowing and are people going to like this?" — Christy Clark

I think it's the responsibility of every human being, not just those who wear the identity of poet, activist, voter, religious person ... it's the responsibility of every person. Our responsibility is to use our intelligence as clearly and coherently as we possibly can. — John Trudell

In Soviet thinking the concept of economy of force has little place. Whereas to an Englishman the taking of a sledgehammer to crack a nut is a wrong decision and a sign of mental immaturity ... in Russian eyes the cracking of nuts is clearly what sledgehammers are for. — Max Hastings

I think you can take the recent war in Lebanon as a very good example of how this plays. The Americans and their allies clearly stood back - clearly in the eyes of Muslims - and basically said to the Israelis, "Do what you need to do, and we'll hold the ring for you and not call a cease-fire." That perception in the Muslim world very much played to the anti-American sentiment. — Michael Scheuer

My object when writing prose is to write as clearly as possible. I think I know what I'm saying in prose, and I want others to understand it and to be able to restate it. — Pattiann Rogers

A person of faith who shares conservative values and who says very clearly that climate change is real - and here's why we have to care about it - I think that we "unicorns" do pose a threat to people who want to muddy the waters and keep others in the dark. — Katharine Hayhoe

I'm just coming out and I'm going to clearly be myself - I write what I feel, I never worry what others think. — Avril Lavigne

Jesus wanted to show us his heart as the heart that loved so deeply. For this reason we have this commemoration today, especially of God's love. God loved us, he loved us with such great love. I am thinking of what St Ignatius told us ... He pointed out two criteria on love. The first: love is expressed more clearly in actions than in words. The second: there is greater love in giving than in receiving. — Pope Francis

Antiliberals endlessly berate their enemies for "instrumental thinking." But they do not clearly explain the evil of producing better goods at a lower cost. — Stephen Holmes

Architects are today routinely indoctrinated against the dumb box. Even advertising urges us to "think outside the box." Why? Because it is thought we all hate the box for being too dumb, too boring, and we want to escape it. If we do escape, by buying the advertised product, we usually find ourselves inside another dumb box populated by boring people just like us. It is clearly possible to live an extraordinary life inside a dumb box. Question: is it possible to lead an extraordinary life in anything other than a dumb box? — Lebbeus Woods

Perhaps the problem is the seeming need that people have of making black-and-white cutoffs when it comes to certain mysterious phenomena, such as life and consciousness. People seem to want there to be an absolute threshold between the living and the nonliving, and between the thinking and the "merely mechanical," ... But the onward march of science seems to force us ever more clearly into accepting intermediate levels of such properties. — Douglas Hofstadter

You ask my advice about acting? Speak clearly, don't bump into the furniture and if you must have motivation, think of your pay packet on Friday. — Noel Coward

I think my first impression (of Bix Beiderbecke) was the lasting one. I remember very clearly thinking, 'Where, what planet, did this guy come from? Is he from outer space?' I'd never heard anything like the way he played-not in Chicago, no place. The tone-he had this wonderful, ringing cornet tone. He could have played in a symphony orchestra with that tone. But also the intervals he played, the figures-whatever the hell he did. There was a refinement about his playing. You know, in those days I played a little trumpet, and I could play all the solos from his records, by heart. — Benny Goodman

I think anyone who comes upon a Nautilus machine suddenly will agree with me that its prototype was clearly invented at some time in history when torture was considered a reasonable alternative to diplomacy. — Anna Quindlen

Is civilization progress? The challenge, I think, is clear; and, as clearly, the final answer will be given not by our amassing of knowledge, or by the discoveries of our science, or by the speed of our aircraft, but by the effect of our civilized activities as a whole have upon the quality of our planet's life-the life of plants and animals as that of men. — Charles Lindbergh

Tohru(thinking): There is an umeboshi
on your back.
Tohru (outloud): Maybe the reason people get jealous of eachother is because they can clearly see the umeboshi on other people's backs. I can see them too. I can see them perfectly. There is an amazing umeboshi on your back, Kyo-kun. — Natsuki Takaya

Humanism is a philosophy that is primarily focused on how we as individuals can be good human beings. We seek to be ethical, moral and compassionate people in all that we do. However, we also understand that good moral reasoning requires us to think clearly and rationally about the problems we face. So Humanists are as much concerned with how we think, as we are concerned with what we think about. To that end we practice the related skills of freethought, critical thinking and logic. — Jennifer Hancock

Politicians and others are stuck in a horrible world where being emotional in any way counts as being unbalanced, and unable to think clearly. For me, emotions are thought. — Hofesh Shechter

Critical thinking helps us to more clearly understand situations, patients, colleagues, and our agendas, negative emotions, attitudes, motivations, talents, and growing edges. This not only helps us to have a greater grasp of reality but also stops the drain of psychological energy that is necessary to be defensive or to protect our image. Because critical thinking is not natural, although we may think it is for us, it takes discipline, a willingness to face the unpleasant, and a stamina that allows one not to become unduly frustrated when we do not achieve results as quickly as we prefer with respect to our insights and growth. — Robert J. Wicks

The story of a man who saw three fellows laying bricks at a new building:
He approached the first and asked, What are you doing?
Clearly irritated, the first man responded, What the heck do you think I'm doing? I'm laying these darn bricks!
He then walked over to the second bricklayer and asked the same question.
The second fellow responded, Oh, I'm making a living.
He approached the third bricklayer with the same question, What are you doing?
The third looked up, smiled and said, I'm building a cathedral.
At the end of the day, who feels better about how he's spent his last eight hours? — Bill Vaughan

You must know that weather or not you are practicing mental prayer has nothing to do with keeping your lips closed. If, while I am speaking with God, I am fully conscious of doing so, and if this is more real to me than the words I am uttering, then I am combining mental and vocal prayer. I am amazed when people tell me that you are speaking with God by reciting the Paternoster even while you are thinking of worldly things. When you speak with a Lord so great, you should think of Who it is you are addressing and what you yourself are, if only that you may speak to Him with proper respect. How can you address a king with the reverence he deserves unless you are clearly conscious of his position and yours? — Teresa Of Avila

As you focus on calming your breathing, your anxiety will quickly reduce and you will start to think clearly again. This is especially important if you feel a panic attack coming on. — Liz Miller

Governments are especially adept at using propaganda to induce fear among citizens to control their behavior. When people are frightened enough, they turn to governments for protection. Because we all fear the judgement of others to some degree, governments also use propaganda to manipulate our perception of the expectations of others. If propaganda creates the impression that all the other citizens expect us to be obedient, our default position will be obedience, and that can only be overcome with careful, rational analysis. Any time someone trying to control us can fill our heads with emotions, they can keep us from thinking clearly and lead us to believe in whatever bad ideas advance their agenda. — Adam Kokesh

But I'm still thinking about being born on a spaceship, an honest to badness spaceship. Growing up while flying along the stars, able to go wherever you wanted, not stuck on some hateful planet which clearly don't want you. You could go anywhere. If one place didn't suit, you'd find another. Full freedom in all direkshuns. Could there possibly be anything cooler in the whole world than that? — Patrick Ness

Her shift in thinking was clearly conflicted. It must have been difficult to disavow something for which she had a deep love and in which she had been immersed so much of her life. — Karen Swallow Prior

In The Future of an Illusion, Freud made the obvious point that religion suffered from one incurable deficiency: it was too clearly derived from our own desire to escape from or survive death. This critique of wish-thinking is strong and unanswerable, — Christopher Hitchens

If the word police want to come and get me, they can come and get me. If someone wants to blog about me, fine. The bloggers can come and get me. I clearly say the n-word in public, eight times. I think that's the count. — Neal Brennan

I am, after all, irresistible."
I couldn't contain my snort. "I resisted you just fine the day we met, or don't you remember me sticking a knife in your chest?"
Ian smiled with lazy wickedness. "I remember, but you seem to have forgotten that you kissed me first. And thoroughly enjoyed it."
Caught off guard, I flushed. Hey, I'd been celibate for over four years at the time....I wasn't thinking clearly!
"Ian," Bones drew out warningly. — Jeaniene Frost

On the other side of the spectrum, you see someone like Donald Trump, who is using as the basis of his campaign political incorrectness. It's clearly intentional. He'd have to be a complete moron just to coincidentally insult Mexicans, and women, and disabled people, and Muslims. So clearly he's using it as a vote winner. But I think with comedians there's a responsibility. — Sacha Baron Cohen

The idea is to help patients more clearly assess the contents of their thought stream, teaching them to note and correct the conceptual errors termed "cognitive distortions" that characterize psychopathological thinking. Somone in the grips of such thinking would, for instance, regard a half-full glass not merely as half-empty but also fatally flawed, forever useless, constitutionally incapable of ever being full, and fit only to be discarded. By the mid-1980s, cognitive therapy was being used more and more in combination with behavioral therapy for OCD, and it seemed naturally compatible with a mindfulness-based perspective. If I could show that a cognitive-behavioral approach, infused with mindful awareness, could be marshaled against the disease, and if successful therapy were accompanied by changes in brain activity, then it would represent a significant step toward demonstrating the causal efficacy of mental activity on neural circuits. — Jeffrey M. Schwartz

Having then for the first time clearly understood that before every man, and before himself, there lay only suffering, death, and eternal oblivion, he had concluded that to live under such conditions was impossible; that one must either explain life to oneself so that it does not seem to be an evil mockery by some sort of devil, or one must shoot oneself.
But he had done neither the one nor the other, yet he continued to live, think, and feel, had even at that very time got married, experienced many joys, and been happy whenever he was not thinking of the meaning of his life.
What did that show? It showed that he had lived well, but thought badly. — Leo Tolstoy

The rainbow mirrors human aims and action. Think, and more clearly wilt thou grasp it, seeing Life is but light in many-hued reflection. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

To experience anything fully and see it clearly there must be a moment of presence where conceptual thinking is not interfering with your experience of that moment. — Eckhart Tolle

I must say that the United States, of all the countries of the West, is the least guilty and has done the most in order to prevent it. The United States has helped Europe to win the First and the Second World Wars. It twice raised Europe from postwar destruction - twice - for ten, twenty, thirty years it has stood as a shield protecting Europe while European countries counted their nickels to avoid paying for their armies (better yet, to have none at all), to avoid paying for armaments, thinking about how to leave NATO, knowing that in any case America would protect them. These counties started it all, despite their thousand year old civilization and culture, even though they are closer to the danger and should have seen it more clearly. — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

When a man and woman are successfully in love, their whole activity is energized and victorious. They walk better, their digestion improves, they think more clearly, their secret worries drop away, the world is fresh and interesting, and they can do more than they dreamed that they could do. In love of this kind sexual intimacy is not the dead end of desire as it is in romantic or promiscuous love, but periodic affirmation of the inward delight of desire pervading an active life. — Walter Lippmann

What were you thinking?"
"Not much, clearly."I hear the exasperation in Kacey's voice.
"I don't know about you, Livie ... Sometimes you're as graceful as a one-legged flamingo in a pit of quicksand. — K.A. Tucker

When you're first thinking through an idea, it's important not to get bogged down in complexity. Thinking simply and clearly is hard to do. — Richard Branson

Gobbledygook may indicate a failure to think clearly, a contempt for one's clients, or more probably a mixture of both. A system that can't or won't communicate is not a safe basis for a democracy. — Michael Shanks

I've not been to Afghanistan or - but what people are clearly pointing to is that it becomes more difficult to have it. You could do it. I think weather is a factor. The most important factor though is credibility and legitimacy. What I wanted earlier to say is what I think Senator [John] Kerry is pointing to, which is important, is the strategic review on whether to send more troops is only one piece of the puzzle, important piece. — Rahm Emanuel

I write poems from dreams pretty frequently. It's limiting to think the poem has to come from a sensical lyric "I" stating things clearly or dramatically. This whole course is trying to say there are millions of ways to approach writing a poem. — Matthea Harvey

We need to reverse three centuries of walling the for-profit and non-profit sectors off from one another. When you think for-profit and non-profit, you most often think of entities with either zero social return or zero return on capital and zero social return. Clearly, there's some opportunity in the spectrum between those extremes. What's missing is the for-profit finance industry coming in to that area. Look at the enormous diversity of the for-profit financial industry as opposed to monolithic nature of the non-profit world; it's quite astonishing. — Bill Drayton

Suddenly I remembered something Daddy told me once when I was angry at my mother. "You know how Mom arranges orange slices on a plate for your soccer team and has activities planned for your birthday parties two months in advance?" he'd asked me. "That's the way she shows her love, Gracie." Why was I thinking about that now? I could hear his voice so clearly, like he was talking to me from the backseat of the car. That's the way she shows her love, Gracie. — Diane Chamberlain

Encountering gender apartheid and waged slavery shook me to my roots more than half a century ago in Afghanistan. Oh, the women of Afghanistan, the women of the Muslim world. I was no feminist
but now, thinking back, I see how much I learned there, how clearly their condition taught me to see gender discrimination anywhere and, above all, taught me to see how cruel oppressed women could be to each other. They taught me about women everywhere. — Phyllis Chesler

My work is to be honest. My work is to try to think clearly, then have the courage to make sure that what I say is the truth. — Maya Angelou

to my father's amazement, was an ancient but clearly recognizable painting of Marco Polo, who must have visited Huai'an during his thirteenth-century travels about China. The priest asked my father to donate a picture of Jesus for his collection, and, after thinking about it, Daddy did. — Katherine Paterson

Clearly while the president is overseas, he's at a conference and while the president is overseas I think it's appropriate that people not be critical of him or our country. — John Boehner

After some years of muddled thinking on the subject, he suddenly saw quite clearly what it was he had been running away from; why he had refused Sandy's first invitation, and what the trouble had been with Charles. It was also the trouble, he perceived, with nine-tenths or the people here tonight. They were specialists. They had not merely accepted their limitations, as Laurie was ready to accept his, loyal to his humanity if not to his sex, and bringing an extra humility to the hard study of human experience. They had identified themselves with their limitations; they were making a career of them. They had turned from all other reality, and curled up in them snugly, as in a womb. — Mary Renault

Whoever loses the capability for inner silence, loses contact to himself and soon won't be able to think clearly any more. — Thomas Metzinger

I think that's necessary in photography. We try to simplify the chaos that's out there - and that's true of the natural world as well as the mad-made world. Clearly, it's easier in the mad-made world because it has already been structured. — Bruce Barnbaum

Don't express your ideas too clearly. Most people think little of what they understand, and venerate what they do not. — Baltasar Gracian

Well, clearly someone you trust isn't really someone you should be trusting, she said without thinking, and regretted it when Terrible glanced at her. He did it fast, just a quick cut of his eyes in her direction and then away again, but she saw it. She felt it. It was starting already. She wished she could say she was surprised, wished she hadn't been waiting for it, expecting it the way she expected rain from black clouds overhead. Nothing in the world was permanent, especially not happiness. She'd always known that. She just wished life would stop proving her right. — Stacia Kane

Man is clearly made to think. It is his whole dignity and his whole merit; and his whole duty is to think as he ought. And the order of thought is to begin with ourselves, and with our Author and our end. — Blaise Pascal

All the variety of species of life created be,
By combination of three basic material energy;
- 45 -
These Guna modus operandi of material energy,
They are called tamo, rajo and sattva clearly;
- 46 -
Tamo-guna associated with inertia, ignorance be,
The rajo-guna associated with passion, activity;
- 47 -
Sattva-guna associated with goodness, harmony,
And all three of them associated with thinking truly.
- 48 - — Munindra Misra

I kept thinking, as I was telling Didi, that somehow what was in my head
in my memory, in my thoughts
was not being translated fully into the world. I felt as though three-dimensional people and events were becoming two-dimensional in the telling, and as though they were smaller as well as flatter, that they were just less for being spoken. What was missing was the intense emotion that I felt, which, like water or youth itself, buoyed these small insignificant encounters into all that they meant to me. There they were, shrinking before my eyes, shrinking into my words. Anything that can be said, can be said clearly. Anything that cannot be said clearly, cannot be said. — Claire Messud

Imagine fish swimming in a shallow pond, just below the lily pads, thinking that their "universe" is only two-dimensional. Our three-dimensional world may be beyond their ken. But there is a way in which they can detect the presence of the third dimension. If it rains, they can clearly see the shadows of ripples traveling along the surface of the pond. Similarly, we cannot see the fifth dimension, but ripples in the fifth dimension appear to us as light. — Michio Kaku

It is sometimes argued that disbelief in a fearful and tempting heavenly despotism makes life into something arid and tedious and cynical: a mere existence without any consolation or any awareness of the numinous or the transcendent. What nonsense this is. In the first place, it commits an obvious error. It seems to say that we ought not to believe that we are an evolved animal species with faulty components and a short lifespan for ourselves and our globe, lest the consequences of the belief be unwelcome or discreditable to us. Could anything show more clearly the bad effects of wish-thinking? There can be no serious ethical position based on denial or a refusal to look the facts squarely in the face. But this does not mean that we must stare into the abyss all the time. (Only religion, oddly enough, has ever required that we obsessively do that.) — Christopher Hitchens

The one thing I don't understand is when people make comments who are clearly not fans of mine. I think, why are you here? Why are you wasting your time? It's fascinating. — Madonna Ciccone

I look very different from how people expect me to be ... Clearly they think I'm a great big fat viking. — Kate Winslet

Paradoxical thinking requires that we embrace a view of the world in which opposites are joined, so that we can see the world clearly and see it whole ... The result is a world more complex and confusing than the one made simple by either-or thought - but that simplicity is merely the dullness of death. When we think together we reclaim the life force in the world, in our students, in ourselves. — Parker J. Palmer

On the TV screen right now, it's 1975, and Jimmy Page is playing like a man who answers to nobody. A man existing in that seductive state of extended adolescence that rock legends bask in, a man connected to something in the universe larger than even the sum total of the legendary Led Zeppelin, playing guitar because that is so clearly what he was put here to do. And it's wrong to expect that kind of divine moment to last forever, and to expect an artist to stay in 1975. Fact is, ten minutes ago I saw the guy onscreen right downstairs, coming off the trading floor of the stock exchange with a banker carrying his guitar cases for him. I sit cross-legged on the floor on a workday staring into my cereal bowl, thinking about how we all change. We all grow up. We all move on, one way or another, whether we want to or not. — Dan Kennedy

Remember; no matter how desperate the situation seems, time spent
thinking clearly is never time wasted. — Max Brooks

The motives to actions and the inward turns of mind seem in our opinion more necessary to be known than the actions themselves; and much rather would we choose that our reader should clearly understand what our principal actors think than what they do. — Sarah Fielding

Few minds are spacious; few even have an empty place in them or can offer some vacant point. Almost all have narrow capacities and are filled by some knowledge that blocks them up. What a torture to talk to filled heads, that allow nothing from the outside to enter them! A good mind, in order to enjoy itself and allow itself to enjoy others, always keeps itself larger than its own thoughts. And in order to do this, these thoughts must be given a pliant form, must be easily folded and unfolded, so that they are capable, finally, of maintaining a natural flexibility.
All those short-sighted minds see clearly within their little ideas and see nothing in those of others; they are like those bad eyes that see from close range what is obscure and cannot perceive what is clear from afar. Night minds, minds of darkness. — Joseph Joubert

I mean, they clearly have a process of how they go about making their movies, and John Lasseter has been instrumental in implementing that process for all three studios with the Brain Trust and the way we work and the way we break stories and how it's all creative led. There are no executives in the room. So I think all of that is embraced unilaterally. But that's the first time I've heard of that. — Klay Hall

As I see it, all of them - Tachists, Action Painters, Informel artists, and the rest - are only part of an Informel movement that covers a lot of other things as well. I think there's an Informel element in Beuys, as well; but it all began with Duchamp and chance, or with Mondrian, or with the Impressionists. The Informel is the opposite of the constructional quality of classicism - the age of kings, or clearly formed hierarchies. — Gerhard Richter

So how's Cupid Day treating you?" He pops a mint in his mouth and leans closer. It grosses me out, like he thinks he can seduce me with fresh breath. "Any big romantic plans tonight? Got someone special to cozy up next to?" He raises his eyebrows at me.
[ ... ]
"We'll see," I say, smiling. "What about you? Are you going to be all by your lonesome? Table for one?"
He leans forward even more, and I stay perfectly still, willing myself not to pull away.
"Now why would you assume that?" He winks at me, obviously thinking that this is my version of flirting
like I'm going to offer to keep this company or something.
I smile even wider. "Because if you had a real girlfriend," I say, quietly but clearly, so he can hear every word perfectly, "you wouldn't be hitting on high school girls. — Lauren Oliver

Modern English, especially written English, is full of bad habits which spread by imitation and which can be avoided if one is willing to take the necessary trouble. If one gets rid of these habits one can think more clearly, and to think clearly is a necessary first step toward political regeneration: so that the fight against bad English is not frivolous and is not the exclusive concern of professional [or scholarly] writers. — George Orwell

Thinking that you are good can make you bad. Talking about positive behavior can encourage negative behavior. Laozi is clearly on to something when he warns us that consciously trying to be righteous will, in fact, turn us into insufferable hypocrites and that anyone striving to attain virtue is destined to fail. — Edward Slingerland

I think I give far more space and play to avant-garde writing than any other contemporary textbook author. I want students to be able to decide for themselves which aesthetics are closest to their own. Still, while I try not to be a nostalgist myself, I suppose I am drawn to those poignant moments in our lives, rendered clearly and artfully. — David Starkey

As meditation deepens, compulsions, cravings, and fits of emotions begin to lose their power to dictate our behavior. We see clearly that choices are possible: we can say yes, or we can say no.
... "All we are is the result of what we have thought." By changing our mode of thinking, we can remake ourselves completely. — Eknath Easwaran

I'm clearly not frightened of flying because I fly all the time, but every once in a while I do, as we all do, think, What if this plane goes down? And I think, Well, if I'm holding the hand of the person sitting next to me, then I'm holding everyone's hand. — Gloria Steinem

I think the act of talking about something - with a friend, or someone in your family, or someone you care about, and you're discussing something that you both admire - can often sharpen your thoughts about what you've read or seen and help you think more clearly about it. — Paul Auster

First Corinthians so clearly says that whether we eat or drink, do it all to the glory of God. It's not just self. Jesus said ... in Matthew 16, 'Deny yourself, take up your cross and follow Me.' The Osteens have just inverted that. They think it's not the denial of self, but the exaltation of self. They're not trying to pursue a cross; they're trying to pursue prosperity. And they're certainly not following the biblical Jesus. They're following whatever brings happiness and contentment. — Steve Camp

Success is a moving target. I don't think we ever achieve "it", at least in our own minds. But I do know this, if you think you have achieved your greatest success you clearly have decided to stop pushing yourself. — Mike Michalowicz

You can hear the profile of a sound, in retrospect, so much more clearly than you did at the time. And I think one of the things that's going to be nauseatingly characteristic about so much music of now is its glossy production values and its griddedness, the tightness of the way everything is locked together. — Brian Eno

He called his approach non-teleological thinking, or "is thinking." The term non-teleological was coined by Steinbeck's best friend, Edward F. Ricketts; and as the two men articulated their shared philosophy, they emphasized the need to see as clearly as a scientist: that is, to accept life on its own terms. "Is thinking" focused not on ends but on the process of life, the Aristotelean efficient cause of nature. — John Steinbeck

The only way to escape misrepresentation is never to commit oneself to any critical judgement that makes an impact - that is, never to say anything. I still, however think that the best way to promote profitable discussion is to be as clear as possible with oneself about what one sees and judges, to try and establish the essential discriminations in the given field of interest, and to state them as clearly as one can (for disagreement, if necessary). — F.R. Leavis

The first step to thinking clearly is to question what we think we know about the past. — Peter Thiel

Logan's donating a sculpture to the town. He didn't want to make a big deal about it--wanted it on the down low, so they're doing a small unveiling."

"Down low, Gwen?"

"I know, aren't I cool?"

We all turn back to the scene across the street. I ask, "What do you think it is?"

"I hope it's a self-portrait, a nude one." Josh sighs.

Gwen and I eye him, but he has the faraway dreamy look about him. Clearly he's envisioning Logan naked. I lean over and whisper, "Whatever you're thinking, it's better."

His eyes narrow at me. "You are a hateful woman. — L.A. Fiore

If Recep Tayyip Erdogan cannot placate ISIS, how are we ever gonna be able to? And placate is clearly what John Kerry, who once served in Vietnam, and Barack Hussein O and Hillary Clinton think is the only thing we have to do is placate them. Because we're at fault, see. — Rush Limbaugh

For how can some idea of God come into your mind without your immediately thinking (since you are His creation) that by the right of creation you are subject to His rule? That your life ought to be devoted to His service? That all that you plan or say or do should be related to Him? If this is so, it clearly follows that your life is wickedly corrupt unless it is ruled in obedience to His holy will. — John Calvin