Quotes & Sayings About Thinking Differently

I made a lot of changes in my life between my twenties and thirties, and it all sort of revolves around how I think people with nerdier brains tend to problem-solve and approach things differently then "norms." — Chris Hardwick

I guess the message in the songs is that is shouldn't matter if someone moves differently, or looks differently, or talks differently. Is biotic differently. What matters is that we're all thinking beings, and if we are thinking beings we ought to be able to find common ground somewhere. — Daniel Waters

We must embrace the fact that if we don't commit to thinking and living differently than most people now, we are setting ourselves up to endure a life of mediocrity, struggle, failure and regret-just like most people. — Hal Elrod

Mitt Romney we think is going run again. He says he has no plans to run, but he said if he did run, this time things would turn out differently. Yes they would. This time he would get his ass kicked by a woman. — Bill Maher

It is not the logical part of thinking that changes emotions but the perceptual part. If we see something differently, our emotions may alter with the altered perception. (p64) — Edward De Bono

I consider the first 20 performances just learning the piece. Think about it this way: If you think about a pianist who plays a Schubert sonata through his whole lifetime - if you listen to Rubenstein or Horowitz playing their repertoire later in their life, you understand the richness with which they play that music, and how differently they must have played it when they were younger. — Philip Glass

I think Black intellectuals see too deeply. That's the problem. It's a cause of anxiety, because we see things differently. — Ishmael Reed

I think what art is always doing is making us see the world so differently, and I don't mean just colors and light, but re-thinking relationships, spatial relationships, psychological relationships ... those who gravitate to the art world actually want to be puzzled. — Roselee Goldberg

Thinking about the way you remembered your past. What you remembered, she said, was a string of events and years stretching back from the point where you now found yourself. In other words, a line of time. This might be coloured differently, depending upon what had happened to you. For example, if you had lost someone then it would be black. Other spots might be lighter. On some sections of the line time would have passed quickly, on other sections more slowly. But, for a long way back, it would still be a line. — Peter Hoeg

Your possibilities are unlimited, but it all begins with the deliberate choice to think differently. — Chris Guillebeau

It is often said that education and training are the keys to the future. They are, but a key can be turned in two directions. Turn it one way and you lock resources away, even from those they belong to. Turn it the other way and you release resources and give people back to themselves. To realize our true creative potential-in our organizations, in our schools and in our communities-we need to think differently about ourselves and to act differently towards each other. We must learn to be creative. — Ken Robinson

Stop making sense. Logic is predictable. Think differently. — Paul Smith

The average person might articulate them differently, but we all think about interpersonal relationships in one way or another. Writers just express that in different ways and capture it in different ways. To some degree, we're all thinking about the same things. It's the zeitgeist. The trick, in a way, as a writer, is to hope that your interests in some sense link up with the culture around you. — Jennifer Egan

A flexible mind has a better chance to think differently and take a unique path in the life journey. — Pearl Zhu

I'm not going to try and change how people perceive me. I think it's important to be a contradiction. People are contradictions; everyone has contradictions. So I don't expect anyone to look at me differently. — Michael Rapaport

I honestly want to help. I don't believe I feel differently from other people. I think we all want justice and equality, a chance for a life with meaning. — Angelina Jolie

Business culture operates differently in different cities around the world. But I don't think it's possible to design one system that incorporates all social norms for networking. Human beings are just too diverse. — Danah Boyd

When we want a book exactly like the one we just finished reading, what we really want is to recreate that pleasurable experience
the headlong rush to the last page, the falling into a character's life, the deeper understanding we've gotten of a place or a time, or the feeling of reading words that are put together in a way that causes us to look at the world differently. We need to start thinking about what it is about a book that draws us in, rather than what the book is about. — Nancy Pearl

Antiessentialist thinking forces us to view the world differently. We must accept shadings and continua as fundamental. We lose criteria for judgment by comparison to some ideal: short people, retarded people, people of other beliefs, colors, and religions are people of full status. — Stephen Jay Gould

If someone were to say, 'Well, what would you have done differently?' I'd say, 'Nothing'. I think you need to make mistakes. — Kim Kardashian

That's an inspiration for all women to see a woman thinking and moving differently from those around her. — Leonardo DiCaprio

For years, I labored with the idea of reforming the existing institutions in the South, a little change here, a little change there. Now I feel quite differently. I think you've got to have a reconstruction of the entire system, a revolution of values. — Martin Luther King Jr.

There is this expectation that as January 1st dawns, we're going to do it differently. Moreover, there's this kind of pressure, that even if I've been trying to be different for a while, January 1st, from here on in - I have to be different. There's a cultural expectation, there's a personal expectation. I think it's worth just taking pause for a minute and talking about that. — Rod Stryker

The surest way to corrupt a youth? Teach him to value thinking alike more than thinking differently. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Violent resistance against the power of the state is the last resort of the minority in its effort to break loose from the oppression of the majority ... The citizen must not be so narrowly circumscribed in his activities that, if he thinks differently from those in power, his only choice is either to perish or to destroy the machinery of state. — Ludwig Von Mises

At the age of 18 I don't think that I thought very differently than I did at the age of 25. I think we instinctively have the knowledge and adapt the knowledge we need. — J.P. Donleavy

Now Ive got this moniker that Im the foot-in-mouth gal, and I keep thinking, In what way? Because I said something you dont agree with? Because I said something you dont like? Im just telling you my opinion. I hate the idea that I cant be honest about how I feel about things because its going to piss somebody off who feels differently. That seems preposterous to me. — Katherine Heigl

I'm aware of the- the fact that people elsewhere in the world think differently from us. I can sort of see us, us Americans with their eyes. And not all that I see is- is attractive. I see an insular people who are- are insensitive to foreign sensibilities, who are lazy, obese, complacent and increasingly perplexed as to why we are losing our place in the world to people who are more dynamic than us and more disciplined — Edmund Morris

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

I remember it so well. Dying. It was the most painful thing I've ever experienced. I couldn't scream because my lungs were torn apart or full of blood. I don't know. I just had to lie there, trying to breathe, hoping to drop dead as quickly as possible. And the whole time, the whole time I kept thinking about how I'd spent my entire life being a coward, and how it got me nowhere. And I knew that if I had the chance to do it all again, I'd do it differently. I promised myself I'd finally stop being afraid. — Tahereh Mafi

When you're married with kids, you just think differently. — Larry The Cable Guy

The personality and style of a photographer usually limits the type of subject with which he deals best. For example Cartier-Bresson is very interested in people and in travel; these things plus his precise feeling for geometrical relationships determine the type of pictures he takes best. What is of value is that a particular photographer sees the subject differently. A good picture must be a completely individual expression which intrigues the viewer and forces him to think. — Alexey Brodovitch

I am not sure how a novel changes the world. I think it alters a reader's perspective by asking him or her to see the world through another consciousness. That can perhaps cause people to see their own lives differently. Or just give a single day, a single moment, a slightly different sheen. — Edan Lepucki

Strong communities ... embrace change. New discoveries require us to think differently and approach things differently, to think anew. — Tom Vilsack

There are some groups that for years and years have not gotten the rights that the majority of human beings have, and it's important to continue to draw these parallels so that when we think about our future we can change some of the lives of people who love differently than we do, look different than we do, who come from a different class. It's all about bringing awareness to how important it is to be accepting of people, and there will be oppression if one group thinks they're more important or superior. — Janelle Monae

I don't think a baby will change my career because I don't plan to go about my career any differently. I'm gonna work hard because I love to work, and I love what I do. I think a baby will just add more happiness to it. — Tamar Braxton

I failed, I think, seven [or] eight times before I finally got my first [championship]. It was just, you know, just about me growing up. Now that I'm an old, old veteran-age 29-I do things a lot differently. I don't go to the gentlemen's clubs anymore. I had to slow that down. — Shaquille O'Neal

Once people have tried to do something they think is uniquely innovative and it doesn't work, they're actually now more valuable because they know what not to try the next time, or what to try differently. — Christopher Galvin

The psychology of individual creativity is about at least three different things. First, creativity is about thinking differently. Second, creativity is about feeling differently. Third, creativity is about focusing, or committing, differently. — Max McKeown

What did that feel like, to be a girl like Helen, unguarded, straightforward, who had allowed me to unpeel her like a mollusc from its shell, only to find that the exposure was devastating? That entrusting yourself entirely to someone can make you want to die? Helen, does it mean anything at all that I'm thinking these thoughts? That I'm able to remember and construct things differently? That for the first time I glimpsed it there from your point of view? Does it mean it's all over for me, for the old me? — Jill Dawson

To change your circumstances, first start thinking differently. Do not passively accept unsatisfactory circumstances, but form a picture in your mind of circumstances as they should be. Believe and succeed. — Norman Vincent Peale

I think everybody handles things very differently and you can conjecture, but until you're put in that situation, you really don't know. — Laura Linney

I've thought about all the things I could have done differently, and if it would have led to another outcome. But thinking doesn't change anything, does it? — Jodi Picoult

No matter what the issue is, don't try to justify why you don't feel good. And don't try to justify why you should feel differently. Don't try to blame whatever it is you think the reason is that's keeping you from feeling good. All of that is wasted effort. Just try to feel better right now. — Esther Hicks

But kids think differently than adults think. Adults have spent so many years thinking more and more like each other because the more you live with other people the less you think like yourself and the more you think like them. But kids are new people so we still think more normally. — Jesse Eisenberg

We've gone from thinking the fuels that powered our growth were inexpensive, inexhaustible and benign to understanding they are exhaustible, expensive and toxic. Once you frame the problem that way, people will look at solutions differently. — Thomas Friedman

Assume that your worldview is not borne by the public. More than that: Do not assume that those who think differently are idiots. Before you distrust them, question your own assumptions. — Rolf Dobelli

I think we're not looking sufficiently at what is happening at the grassroots in the country. We have not emphasized sufficiently the cultural revolution that we have to make among ourselves in order to force the government to do differently. Things do not start with governments. — Grace Lee Boggs

Each us is more than one person, many people, a proliferation of our one self. That's why the same person who scorns his surroundings is different from the person who is gladdened or made to suffer by them. In the vast colony of our being there are many different kinds of people, all thinking and feeling differently. — Fernando Pessoa

When you're doing all you can and "what more?" seems an impossible task, try thinking differently, step outside your box, and open your mind to solutions that were there all the time. Solutions you just couldn't see. Act — Roger Connors

The framing of a problem is often far more essential than its solution — Albert Einstein

See, if you put a musician in a place where he has to do something different from what he does all the time, then he can do that - but he's got to think differently in order to do it. He's got to play above what he knows - far above it. I've always told the musicians in my band to play what they know and then play above that. Because then anything can happen, and that's where great art and music happens. — Miles Davis

I find that when people laugh it's usually because they're connecting and identifying in a way that they hadn't considered. That's my payoff. I'm not interested in other people thinking differently. I don't care. I'm just like yeast - I eat sugar and I shit alcohol. And there's a huge culture that goes with that. Alcohol creates massive shifts in world history, and it changes people's lives. People get pregnant because of alcohol. But the yeast doesn't give a fuck. The yeast isn't going, "I really want to help people loosen up and bring passion into Irish people's lives". — Louis C.K.

Repentance in Greek means something much closer to "thinking differently afterward" than it does "changing your cheating ways." Of course repentance can look like a prostitute becoming a librarian, but it can also look like a prostitute simply saying, "OK, I'm a sex worker and I don't know how to change that, but I can come here and receive bread and wine and I can hold onto the love of God without being deemed worthy of it by anyone but God. — Nadia Bolz-Weber

So many people get caught up in being a pro athlete and think they are better. I don't feel like I've ever changed or acted any differently because of the situation I'm in or that status I have. — Carson Palmer

I think women do work differently; it's important to have both men and women. They offer different things. — Tory Burch

As a designer, I'm supposed to be provoking people's reactions, and getting people to see things differently. I think more of us should be doing this. Because yeah, maybe guys are not gonna want to wear my stuff, but they'll think that they can maybe wear something a little bit more than what they've been wearing. That's the only way things move forward. — Thom Browne

We are our memories," Dodge said. "That's all we are. That's what makes us the person we are. The sum of all our memories from the day we were born. If you took a person and replaced his set of memories with another set, he'd be a different person. He'd think, act, and feel things differently. — Brian Falkner

I think every leader has an obligation - the absolute obligation - to treat everyone fairly. But they also have the obligation to treat everyone differently. Because people aren't all the same, and the last thing you ever want to do, in my opinion, is let the best in your organization be treated like the worst in your organization. It does nothing for your future. — Jack Welch

We are not primitive. We live differently to you, but we do not live exactly like our grandparents did, nor do you. Were your ancestors 'primitive'? I don't think so. We respect our ancestors. We love our children. This is the same for all people. — Roy Sesana

We all have a family and I think we all have a perception of our family that we like to keep and we all have our positive memories in a certain way. Then when life catches up to them, when you see a different perspective of them, or when you are a couple degrees over, you can see things differently and it shakes you to the foundation. — David Shapiro

Internal and external are ultimately one. When you no longer perceive the world as hostile, there is no more fear, and when there is no more fear, you think, speak and act differently. Love and compassion arise, and they affect the world. — Eckhart Tolle

It's time to start thinking differently about money and debt and start the healing process - and the process toward wealth and freedom. 'Freedom from Bad Debt' can get you started. — Robert Kiyosaki

I take it that the highest proof of Christ's power is not that He offers salvation, not that He bids you take it if you will, but that when you reject it, when you hate it, when you despise it, He has a power whereby he can change your mind, make you think differently from your former thoughts, and turn you from the error of your ways. — Charles Spurgeon

There are different 'It' factors for different players. There are all kinds of different personalities of quarterbacks around the league, but there are a lot of good ones and they don't necessarily think and act alike. But I do think there are moments during games even on the collegiate level where you can see that this guys is something different, someone sees things differently, they see things a little bit quicker, they're a little bit more cognizant of what's going on. I think it's something like that. — Ted Thompson

Thinking differently means you can work out problems in an unusual way. Just because we may do things differently it does not mean it is wrong. — Tina J. Richardson

I would have handled it differently than the mayor of Baltimore, that's for sure. I think it's a mistake to say, hey, guys, you can pillage the city for a while and we'll let that go, and we'll be sort of standing back. I think it's also important to know some of the underlying causes of why there's unease in our country. — Rand Paul

Jobs was brave enough to think differently, bold enough to believe he could change the world, and talented enough to do it — Barack Obama

As students grow more and more accustomed to assuming materialism and naturalism in their academic work, the concept of creation by God gradually tends to become less real to them. It is not so much that any single finding undermines their faith; rather, the day-to-day practice of thinking in naturalistic terms about academic subjects makes it awkward to think differently when it comes to religion. — Phillip E. Johnson

If we don't learn to live with one another we will not live. We will either love each other as neighbors or we won't be. I believe that it is an insult to me as a Christian to say that I cannot love as neighbor somebody who thinks differently than I do. — Miroslav Volf

We had to think differently to do what must be done. — Lailah Gifty Akita

You cannot change how someone thinks, but you can give them a tool to use which will lead them to think differently. — R. Buckminster Fuller

Creativity itself is a joyous unlatching. The act of creative imagining, inventing, saying differently, crafting a metaphor or image, then crafting another metaphor or image when you go further or when you revise - all these take whatever you think "is" and make clear that other possibilities exist as well. The sense of possibility, the amplitude and freedom that sense of malleability brings - for me, that cannot help but be joyous. — Jane Hirshfield

I think it's natural as you get to the end of your twenties to start thinking about what you could have done differently - whether they went well or whether they went terribly. — Bryan Lee O'Malley

One of my guiding principles is don't do anything that other people are doing. Always do something a little different if you can. The concept is that if you do it a little differently there is a greater potential for reward than if you the same thing that other people are doing. I think that this kind of goal for one's work, having obviously the maximum risk, would have the maximum reward no matter what the field may be. — Seymour Cray

Any idea can be a great idea if you think differently, dream big and commit to seeing it realized — Richard Branson

I think more than being a woman is the fact that i'm an introvert. In the environment I work in people forget that i'm a woman which is wonderful it just shows what a wonderful environment i work in, no one treats me differently. They don't think that because i'm a woman i'll make decisions differently. — Jennifer Yuh Nelson

In another time and place, she might have felt differently, but thinking along those lines was pointless now. — Nicholas Sparks

I don't think it's important for everyone necessarily, and I totally respect that because everyone writes differently. — Neko Case

I would be annoyed if I were any more in tune with modern sensibilities. I was shaped differently. The world in which I grew up was Texan and Southern, and it had many, many failings. I think I've gotten rid of most of the bad things in myself from that earlier age, but I don't adjust to the way things are progressing now. — John Graves

If you are not thinking differently, you are not exercising your freedom. — Debasish Mridha

The day I'm inaugurated, this country looks at itself differently and the world looks at America differently. If you believe that we've got to heal America and we've got to repair our standing in the world, then I think my supporters believe that I am a messenger who can deliver that message around the world in a way that no other candidate can do. — Barack Obama

One of the things we learn in movies directed by men is what the 'fantasy woman' is. What we learn in movies directed by women is what real women are about. I don't think that men see things wrong and women right, just that we do see things differently. — Jane Campion

People say "the Americans" or "the United States," as if it was a kind of bloc. It's not. There's a lot of people thinking differently from other people in the U.S. This is very interesting to me and very important. — Costa-Gavras

Of course I could have done things differently. I could stop fucking thinking about you and obsessing over you and fucking wanting you for just long enough to do my fucking job - that's what I could do differently."
[ ... ]
"Have you any idea what every day here is like for me? I can't eat, I can't focus, I can't sleep. I spend my nights frozen in one position, afraid to move in case I accidentally do all the things I really, really want to do. I want to do them so much that just having you look at me is a kind of torture. Just being near you, just getting a hint of that maddening marzipan scent that's all over your hair - — Charlotte Stein

The more time you invest in thinking about the project - where to begin and how to pull it all together - the more original, successful, and enjoyable the project will be. There is always an element of fear here - everyone is afraid of failing. Don't be! The truth is that you are going to fail in some way, but this is something to be embraced and viewed as a learning experience. There is freedom in recognizing you will fail - you'll be inspired to push yourself. With every finished project you will probably have a list of things you would do differently next time. Expect this from the beginning and the journey will be more rewarding. — Nathan Smith

Most outside experts disagreed. "Maybe it's time Steve Jobs stopped thinking quite so differently," Business Week wrote in a story headlined "Sorry Steve, Here's Why Apple Stores Won't Work. — Walter Isaacson

As you begin to think more in terms of importance, you begin to see time differently. — Stephen Covey

Today's photographers think differently. Many can't see real light anymore. They think only in terms of strobe - sure, it all looks beautiful but it's not really seeing. If you have the eyes to see it, the nuances of light are already there on the subject's face. If your thinking is confined to strobe light sources, your palette becomes very mean - which is the reason I photograph only in available light. — Alfred Eisenstaedt

Turning pro is a mindset. If we are struggling with fear, self-sabotage, procrastination, self-doubt, etc., the problem is, we're thinking like amateurs. Amateurs don't show up. Amateurs crap out. Amateurs let adversity defeat them. The pro thinks differently. He shows up, he does his work, he keeps on truckin', no matter what. — Steven Pressfield

Well it happened, you know? And There's nothing we can do about it now. You can blame and blame yourself, thinking og thw things you might've done differently, or ask if maybe it was her time, and ask if this has something to do with god, maybe, but sometimes I think things just happen. There's nothing you can do about it-you just gotta deal with it. Sometimes life really sucks. you know? sometimes it just sucks — Sara Shepard

The disciples of Jesus found themselves thinking that if divine goodness were to manifest itself in human form, this (he) is how it would behave ... he invited people to see differently instead of telling them what to do or believe ... he located the authority of his teaching in his hearer's hearts, not in himself or God-as-removed. — Huston Smith

I think writing would have happened to me anyway, somehow. Differently, but it still would have happened. — Douglas Coupland

Hardly anybody thinks about typing in their social security number as ID. Hardly anybody pays attention to the myriad of security cameras. There isn't anybody that worked on this show that doesn't look at security cameras differently than when they started. — Remi Aubuchon

Christ want to point this out and to warn His followers that in the world everyone should live as though he were alone and should consider His Word and preaching as the very greatest thing on earth, thinking this way to himself: I see my neighbor and the whole city, and yes the whole world, living differently. All those who are great or noble or rich, the princes and the lords, are allied with it. Nevertheless I have an ally who is greater than all of them, namely, Christ and His Word. When I am all alone, therefore, I am still not alone. Because I have the Word of God, I have Christ with me, together with all the dear angels and all the saints since the beginning of the world. Actually there is a bigger crowd and a more glorious procession surrounding me than there could be in the whole world now. Only I cannot see it with my eyes, and I have to watch and bear the offense of having so many people forsake me or live and act in opposition to me. — Martin Luther

Successful people are successful for one simple reason: they think about failure differently. — Seth Godin

I think every man and woman is a star. It's just a matter of realizing and becoming it. It's all a matter of willpower. The world is just how you see it. If you want to have other people tell you how to see it, then you can. But if you want to look at it differently, then it's limitless what you can do. That's why I don't feel the need to be one person. I can be as many people as I like. — Marilyn Manson

A lot of great thinkers- like Einstein and Newton- come up with their best ideas when they're young because they don't yet think in the way that the establishment teaches them. Sometimes your lack of knowledge frees your mind to be creative and think in a different way. But you still have to be logical and figure out a practical way to get things done, even though you're looking at things differently. — George Lucas

A lot of people, Lady Gaga and Katy Perry and a lot of people have written for other people, and of course Bruno Mars. So I think it's a great way to break into the industry and show people what you can do and show them your talent and people tend to listen a little differently to your own music as an artist, when you've proven yourself as a good songwriter for other artists. — Bonnie McKee

You've got to make choices that make sense for you because there's always going to be somebody who'll think you should do something differently. — Michelle Obama