Your Mind Wanders Quotes & Sayings

She wanders on like a poplar leaf borne upon a whirlwind of unconscious associations, she, her youth, her illusions and her former happiness remembered now through the mists of a ruined mind. — Comte De Lautreamont

The human mind isn't a computer; it cannot progress in an orderly fashion down a list of candidate moves and rank them by a score down to the hundredth of a pawn the way a chess machine does. Even the most disciplined human mind wanders in the heat of competition. This is both a weakness and a strength of human cognition. Sometimes these undisciplined wanderings only weaken your analysis. Other times they lead to inspiration, to beautiful or paradoxical moves that were not on your initial list of candidates. — Garry Kasparov

My mind wanders terribly. I'm not wholly annoyed by my daydreaming as it has been immense use to me as regards imaginative thought, but it doesn't help when it comes to concentration. And writing needs concentration - lots of it. — Jasper Fforde

The bath is one of the places I prefer, certainly not a place I leave readily, a place where one can close the door and remove oneself, put oneself in parentheses, as it were, from the rest of humanity. It is a place for reading and thinking, where one's mind wanders easily, where time seems temporarily suspended. — Sheila Kohler

Nowhere can I think so happily as in a train. I am not inspired; nothing so uncomfortable as that. I am never seized with a sudden idea for a masterpiece, nor form a sudden plan for some new enterprise. My thoughts are just pleasantly reflective. I think of all the good deeds I have done, and (when these give out) of all the good deeds I am going to do. I look out of the window and say lazily to myself, "How jolly to live there"; and a little farther on, "How jolly not to live there." I see a cow, and I wonder what it is like to be a cow, and I wonder whether the cow wonders what it is to be like me; and perhaps, by this time, we have passed on to a sheep, and I wonder if it is more fun being a sheep. My mind wanders on in a way which would annoy Pelman a good deal, but it wanders on quite happily, and the "clankety-clank" of the train adds a very soothing accompaniment. So soothing, indeed, that at any moment I can close my eyes and pass into a pleasant state of sleep. — A.A. Milne

The feel of a good row stays with you hours afterward. Your muscles glow, your mind wanders from the papers on you desk and goes back, again and again, to that terrific power piece at the end of the workout when it felt as if you and the boat were flying, as if you legs were two cannons and your arms were two oars and the great lateral muscles of your back were pterodactyl wings and the brim of your baseball cap was a harpoon. — Barry S. Strauss

Even this cold, this fearful, your mind wanders. You've lost a mile not knowing you were walking. — Ian Mackenzie Jeffers

Say: If you want to know where your heart is, look to where your mind goes when it wanders. — Laura Miller

Monogamy, it follows, is the sacred cow of the romantic ideal, for it is the marker of our specialness: I have been chosen and others renounced. When you turn your back on other loves, you confirm my uniqueness; when your hand or mind wanders, my importance is shattered. Conversely, if I no longer feel special, my own hands and mind tingle with curiosity. The disillusioned are prone to roam. Might someone else restore my significance — Esther Perel

He wanders, like a day-appearing dream,
Through the dim wildernesses of the mind; Through desert woods and tracts, which seem Like ocean, homeless, boundless, unconfined. — Percy Bysshe Shelley

If you want to know where your heart is, look where your mind goes when it wanders. -Unknown — Vi Keeland

It wasn't that I hated being asked a bunch of questions. I had nothing against questions. I just didn't like listening to them, because some questions take forever to make sense. Sometimes waiting for a question to finish is like watching someone draw an elephant starting with the tail first. As soon as you see the tail your mind wanders all over the place and you think of a million other animals that also have tails until you don't care about the elephant because it's only one thing when you've been thinking about a million others. — Jack Gantos

Many of us are slaves to our minds. Our own mind is our worst enemy. We try to focus, and our mind wanders off. We try to keep stress at bay, but anxiety keeps us awake at night. We try to be good to the people we love, but then we forget them and put ourselves first. And when we want to change our life, we dive into spiritual practice and expect quick results, only to lose focus after the honeymoon has worn off. We return to our state of bewilderment. We're left feeling helpless and discouraged. It seems we all agree that training the body through exercise, diet, and relaxation is a good idea, but why don't we think about training our minds? — Sakyong Mipham

In most cases we perform better when we're busy than when we're not busy. When we're slow, our mind wanders. We're not as attentive to our business. When we're on the firing line, we're sharper. We move more quickly and get the job done right. — S. Truett Cathy

For when you are approaching poverty, you make one discovery which outweighs all of the others ... the fact that it annihilates the future. Within certain limits, it is actually true that the less money you have the less you worry.
When you have a hundred francs in the world you are liable to the most craven panics. When you have three francs left, you are quite indifferent ... you are bored but you are not afraid. You think vaguely "I shall be starving in a day or two- shocking, isn't it?" And then the mind wanders to other topics. A bread and margarine diet does, to some extent, provide its own anodyne. — George Orwell

In debate, especially when the dispute is hot and supercharged and freighted with ill will, I have always been the flabbiest of contenders. My voice breaks, becomes shrill; I sweat. I get a sloppy half-grin on my face. Worse, my mind wanders and then takes flight while the logic I possess in fair measure under more placid circumstances abandons my brain like an ungrateful urchin. — William Styron

We reason, that is, our mind wanders, each time our courage fails to force us to pursue an intuition through all the successive stages which end in its fixation, in the expression of its own reality. — Marcel Proust

My mind wanders a lot, but fortunately it's too weak to go very far. — Bob Thaves

When you move with this thought that 'I want', then the mind wanders. When you move with this thought that 'I have received', then you are content. — Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

For loss is what we live with all the time. / None knows this better than the mind should know, the mind / that wanders, and cannot tell our name, itself / all seeds and survivals, little else, poor blind. — William Bronk

The mind that constantly wanders through the past is always a terrible mess. — Marwane Caber

It frustrates me when my mind wanders and when I end up reading the same words again and again. — Rory Bremner

Without time as a reference, the mind sits idly by and wanders into the ways of dark imaginings and evil works
~Hecate — M.L. Stephens

I start paying attention to all my movements. How one arm complements the other. And I start thinking about everything I do with two hands. Driving. Golfing. Keyboarding. Even writing really takes two hands. The pen's held in one; the paper's anchored with the other. My mind wanders all over everyday things. Opening a water bottle. Getting dressed. Making a sandwich. Washing dishes. I imagine life with only one hand and realize that it would be hard. In a different way, but still hard ... I rub my hands together, spreading out the soap. And as I massage both sides of my head, I'm thankful for my hands. Thankful to have both of them. — Wendelin Van Draanen

No matter what. Wherever your mind wanders, it seems to turn up at the same Field of Dreams. It's the vision you wake up with in the morning, and it's the last thing you picture before you fall asleep. Everytime you think of it, the idea in your head seems to get more vivid, filled in with more detail: You not only want to win a gold medal at the Olympics, you not only can see yourself standing there on the podium, but you can also feel the goose bumps as your national anthem is played; the tears are in your eyes. (That's how real a dream can be and should be) — James C. Collins

My mind wanders to the other side of the courtyard, where St. Clair waits with Josh in Q-through-Z. I wonder if I have any classes with him. I mean, them. Classes with them. — Stephanie Perkins

While you are meditating, if your mind wanders, gently bring it back to the present moment. — Sharon Salzberg

Your heart will always go where your mind wanders. — Shannon L. Alder

What man does not know,
Or has not thought of,
Wanders in the night
Through the labyrinth of the mind. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

The part of me which wanders through my mind and never sees or feels actual objects, but which lives in and moves through my passions and my emotions, experiences this world as a horrible nightmare. — Jack Henry Abbott

Temples and churches have become social centers. They have lost their original purpose because the minds of the people are more attracted to worldly things than to prayer. The lips repeat the prayer mechanically like a phonograph record, but the mind wanders to other places. (23-24) — Swami Satchidananda

Even when your mind wanders, it's going someplace, and all that travelling adds up ... — Margaret Wrinkle

Saint Thomas Aquinas says, wisely, that the only way to drive out a bad passion is by a stronger good passion. The same is true of thoughts as of passions. When your mind wanders, like a child, your will must bring it back, like a mother. [ ... ] The will-parent must discipline the mind-child, avoiding both the opposite extremes commonly made in disciplining either children or thoughts: tyranny or permissiveness. — Peter Kreeft

The effect, if not the prime office, of criticism is to make our absorption and our enjoyment of the things that feed the mind as aware of itself as possible, since that awareness quickens the mental demand, which thus in turn wanders further and further for pasture. This action on the part of the mind practically amounts to a reaching out for the reasons of its interest, as only by its ascertaining them can the interest grow more various. This is the very education of our imaginative life. — Henry James

Several elements of the ADD mind favor creativity ... As mentioned earlier, the term 'attention deficit' is a misnomer. It is a matter of attention inconsistency. While it is true that the ADD mind wanders when not engaged, it is also the case that the ADD mind fastens on to its subject fiercely when it is engaged. A child with ADD may sit for hours meticulously putting together a model airplane. — Edward Hallowell

But this is one of the things that makes rap at its best so human. It doesn't force you to pretend to be only one thing or another, to be a saint or a sinner. It recognizes that you can be true to yourself and still have unexpected dimensions and opposing ideas. Having a devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other is the most common thing in the world. The real bullshit is when you act like you don't have contradictions inside you, that you're so dull and unimaginative that your mind never changes or wanders into strange, unexpected places. — Jay-Z

My experience is that when undergoing severe physical labor the mind is not at all active. One thinks of the particular problem in hand or perhaps the mind just wanders not performing coherent thought. As to missing various phases of civilized life, one has no time to miss anything save food or sleep or rest. In short one becomes little more than a rational animal. — David Grann

We use our minds not to discover facts but to hide them. One of things the screen hides most effectively is the body, our own body, by which I mean, the ins and outs of it, its interiors. Like a veil thrown over the skin to secure its modesty, the screen partially removes from the mind the inner states of the body, those that constitute the flow of life as it wanders in the journey of each day. (p.28) — Antonio R. Damasio

the lonely mind wanders.
the happy mind goes.
the weary mind travels.
the thoughtful mind flows. — Barry DeCarli

I try to forget you more often than not but somehow my mind wanders to places my heart feels are oh so very true. — Nikki Rowe

When we were shooting the movie, and of course in the editing room we had to make choices, but the shots fall almost exactly where we thought they would. They're not about content; they're never meant to be about what just happened. There's that weird phenomenon where the more you like a movie the more your mind wanders and goes all over the place. — Philip Morrison

My mind wanders back to the dream, to Christian, the way he's always looking out for me, catching me, keeping me on my feet. He's becoming my guardian, maybe. Someone who is there to keep me on my path. — Cynthia Hand

One thing that creates difference between pilgrims of life as they journey along the various paths of life is their head. It makes some fall, others rest and some pursue to the farther.
The reason for the difference is not the size, shape, hair color or the style of their head but what is within their head, what fills their mind, what enters their ears; what their eyes look and see, what their ears hear and listen to; make some champions of life and others wanders of life. — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

As the past has ceased to throw its light upon the future, the mind of man wanders in obscurity. — Alexis De Tocqueville

Everyone's mind wanders, without doubt, and we always have to start over. Everyone resists or dislikes the thought of or is too tired to meditate at times, and we have to be able to begin again. — Sharon Salzberg

She tends to get distracted. Her mind wanders and amuses itself elsewhere. — Terry Pratchett

My mind wanders and I drift off into La-La Land. I dream about Thalassic City. About opportunity. And second chances. About actually living. — Siobhan Davis

It helps to have a focus for your attention, an anchor line to tether you to the present moment and to guide you back when the mind wanders. The breath serves this purpose exceedingly well. It can be a true ally. Bringing awareness to our breathing, we remind ourselves that we are here now, so we might as well be fully awake for whatever is already happening. — Jon Kabat-Zinn

A few minutes ago, I felt as if I was back in Paris,
sitting in a park.
It is funny how our mind sometimes wanders
back to times past.

When each of my parents was dying,
floating in a sea of pain medication,
their minds drifted back to their early twenties
when they were newly in love.
They both talked as if they were lost,
and they had to find each other.

In one corner of my house,
I display some things that my parents cherished:
my mother's china
and my father's fishing gear.
I don't know if there is an afterlife,
but if their ghosts visit me someday,
then their cherished things will be waiting for them.
I also display photographs of my late parents,
not when they were old,
but when they were a newlywed couple,
young, happy, smiling
and full of hope
and love. — Jeffrey A. White

Wherever his faltering mind,
unsteadily wanders,
he should restrain it
and bring it under self-control
Krishna, the mind is faltering,
violent, strong, and stubborn;
I find it as difficult
to hold as the wind. — Vikram Seth

It is not physical solitude that actually separates one from others; not physical isolation, but spiritual isolation. It is not the desert island nor the stony wilderness that cuts you from the people you love. It is the wilderness in the mind, the desert wastes in the heart through which one wanders lost and a stranger. — Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Sometimes my mind wanders; other times it leaves completely — Anonymous

Symptoms of Love ...
The quickening of my heart I can hear my breath as it passes through my body like wind through branches of a tree.
The sensation in my chest the dreams in my head my body reacts as if exposed to a sudden change in the elements.
My mind wanders not focused on one particular thing like an innocent long ago in his youth. Oh how I desire to be with you when our bodies will meet and become one. — M.I. Ghostwriter

I'm kind of A.D.D., and so my mind wanders a lot. — Hunter Parrish

If your brain does not receive sufficient stimulus, it might find something else to do - it daydreams, it wanders, it thinks about itself. If this goes on too long, it can affect your mind's normal functioning. Chronic boredom correlates with depression and attention deficits. — Deborah Blum

With an open mind, you are the imagination of universal consciousness and the creation of the subconscious mind that wanders throughout the universe. — Debasish Mridha