“I have noticed that people are dealing too much with the negative, with what is wrong…. Why not try the other way, to look into the patient and see positive things, to just touch those things and make them bloom?”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "I have noticed that people are dealing too much with the negative, with what is wrong…. Why not try the other way, to l…" by Thich Nhat Hanh?

Thich Nhat Hanh photo

Thich Nhat Hanh169

Religious leader and peace activist 1926

Related quotes

“I don't know why people see the things that they do. I wouldn't pay to see them, they don't touch me or move me in any way.”

Sherilyn Fenn (1965) American actress

Sherilyn Fenn, quoted in "Sherilyn and Sherilyn Alike", by Dale Brasel. Detour (USA). May 1995. p. 46-50.

“Positive people also have negative thoughts. They just don’t let those thoughts grow and control them.”

“There are those that look at things the way they are, and ask why? I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?”

Robert F. Kennedy (1925–1968) American politician and brother of John F. Kennedy

Though Kennedy stated that he was quoting George Bernard Shaw when he said this, he is often thought to have originated the expression, which actually paraphrases a line delivered by the Serpent in Shaw's play Back To Methuselah: “You see things; and you say, ‘Why?’ But I dream things that never were; and I say, ‘Why not?’". This phrase was first used by his brother John F. Kennedy in 1963 (June 28th), during his visit to Ireland, in his address to the Irish Dail (Government): "George Bernard Shaw, speaking as an Irishman, summed up an approach to life, 'Other people, he said, see things and say why? But I dream things that never were and I say, why not?" ( Address on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ADeazX9blw.). Robert's other brother Edward famously quoted it (paraphrasing it even further), to conclude his eulogy to his late brother after his assassination (8 June 1968): Some men see things as they are and say why? I dream things that never were and say why not? - (Eulogy in CBS news video) http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=5268061n <br class="br">Misattributed <br class="br">Source: Robert Kennedy in His Own Words: The Unpublished Recollections of the Kennedy Years

“In life two negatives don't make a positive. Double negatives turn positive only in math and formal logic. In life things just get worse and worse and worse.”

Robert McKee (1941) American academic specialised in seminars for screenwriters

Source: Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting

“Every life, no matter how isolated, touches hundred of others. It's up to us to decide if those micro connections are positive or negative. But whichever we decide, it does impact the ones we deal with.”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Infamous

“We need not be afraid to touch, to feel, to show emotion. The easiest thing in the world is to be what you are, what you feel. The hardest thing to be is what other people want you to be. Don’t let them put you in that position.”

Leo Buscaglia (1924–1998) Motivational speaker, writer

LOVE (1972)

“I try to maintain a positive attitude at all times, because clients notice little things like that, and if you're frowning and crying all the time and saying "why? why?", they get worried.”

John Swartzwelder book The Time Machine Did It

Source: The Time Machine Did It

“Why do I see things differently from the way other people see them? Why do I pursue the questions that I pursue, even if others regard them as, as they say, "controversial?" Which merely means that they have a difference of opinion. They see things differently. I am interested both in nature, and in the human side of nature, and how the two can be brought together, and effectively used.”

Jonas Salk (1914–1995) Inventor of polio vaccine

Academy of Achievement interview (1991)

“I notice me. I notice you too.
And there are simple things that we don't even try anymore. There's a way out of this.
Beat the time.
And every time I turn around
we got some clever way to put each other down.”

Edie Brickell (1966) singer from the United States

"Beat The Time"
Shooting Rubberbands at the Stars (1988)

“And this is probably a good place for me to end by just saying that the issue of climate change is a perfect example of why young people have to lead. Because old people, they've created a mess, and then they'll be gone. And then you -- (applause) -- you're the ones who have to deal with it. And also what happens is old people get set in their ways. So the older you get, the more likely you are to say, that's how it's always been so that's how I'm going to keep on doing it -- even if there's a better way to do things. Young people, they're asking, well, why do I have to do it that way? Let's try it this way. And that kind of willingness to accept challenges and try things in a new way, to not be stuck in the past, or to look towards the future, that's what all of you represent.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2014, Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative Town Hall Speech (November 2014)

Related topics