Quotes about focus
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“We focus on building innovation and inventing technology futures and we figure that it will take care of the rest. So far, it's done wonders.”

Philippe Kahn (1952) Entrepreneur, camera phone creator

On financial planning at a speech at the Smithsonian.

Future

“Impressions within and His word without are always corroborated by His Providence around, and we should quietly wait until these three focus into one point.”

Frederick Brotherton Meyer (1847–1929) English Baptist pastor and evangelist

The Secret of Guidance (1896)

Waiting

“Are you aware of your inner signals? Do you trust them? Do you have the focus of control over your life in your own hands? Take this from me, the more decisions you can make avoiding external pressures, which will constantly try to manipulate and immobilise you, the better your life will be, the better your society will become. The entire nation will benifit from having strong, inner-directed people as their leaders.”

A. P. J. Abdul Kalam book Wings of Fire

Source: Wings of Fire, p. 175.

Life, People, Decision, Strong

“[I]t's not by chance that Russia and the U. S. forge alliances in the most critical moments of modern history. That was the case in WWI and WWII. Even if there was fierce confrontation, our countries united against a common threat, which means there's something that unites us. There must be some fundamental interest which brings us together. That's something we need to focus on first. We need to be aware of our differences but focus on a positive agenda that can improve our cooperation.”

Vladimir Putin (1952) President of Russia, former Prime Minister

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33oIF-ggK5U 2011 - 2015

History, Chance, Country

“In the network economy a firm's primary focus shifts from maximizing the firm«s value to maximizing the network's value.”

Kevin Kelly (1952) American author and editor

Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World (1995), New Rules for the New Economy: 10 Radical Strategies for a Connected World (1999)

“When learning is in focus, arrangements are made in the environment of the learner that communicate the learning task, and learning resources are made available to learners so that they can explore and master learning tasks.”

Béla H. Bánáthy (1919–2003) Hungarian linguist and systems scientist

Source: Systems Design of Education (1991), p. 110

Communication, Learning

“Diverting attention from the way in which certain beliefs, desires, attitudes, or values are the result of particular power relations, then, can be a sophisticated way of contributing to the maintenance of an ideology, and one that will be relatively immune to normal forms of empirical refutation. If I claim (falsely) that all human societies, or all human societies at a certain level of economic development, have a free market in health services, that is a claim that can be demonstrated to be false. On the other hand, if I focus your attention in a very intense way on the various different tariffs and pricing schema that doctors or hospitals or drug companies impose for their products and services, and if I become morally outraged by “excessive” costs some drug companies charge, discussing at great length the relative rates of profit in different sectors of the economy, and pressing the moral claims of patients, it is not at all obvious that anything I say may be straightforwardly “false”; after all, who knows what “excessive” means? However, by proceeding in this way I might well focus your attention on narrow issues of “just” pricing, turning it away from more pressing issues about the acceptance in some societies of the very existence of a free market for drugs and medical services. One can even argue that the more outraged I become about the excessive price, the more I obscure the underlying issue. One way, then, in which a political philosophy can be ideological is by presenting a relatively marginal issue as if it were central and essential.”

Raymond Geuss book Philosophy and Real Politics

Source: Philosophy and Real Politics (2008), p. 54.

Health, Way, Falseness

“Every public declaration is tested with polls and focus groups. The result is a bunch of platitudes that don’t offend anybody, but also don’t mean anything and don’t motivate anyone.”

Maxime Bernier (1963) Canadian politician

Motivation

“The men who build and design this park are transcendentalists. To them, Central Park is a place to become one with nature, to focus on trees, to scintillate with grass, to stare into one anothers' eyes. No sweating allowed in the original Central Park, no perspiration of any kind. Anyone you see congregating for the baseball game on the left, bicycling, rollerblading, jogging, they are not historically accurate. Anyone you see lounging in the sun, having a picnic, or kissing; They are historically accurate.”

Timothy Levitch (1970) American actor

The Cruise (1998)

Men, Game, Kiss, Nature

“Rick and Morty is definitely the most freeing, most fun thing I’ve ever worked on. It’s had the biggest impact. I love everything I make—and hate it, I guess—but I have a very special relationship with Rick and Morty, and getting a 70-episode pickup means that I can actually really focus on it, and loving it won’t be taking away from anything else. I can let Rick and Morty take away from everything.”

Dan Harmon (1973) American writer and performer

May 2018 interview with GQ https://www.gq.com/story/rick-and-morty-renewed-for-season-4-dan-harmon-interview

Love, Hate

“Our focus on discrimination against women during the past 30 years has blinded us to opportunities for women.”

Warren Farrell (1943) author, spokesperson, expert witness, political candidate

Source: Why Men Earn More (2005), p. xxiv.

Women, Past

“Improving the opportunities across the board is extremely important to sustain the legitimacy of wealth. If a whole horde of people, whole sections of society don't feel they have the opportunities, then the focus is going to be on those who have it and who have made it and say that is illegitimate.”

Raghuram G. Rajan (1963) Indian economist

On the rising suspicions towards self-made people after the Panama Papers leak, as quoted in " ‘Panama Papers’ furore: RBI Guv Raghuram Rajan says ‘dangerous’ to question legitimacy of self-made wealth http://www.financialexpress.com/article/economy/panama-papers-furore-rbi-guv-raghuram-rajan-says-dangerous-to-question-legitimacy-of-self-made-wealth/233785/", The Financial Express (7 April 2016)

People, Feeling, Wealth

“The problems we face as a world feed off of ignorance and isolation. Art is the indelibly effective medium by which to combat it. Perhaps it is time that we focus less on the art of diplomacy and more on artistic diplomacy.”

Lydia Canaan Lebanese singer-songwriter

From Diplomacy and Art http://diplomatartist.com/diplomacy-art/, a contributer article for Diplomat Artist, October 10, 2015

World, Art, Problem, Time

“Albers [on Black Mountain College ] was a beautiful teacher and an impossible person. He wasn't easy to talk to, and I found his criticism so excruciating and so devastating that I never asked for it. Years later, though, I'm still learning what he taught me, because what he taught me had to do with the entire visual world. He didn't teach you how to 'do art'. The focus was always on your personal sense of looking… I consider Albers the most important teacher I've ever had, and I'm sure that he considers me one of his poorest students.”

Robert Rauschenberg (1925–2008) American artist

Source: 1960's, The Bride and the Bachelors, (1962), p. 198

World, Beauty, Art, Mountain

“Basic ingredients of the decision-making focus include, then: (1) a process approach; (2) a conception of tensions as inherent in the process; and (3), a renewed concern with the role and workings of man's enlarged cortex seen as a complex adaptive subsystem operating within an interaction matrix characterized by uncertainty, conflict, and other dissociative (as well as associative) processes underlying the structuring and restructuring of the larger psychosocial system.”

Walter F. Buckley (1922–2006) American sociologist

Source: Sociology and modern systems theory (1967), p. 499.

Decision

“When an individual's or group's basic survival is threatened, stress becomes tremendous, and productivity drops. Under these conditions a manager's ability to reason and maintain a proper focus on developing plans or solutions to a crisis is extremely difficult.”

Wheeler L. Baker (1938) President of Hargrave Military Academy

Source: Crisis Management: A Model For Managers (1993), p. 14

“It's a different animal. The action movie requires much more physical dedication and focus, you have to be careful because of potential injuries and so it's very hard and you have to be cautious, while the drama taxes the emotions, and so if you're using some past experienced trauma and try to use it for a scene it might move you beyond expectations.”

Wesley Snipes (1962) film actor, Martial artist, film producer

Wesley Snipes, Interview - Wesley Snipes on Blade 2 http://www.iofilm.co.uk/feats/interviews/w/wesley_snipes.shtml, iofilm,

Past, Animals

“Simply translating the act of the scientist is the first job of any science writer. Then, in my more grandiose moments, the other big job of a science writer is to see connections, to see the forest composed by all these trees. The act of being a scientist, by definition, the act of being a modern scientist requires you to really focus. You have to drill down. You have to spend years studying one brick, one synaptic protein, one kind of thing that turns on the amygdala, one very particular question.”

Jonah Lehrer (1981) American science writer

Chimeras of Experience: A Conversation with Jonah Lehrer (2009)

Question, Tree, Study, Science

“Your body will never be more connected to your mind than when something is at stake. That's how you measure the value of a movement: by its consequences. Climb a tree, throw a rock, balance on the edge of a cliff-- you lose focus for a fraction of a second, you're screwed. It takes a very affluent and indulged culture to convince itself that standing around in weird poses is exercise.”

Erwan Le Corre (1971)

Christopher McDougall (2015). Natural Born Heroes: How A Daring Band of Misfits Mastered the Lost Secrets of Strength and Endurance, Vintage.

Exercises, Tree

“Probably, I wound up—if not as a jack-of-all-trades—at best as a thirdrate polymath never able to focus these curiosities into a commanding “view of life.” The most practical solution appeared to be to make a profession of observation, to become a reporter simply, a profession easily damned as that of a fence-sitter, a moral coward unwilling to take a stand, a chronic water-treader who lacks the strength to take the plunge. To these strictures, I can only reply that once every four years at least I take a stand: I vote. And immediately afterward return to my reporting habits and the continuing discovery that in life the range of irreconcilable points of view, characters, flaws, idiosyncrasies and virtues is astounding, and that in politics there is very often much to be said on both sides, and sometimes on three or four.”

Alistair Cooke (1908–2004) British journalist and broadcaster

"Reflections of a Non-Positive Man". In: Living philosophies : the reflections of some eminent men and women of our time (1990), edited by Clifton Fadiman.

Life, Water, Appearance

“Now we have hands-free phones, so you can focus on the thing you're really supposed to be doing … chances are, if you need both of your hands to do something, your brain should be in on it too.”

Ellen DeGeneres (1958) American stand-up comedian, television host, and actress

Here and Now

Chance

“I knew what a circle could do. Both eyes focus on it. It stamps itself out, like a dot. This, in turn, causes one's vision to spread, as in a mandala in Tantric art.”

Kenneth Noland (1924–2010) American artist

Kenneth Noland, p. 8
Conversation with Karen Wilkin' (1986-1988)

Art

“I think a poet's focus is not quite what a prose writer's is, it's not entirely on the world outside. It's fixed on the area where the inside meets the outside, where the poet's sensibility meets the weather, meets the street, meets other people… that shadow land between self and reality.”

Mark Strand (1934–2014) Canadian-American poet, essayist, translator

Paris Review Interview (1998)

People, World, Thinking, Reality

“The labyrinth is conceived as a network of constructs, each of which is essentially an abstraction and, as such, can be picked up and laid down over many, many different events in order to bring them into focus and clothe them with personal meaning. Moreover, the constructs are subject to continual revision, although the complex interdependent relationship between constructs in the system often makes it precarious for the person to revise one construct without taking into account the disruptive effect upon major segments of the system.”

George Kelly (psychologist) (1905–1967) American psychologist and therapist

George A. Kelly, "Man's construction of his alternatives." Assessment of human motives (1958): 33-64.

Personality, Clothes

“When we focus our attention on things that are either in the past of in the future, it dilutes our experience of right now. Today is the day you can break from that.”

Steve Maraboli (1975)

Source: Life, the Truth, and Being Free (2010), p. 61

Past, Future

“There are as many ways to eat a vegan diet as there are people who discover it. Just about any way you do it, provided you focus on unprocessed foods, include vitamin B12, and make a few adjustments for your individual needs and preferences, can be viable and health-promoting.”

Victoria Moran (1950) American writer

Source: The Good Karma Diet (2015), Ch. 3: Have It Your Way

People, Health, Food, Way

“What media loves is to focus on the candidates. What the American people, I believe, want is for us to focus on them, not the candidates, not anymore.”

Bernie Sanders (1941) American politician, senator for Vermont

as interviewed by Amy Goodman, "Bernie Sanders Warns That Corporate Media Threatens Democracy," Alternet, (28 December 2016) http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/bernie-sanders-warns-corporate-media-threatens-democracy 2010s, 2016

Love, People

“The value of a book about dealing with children is inversely proportional to the number of times it contains the word behavior. When our primary focus is on discrete behaviors, we end up ignoring the whole child.”

Alfie Kohn (1957) American author and lecturer

"Unconditional Teaching," Educational Leadership

Children, Books, Behavior, Time

“An examination of our terms, such as competition, rivalry, emulation, etc., reveals that the traditional perspective remains inscribed in the language. Competitors are fundamentally those who run or walk together, rivals who dwell on opposite banks of the same river, etc…The modern view of competition and conflict is the unusual and exceptional view, and our incomprehension is perhaps more problematic than the phenomenon of primitive prohibition. Primitive societies have never shared our conception of violence. For us, violence has a conceptual autonomy, a specificity that is utterly unknown to primitive societies. We tend to focus on the individual act, whereas primitive societies attach only limited importance to it and have essentially pragmatic reasons for refusing to isolate such an act from its context. This context is one of violence. What permits us to conceive abstractly of an act of violence and view it as an isolated crime is the power of a judicial institution that transcends all antagonists. If the transcendence of the judicial institution is no longer there, if the institution loses its efficacy or becomes incapable of commanding respect, the imitative and repetitious character of violence becomes manifest once more; the imitative character of violence is in fact most manifest in explicit violence, where it acquires a formal perfection it had not previously possessed. At the level of the blood feud, in fact, there is always only one act, murder, which is performed in the same way for the same reasons in vengeful imitation of the preceding murder. And this imitation propagates itself by degrees. It becomes a duty for distant relatives who had nothing to do with the original act, if in fact an original act can be identified; it surpasses limits in space and time and leaves destruction everywhere in its wake; it moves from generation to generation. In such cases, in its perfection and paroxysm mimesis becomes a chain reaction of vengeance, in which human beings are constrained to the monotonous repetition of homicide. Vengeance turns them into doubles.”

René Girard book Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World

Source: Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World (1978), p. 11-12.

Way, Distant, Time, Perfection

“My father was an engineer and I intended to follow in his footsteps, but movies became my real passion. Careful planning is important in engineering, so I used that experience to focus on film preproduction. With the low budgets I had, I couldn’t afford to have the cast and crew waiting around for days on a 10-day picture while I figured out how and what to shoot.”

Roger Corman (1926) American film director and film producer

Roger Corman still the Cult Classic King http://www.thespectrum.com/story/entertainment/2016/10/17/roger-corman-still-cult-classic-king/92296836/ (October 17, 2016)

Passion, Waiting

“In this essay on econometrics in its conception and its use in economic planning for the betterment of man’s fate, I will try to cover a very broad field.
When talking about the methodology in the particular fields mentioned - about which I am supposed to have a little more than second hand knowledge - I have always found it utterly inadequate to focus attention only on these special fields without seeing them in a much broader perspective.
Therefore it was inevitable that I should have to include in the field of vision of this paper also some branches of science where I can only speak as a layman, hopefully as a somewhat informed layman. For whatever blunders I may have made in these fields I must ask for the reader’s forgiveness”

Ragnar Frisch (1895–1973) Norwegian economist

Source: 1970s and later, From Utopian Theory to Practical Applications, 1970, p. 9 : Lead paragraph

Fate, Forgiveness, Knowledge, Science

“The DARPA model has three elements:
Ambitious goals. The agency’s projects are designed to harness science and engineering advances to solve real-world problems or create new opportunities. At Defense, GPS was an example of the former and stealth technology of the latter. The problems must be sufficiently challenging that they cannot be solved without pushing or catalyzing the science. The presence of an urgent need for an application creates focus and inspires greater genius.
Temporary project teams. DARPA brings together world-class experts from industry and academia to work on projects of relatively short duration. Team members are organized and led by fixed-term technical managers, who themselves are accomplished in their fields and possess exceptional leadership skills. These projects are not open-ended research programs. Their intensity, sharp focus, and finite time frame make them attractive to the highest-caliber talent, and the nature of the challenge inspires unusual levels of collaboration. In other words, the projects get great people to tackle great problems with other great people.
Independence. By charter, DARPA has autonomy in selecting and running projects. Such independence allows the organization to move fast and take bold risks and helps it persuade the best and brightest to join.”

Regina E. Dugan (1963) American businesswoman, inventor, and technology developer

“Special Forces” Innovation: How DARPA Attacks Problems (2013)

People, World, Nature, Problem

“In the records referring to the rise of Vijayanagara, the Marathas, and the Sikhs, the religious motive is brought into a sharper focus. These records leave us in no doubt that the defence of Hindu Dharma was uppermost in the minds of Madhava Vidyaranya, Samartha Ramdas, and Guru Tegh Bahadur. The purpose for which the sword was unsheathed by Harihar and Bukka, Shivaji and the Sikhs, becomes quite clear in many poems written in praise of these heroes by a number of Hindu poets. The purpose, we are told, was to save the cow, the Brahmin, the šikhã, the sûtra, the honour of Hindu women, and the sanctity of Hindu places of worship.”

Sita Ram Goel book The Story of Islamic Imperialism in India

The Story of Islamic Imperialism in India (1994)

Women, Motivation

“Old Soldiers never die, they only fade away, which has now been commuted to, they never die but only get slightly out of focus. However, the focus must be pretty sharp, for we find our retired Soldiers are in great demand and they secure ready employment in large organisations in the public and private sectors.”

Peter de Noronha (1897–1970) Indian businessman

The Pageant of Life (1964), On Soldiers

“It’s not about creating an equal country, but it is about stopping the development of an underclass cut off from the rest of society. This focus could be a straight forward set of things like a living wage, supporting more effective pathways into work and an effective benefits system.”

Jo Cox (1974–2016) UK politician

Jo Cox: Opportunity must knock in a fairer society http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/opinion/jo-cox-opportunity-must-knock-in-a-fairer-society-1-6857022 (24 September 2014)

Support, Country

“I saw us as coming from a source self, free of space and time, into this reality. The focus personality (or the self we know) focuses in this life, but is also composed of of other Aspects or parts of the source self that are latent within the psyche, though "alive" in other realities. These form the basic structure of the psyche from which the focus personality emerges. I call these "prime Aspects." A harmonious working relationship between these prime Aspects results in a well-balanced focus personality -- one that is reasonably happy, healthy, and creative.”

Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer

Source: Psychic Politics: An Aspect Psychology Book (1976), p. 197

Life, Reality, Time, Parting

“The thing that I enjoy about animation is the fact that it is unbridled and there are no boundaries; when are in the room you don’t have to focus on your clothing, make-up, hair, your choreography or your blocking, you really do have total freedom. It is that total freedom that I really enjoy as there is no judgement and there are no critics there watching to see what you are going to do. It is just a free-for-all, and I really enjoy that process. When you are working with incredible directors then the responsibility lies on them to do the product and get the story told; it takes a lot of pressure of me, and I just get to go in and have a play session.”

Jodi Benson (1961) American voice actress, actress and singer

Jodi Benson Exclusive Interview http://www.femalefirst.co.uk/movies/jodi-benson-exclusive-interview-330687.html (August 30, 2013)

Freedom, Animals, Clothes

“For almost all of us, recognizing a crisis can be difficult unless we have significant warning, or are prepared before-hand to deal with change. It is also important in an emergency, as it was in Dan's situation, to identify and focus on the actual crisis, not the cause. It is time to "put out the fire" not waste precious time figuring out how the fire started.”

Wheeler L. Baker (1938) President of Hargrave Military Academy

Source: Crisis Management: A Model For Managers (1993), p. 7

Change, Time

“A cloud masses, the sky darkens, leaves twist upward, and we know that it will rain. We also know that after the storm, the runoff will feed into groundwater miles away, and the sky will grow clear by tomorrow. All of these events are distant in time and space, if they're all connected within the same pattern. Each has an influence on the rest, and influence that is usually hidden from view. You can only understand the system of rainstorm by contemplating the whole not any part of the pattern.
Businesses and other human endeavors are also systems. They, too, are bound by invisible fabrics of interrelated actions, which often take years to fully play out their effects on each other. Since we are part of that lacework ourselves, it's doubly hard to see the whole pattern of change. Instead we tend to focus on snapshots of isolated parts of the system, and wonder why our deepest problems never seem to get resolved.”

Peter M. Senge book The Fifth Discipline

Source: The Fifth Discipline (1990), p. 7 as cited in: Vivien Martin (2003) Leading Change in Health and Social Care. p. 37

Understanding, Business, Problem, Distant

“[Going vegan] was originally for my health and sporting performance – however, it has grown from that to being based on ethical views, also. … I noticed right away that I had more focus and reduced recovery times and generally felt lighter from the inside. … I think as more athletes realise the benefits of this lifestyle and the positive impact it can have on your health, we will hopefully see more switches. … I like to think of it as crowding out the bad stuff. The more good plant-based foods you bring into your kitchen, the more your body will start to crave them.”

David Smith (rower) (1978) British rower

"Q&A With Plant-Fuelled Paralympian Dave Smith" https://www.peta.org.uk/blog/vegan-paralympian-athlete-dave-smith/, interview with PETA (5 September 2014).

Health, Food, Thinking, Sport

“I didn't use the music from the scene in which Godzilla dies in GODZILLA - KING OF THE MONSTERS for the one in which he does actually meltdown because Godzilla was not what I was trying to focus on this time. Instead, I tried to focus on the dark side of humanity, which lead to the creation of atomic weapons, and Godzilla.”

Akira Ifukube (1914–2006) Japanese composer

As quoted by David Milner, "Akira Ifukube Interview III" http://www.davmil.org/www.kaijuconversations.com/ifukub3.htm, Kaiju Conversations (December 1995)

Music, Time

“When you increase your focus, you decrease your options. Good things are not necessarily God things.”

Craig Groeschel (1967) American priest

It – How Churches and Leaders Can Get It and Keep It (2008, Zondervan)

God

“Mankind is a sexual and tool-using species. So it's never old news to deal with the intersection of human desire and ingenuity. As biohacking, sexually enhanced bodies, genetic utopias and the plethora of gender have long been the focus of literature, science fiction and, increasingly, pornography, we explore the possibilities that fictional and authentic bodies have to offer.”

Johannes Grenzfurthner (1975) Austrian artist, writer, curator, and theatre and film director

Interview in 'Kill Screen', 2012 https://killscreen.com/articles/stories-about-orcs-and-rape-man-behind-arse-elektronika/

Literature, Science

“I was visited by Timothy Leary when he was living in Switzerland many years ago. He was a very intelligent man, and quite charming. I enjoyed our conversations very much. However, he also had a need for too much attention. He enjoyed being provocative, and that shifted the focus from what should have been the essential issue. It is unfortunate, but for many years these drugs became taboo. Hopefully, these same problems from the Sixties will not be repeated.”

Albert Hofmann (1906–2008) Swiss chemist

MAPS interview (1998)

Intelligence, Problem

“The reified focus on the moment of literary production, in a distanced context—the typical topic of periodization—suppresses the experience of reception, the actualization of the past in the reader’s present.”

Russell Berman (1950) American academic

Source: Fiction Sets You Free: Literature, Liberty and Western Culture (2007), p. 20.

Past

“Opening up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling is bad public policy that has no place in the budget process,. The Budget Committee needs to leave drilling in the Arctic Refuge behind and focus on crafting this year’s budget package.”

Russ Feingold (1953) Wisconsin politician; three-term U.S. Senator

[Feingold Pushes to Keep Arctic Drilling out of Budget Process (press release), http://feingold.senate.gov/~feingold/releases/06/03/20060306.html, U.S. Senator Russ Feingold, 20 August 2018, https://web.archive.org/web/20080412072316/http://feingold.senate.gov/~feingold/releases/06/03/20060306.html, April 12, 2008, March 6, 2006]
2006

“We resist hegemonic dominance of feminist thought by insisting that it is a theory in the making, that we must necessarily criticize, question, re-examine, and explore new possibilities. My persistent critique has been informed by my status as a member of an oppressed group, experience of sexist exploitation and discrimination, and the sense that prevailing feminist analysis has not been the force shaping my feminist consciousness. This is true for many women. There are white women who had never considered resisting male dominance until the feminist movement created an awareness that they could and should. My awareness of feminist struggle was stimulated by social circumstance. Growing up in a Southern, black, father-dominated, working class household, I experienced (as did my mother, my sisters, and my brother) varying degrees of patriarchal tyranny and it made me angry-it made us all angry. Anger led me to question the politics of male dominance and enabled me to resist sexist socialization. Frequently, white feminists act as if black women did not know sexist oppression existed until they voiced feminist sentiment. They believe they are providing black women with "the" analysis and "the" program for liberation. They do not understand, cannot even imagine, that black women, as well as other groups of women who live daily in oppressive situations, often acquire an awareness of patriarchal politics from their lived experience, just as they develop strategies of resistance (even though they may not resist on a sustained or organized basis). These black women observed white feminist focus on male tyranny and women's oppression as if it were a "new" revelation and felt such a focus had little impact on their lives. To them it was just another indication of the privileged living conditions of middle and upper class white women that they would need a theory to inform them that they were "oppressed." The implication being that people who are truly oppressed know it even though they may not be engaged in organized resistance or are unable to articulate in written form the nature of their oppression. These black women saw nothing liberatory in party line analyses of women's oppression. Neither the fact that black women have not organized collectively in huge numbers around the issues of "feminism" (many of us do not know or use the term) nor the fact that we have not had access to the machinery of power that would allow us to share our analyses or theories about gender with the American public negate its presence in our lives or place us in a position of dependency in relationship to those white and non-white feminists who address a larger audience.”

Bell Hooks (1952) American author, feminist, and social activist

Source: (1984), Chapter 1: Black Women: Shaping Feminist Theory, p. 10.

Women, People, Imagination, Understanding

“His wicked sense of humour suggests exciting sex
His fingers focus on her
Her touches
He's Venus as a Boy!”

Björk (1965) Icelandic singer-songwriter

"Venus as a Boy", from the CD single Venus as a Boy (1993)
Songs

Sex, Boy, Sense

“I think Bigfoot is blurry, that's the problem. It's not the photographer's fault. Bigfoot is blurry, and that's extra scary to me. There's a large, out-of-focus monster roaming the countryside. Run, he's fuzzy, get out of here.”

Mitch Hedberg (1968–2005) American stand-up comedian

Strategic Grill Locations

Problem, Thinking

“We have to care about our bodies and what we put in them. Women have to take the time to focus on our mental health—take time for self, for the spiritual, without feeling guilty or selfish. The world will see you the way you see you, and treat you the way you treat yourself.”

Beyoncé (1981) American singer, songwriter and actress

"Beyoncé Wants to Change the Conversation", interview with Elle (4 April 2016) http://www.elle.com/fashion/a35286/beyonce-elle-cover-photos

Women, Health, World, Way

“I couldn't think. I couldn't remember. I was wound up like a spring and ready to bust. All I could see was the dead guy in the middle of the room and my gun. My gun! Somebody grabbed at my arm and hauled me upright and the questions started again. That was as much as I could take. I gave a hell of a kick and a fat face in a fedora pulled back out of focus and started to groan, all doubled up. Maybe I laughed, I don't know.”

Mickey Spillane (1918–2006) American writer

Vengeance is Mine! (1950)

Guy, Spring, Hell, Question

“Aristotle’s perspective is not ours. Modern political discussion is imbued with a concern for individual human rights; we look to institutions to hold accountable those who wield power over their fellows, so that the rights of individuals are respected. Aristotle does not. Because he sees the world in teleological terms, he asks—as Plato did—how we can ensure that the state functions as it should. The excellence of the citizenry and the excellence of the constitution are understood in that light. Hence, of course, Aristotle’s focus on the collective intelligence and collective good sense of collectives; if “the many” are not to be trusted, it remains true that many heads are better than one.”

Alan Ryan (1940) British philosopher

On Politics: A History of Political Thought: From Herodotus to the Present (2012), Ch. 3 : Aristotle: Politics Is Not Philosophy

World, Intelligence, Sense, Light

“It's been 20 years since I started playing tennis and I've spent a decade playing singles and doubles professionally. I still enjoy singles and may play in an occasional tournament or at the Fed Cup if my country needs me. But I think the time has now come for me to completely shift my focus onto doubles.”

Sania Mirza (1986) Indian tennis player

In Zee News: "Winning Grand Slams is Sania's motivation after London Games"

Thinking, Time, Country

“Legislations are just a way to reach a certain social goal, the problem is that people focus on the words and forget the spirit of the text”

Ali Al-Wardi (1913–1995) Iraqi sociologist

People, Way, Problem, Forgetting

“The later decades of a life become the time for our capabliites to find an unscattered focus, and in this way increase the force of their concentraled worth.”

Sherwin B. Nuland (1930–2014) American surgeon

[The art of aging: a doctor's prescription for well-being, 2008, Random House, 10, https://books.google.com/books?id=7JR_1wsxvz8C&pg=PA10]
The Art of Aging (2007)

Life, Way, Time

“The grand design of nature perceived broadly in four dimensions, including the forces that move the universe and created man, with special focus on evolution in our own biosphere, is something intrinsically good that it is right to preserve and enhance, and wrong to destroy and degrade.”

Roger Wolcott Sperry (1913–1994) American neuroscientist

Source: Science and the Problem of Values (1972), p. 127

Nature, Universe

“In grade school they say you have to pick a profession and stick to it… and people stop looking at their lives as a work in progress. If you don't stay in touch with yourself, you kind of lose focus. If you're going to spend a life in the arts, you need to be infused with a sense of gratitude and a sense of wonder. It's a privilege to do this profession. But there is a payment you have to make for that privilege, which is to do your best all the time.”

Ethan Hawke (1970) American actor and writer

Los Angeles Times http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-hawke7-2010jan07,0,7915056.story (2010-01-07) 2010&ndash;present

Life, People, School, Art

“Constrained by habits and acculturalization, we have less choice than we imagine. Many apparently momentous decisions were actually determined within us long ago. In the long run, the most powerful choice we can make is where to focus our attention. Attention is healing. Attention is the bridge in relationship. And attention facilitates change and learning.”

Charles Eisenstein (1967) American writer

Charles Eisenstein, Oral presentation in Baltimore, MD March 2012

Imagination, Decision, Learning, Change

“As a rule, in pictorial photography a long-focus lens will on the whole be most satisfactory.”

Alfred Horsley Hinton (1863–1908) British photographer

Source: Practical Pictorial Photography, 1898, The use of the lens in pictorial work, p. 58

“If you focus your mind on the freedom and community that you can build by staying firm, you will find the strength to do it. "Stand for something, or you will fall for nothing."
And if cynics ridicule freedom, ridicule community… if "hard nosed realists" say that profit is the only ideal… just ignore them, and use copyleft all the same.”

Richard Stallman (1953) American software freedom activist, short story writer and computer programmer, founder of the GNU project

1990s, Copyleft: Pragmatic Idealism (1998)

Communication, Freedom

“As the lists multiply in number and the lists themselves grow longer, we should ask ourselves who the real victims are in the confusion sowed by Ms. Napoles and those who supposedly want to shed light on the Pork Barrel Scam. Those who have been unfairly dragged into this mess are not the real victims; these lists and affidavits are baseless and lack the kind of evidentiary support that can establish cases against many of those who have been named, myself included. The real victims here are our citizens. After learning the scale at which funds allocated to help them have been efficiently and systematically plundered, our people now seek redress. As it stands, there is an opportunity for our people to obtain justice as the Ombudsman already found probable cause which concluded to filing of the cases. Again, I assure the public that I have never allocated public money using the PDAF or budgetary incentives to any fictitious NGOs set up by Ms. (Janet) Napoles nor have I dealt with her to supposedly solicit or receive campaign funds. Such claim is a total falsity and runs counter to common sense because as early as October of 2009, I already withdrew any intention to run for the presidency and in 2010, I was not even a candidate for any elective position. And by Ms. Napoles’ own list, I am the only one who did not allocate any funds to her foundations from my PDAF releases. Let's keep our eye on the ball and remain vigilant to ensure the conviction of those who truly deserve to be punished for the misuse of public funds. Let us persuade our authorities to focus on evidence, testimonial or otherwise, that has probative value to avoid distractions.”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

Escudero, F. [Francis]. (2014, May 28). Retrieved from Official Facebook Page of Francis Escudero https://www.facebook.com/senchizescudero/posts/10152473011595610/ 2014, Facebook

Money, People, Justice, Support

“Catholicity, the focus of this study, has long been recognized as an essential attribute of the Church of Christ and has been of particular concern to those churches which designate themselves as 'Catholic'. It is not possible to analyse catholicity without speaking of other traditional attributes of the Church: unity, holiness, and apostolicity. In the context of planetization, in which the cultures of diverse peoples are interacting and interpenetrating, catholicity takes on new and challenging aspects, decisive for the future of Christianity. Catholicity has ramifications in many different areas of ecclesiology. The present work, although brief, necessarily touches on many problems of historical and contemporary theology. But it does not pretend to be, even in outline, a complete ecclesiology.”

Avery Dulles (1918–2008) Catholic cardinal

Preface
The Catholicity of the Church

People, Problem, Decision, Study

“I am surprised at all the people in the high-tech industry focused on "making money"… If that's all they want to do, they should have a $100 printing press in their basements and they will truly "make money." Instead, if we focus all that energy on innovation, we'll change the world for the best.”

Philippe Kahn (1952) Entrepreneur, camera phone creator

Commencement speech for UCSC students 1996 | UCSC Press Release http://www.ucsc.edu/news_events/press_releases/archive/95-96/06-96/061196-Graduation_ceremoni.html.

Money, People, World, Change

“Martial arts training's given me a foundation for conditioning, flexibility, patience, focus, dedication. And those carry over to my basketball career. Off the court, I'm more focused, patient, and understanding.”

Robert Parish (1953) American basketball player

"One-on-One with Robert Parish" https://web.archive.org/web/19990508215339/http://www.nba.com/history/parish_chat_060396.html, NBA.com (1998).

Art, Understanding, Training, Patience

“On one side was the pain of the victims of the earthquake, and on the other the pain of the victims of the riots. In decisively confronting this great turmoil, I had to single-mindedly focus all the strength given to me by the almighty, on the task of peace, justice and rehabilitation; burying the pain and agony I was personally wracked with.”

Narendra Modi (1950) Prime Minister of India

2013, "Satyameva Jayate: Truth Alone Triumphs", 2013

Pain, Peace, Justice, Decision

“A key to the connective tissue with all of the Clintons — everything they do — and we will talk about this probably in just about all the deadly sins we touch on— is their serial dishonesty. And we can focus on this later. But she did swear that she would disclose all the contributions to the Clinton Foundation. As of now —and again another right wing outlet, “The Washington Post,” says that 1100 donations are so far not disclosed. This is a woman who thinks of the truth as anything that is politically expedient for her. And her husband is the same way. And that is the danger of putting them back in the White House.”

Alexander Marlow (1986) american journalist

Marlow: Clintons’ ‘Serial Dishonesty’ The ‘Danger of Putting Them Back In The White House’ http://www.breitbart.com/video/2016/03/07/httpswww-youtube-comwatchvtqcycm6uihs/ (March 7, 2016)

Truth, Way, Thinking, Housing

“It′s always seemed odd to me that people don′t paint with both hands. I mean, if I′m technically so shackled that I can′t paint with my hair, stomach or bottom, what about my other hand? You′ve got to live in painting. All-round painting… Indefinable space-at least indefinable in traditional terms-that′s what I require of my paintings. There must be absolutely no central focus… There can be no progress until that damned centre has been eliminated… My paintings are sublimated stamping, screaming and hissing-I try to translate a process experienced physically into a physically visible one.”

Günter Brus (1938) Austrian artist

Source: Nervous Stillness on the Horizon (2006), P. 106 (1960)

People, Painting

“Most human lives are forgotten after four generations. We build our splendid houses on the edge of the abyss then distract and dazzle ourselves with entertainers and sex while we slowly at first, then more rapidly, spin around the ever-thirsty plughole in the middle. My treasured possessions -- all the silly little mementoes and toys and special books I’ve carried with me for decades -- will wind up on flea market tables or rot on garbage heaps. Someone else will inhabit the rooms that were mine. Everything that was important to me will mean nothing to the countless generations that follow our own. In the grand sprawl of it all, I have no significance at all. I don’t believe a giant gaseous pensioner will reward or censure me when my body stops working and I don’t believe individual consciousness survives for long after brain death so I lack the consolations of religion. I wanted Annihilator to peek into that implacable moment where everything we are comes to an end so I had to follow the Black Brick Road all the way down and seriously consider the abject pointlessness of all human endeavours. I found these contemplations thrilling and I was drawn to research pure nihilism, which led me to Ray Brassier’s Nihil Unbound and back to Ligotti. I have a fundamentally optimistic and positive view of human existence and the future and I think it’s important to face intelligent, well-argued challenges to that view on a regular basis. While I agree with Ligotti that the universe is, on the face of it, a blind emergent process, driven by chance over billions of years of trial and error to ultimately produce creatures capable of little more than flamboyant expressions of the agonizing awareness of their own imminent deaths, I don’t share his slightly huffy disappointment at this state of affairs. If the universe is intrinsically meaningless, if the mindless re-arrangement of atomic debris into temporarily arising then dissipating forms has no point, I can only ask, why do I see meaning everywhere, why can I find a point in everything? Why do other human beings like me seem to see meaning in everything too? If the sun is only an apocalyptic series of hydrogen fusion reactions, why does it look like an angel and inspire poetry? Why does the flesh and fur-covered bone and jelly of my cat’s face melt my heart? Is all that surging, roaring incandescent meaning inside me, or is it out there? “Meaning” to me is equivalent to “Magic.” The more significance we bring to things, even to the smallest and least important things, the more special, the more “magical” they seem to become. For all that materialistic science and existential philosophy tells us we live in a chaotic, meaningless universe, the evidence of my senses and the accounts of other human beings seem to indicate that, in fact, the whole universe and everything in it explodes second-to-second with beauty, horror, grandeur and significance when and wherever it comes into contact with consciousness. Therefore, it’s completely down to us to revel in our ability to make meaning, or not. Ligotti, like many extreme Buddhist philosophers, starts from the position that life is an agonizing, heartbreaking grave-bound veil of tears. This seems to be a somewhat hyperbolic view of human life; as far as I can see most of us round here muddle through ignoring death until it comes in close and life’s mostly all right with just enough significant episodes of sheer joy and connection and just enough sh-tty episodes of pain or fear. The notion that the whole span of our lives is no more than some dreadful rehearsal for hell may resonate with the deeply sensitive among us but by and large life is pretty okay generally for most of us. And for some, especially in the developed countries, “okay” equals luxurious. To focus on the moments of pain and fear we all experience and then to pretend they represent the totality of our conscious experience seems to me a little effete and indulgent. Most people don’t get to be born at all, ever. To see in that radiant impossibility only pointlessness, to see our experience as malignantly useless, as Ligotti does, seems to me a bit camp.”

Grant Morrison (1960) writer

2014
http://www.blastr.com/2014-9-12/grant-morrisons-big-talk-getting-deep-writer-annihilator-multiversity
On life

Life, Death, Pain, People

“Yeah, the good news about the move to abolish the death tax, the tax where they come and look at how much money you've got when you die, how much gold is in your teeth and they want half of it, is that — you're right, there's an exemption for — I don't know — maybe a million dollars now, and it's scheduled to go up a little bit. However, 70 percent of the American people want to abolish that tax. Congress, the House and Senate, have three times voted to abolish it. The president supports abolishing it, so that tax is going to be abolished. I think it speaks very much to the health of the nation that 70-plus percent of Americans want to abolish the death tax, because they see it as fundamentally unjust. The argument that some who played at the politics of hate and envy and class division will say, 'Yes, well, that's only 2 percent,' or as people get richer 5 percent in the near future of Americans likely to have to pay that tax. I mean, that's the morality of the Holocaust. 'Well, it's only a small percentage,' you know. 'I mean, it's not you, it's somebody else.' And this country, people who may not make earning a lot of money the centerpiece of their lives, they may have other things to focus on, they just say it's not just. If you've paid taxes on your income once, the government should leave you alone. Shouldn't come back and try and tax you again.”

Grover Norquist (1956) Conservative Lobbyist

interview with NPR's Terry Gross on the program Fresh Air, October 2, 2003.
2003

Death, Money, Hate, People

“What we find in life is based on where we put our attention. When we focus on the small worlds our thoughts create, we miss out on the beauty and possibilities we are meant to enjoy.”

Guy Finley (1949) American self-help writer, philosopher, and spiritual teacher, and former professional songwriter and musician

The Intimate Enemy

Life, World, Beauty

“When I ask the classes I teach, “How many of you can cook a better hamburger than McDonald’s?” almost all the students raise their hands. I then ask, “So if most of you can cook a better hamburger, how come McDonald’s makes more money than you?” The answer is obvious: McDonald’s is excellent at business systems. The reason so many talented people are poor is because they focus on building a better hamburger and know little to nothing about business systems.”

Robert T. Kiyosaki (1947) American finance author , investor

Rich Dad Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money-That the Poor and the Middle Class Do Not!

Money, People, Business, Cooking

“We have ranged over all the main phases of human information processing - from information encoding, storage, retrieval, and transformation to output. We have considered the role of consciousness in the analysis and selection of stimuli, in learning and memory, and in the production of voluntary responses, including those requiring planning and creativity.
In one sense, each of these tasks may be "conscious" (if it is at the focus of attention). We may be conscious of the stimuli that we analyze and select for more detailed attention, conscious of what we learn and commit to memory, and conscious of the responses we make to such stimuli. When the required responses are complex or novel we may be aware of devoting effort to planning and monitoring their execution. In reflective thought or problem solving we may have some awareness of internal processing in the form of thoughts, emotions, images, and so forth. Whether consciousness is necessary for such processing, however, is a different matter.”

Max Velmans (1942) British psychologist

Partly cited in: W.S. Robinson (2006). "Epiphenomenalism." Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science.
Is human information processing conscious?, 1991

Problem, Sense, Effort, Learning

“I teach identity leadership, based on the philosophy that you can’t lead anybody else until you lead yourself. Once you understand who you are, you can really focus on becoming the expert in your field.”

Stedman Graham (1951) American businessman

Financial Post: "'The key is to know who you are': Stedman Graham talks investing, self-leadership and Oprah" https://business.financialpost.com/executive/leadership/the-key-is-to-know-who-you-are-stedman-graham-talks-investing-self-leadership-and-oprah (27 April 2018)

Understanding

“Too often today, we focus to borrowing money to get the things we want instead of focusing on creating money.”

Robert T. Kiyosaki (1947) American finance author , investor

Rich Dad Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money-That the Poor and the Middle Class Do Not!

Money

“Space is as infinite as we can imagine, and expanding this perspective is what adjusts humankind’s focus on conquering our true enemies, the formidable foes: ignorance and limitation.”

Vanna Bonta (1958–2014) Italian-American writer, poet, inventor, actress, voice artist (1958-2014)

The Impact of Space Activities Upon Society (ESA Br) European Space Agency (2005)

Imagination

“Organizational and not financial or ownership embeddedness is likely to be a more important cause of actions of firms than anything else in the case of United States. This means efforts should concentrate on specifying models of relations between firms that focus on intra- and interorganizational processes, such as the construction of strategic action and the cultural frames by which such a construction makes sense.”

Neil Fligstein (1951) American sociologist

Source: The architecture of markets, 2001, p. 145

Sense, Effort

“I can now report that the mathematics of the multiple focus are a most improbable thicket, and the useful service I enforced upon what I must call an absurd set of contradictions is one of my secrets. I know that thousands of scientists, at home and abroad, are attempting to duplicate my work; they are welcome to the effort. None will succeed. Why do I speak so positively? That is my other secret.”

Jack Vance (1916–2013) American mystery and speculative fiction writer

Section 3 (p. 169)
Short fiction, Rumfuddle (1973)

Secret, Home, Mathematics, Effort

“To be free to be spontaneously & creatively shallow requires depth of character & a disciplined focus.”

David Allen (1945) American productivity consultant and author

29 April 2011 https://twitter.com/gtdguy/status/63977062188335104 Official Twitter profile (@gtdguy) https://twitter.com/gtdguy

“Well, before you are always self—you’re always self-centered. Everything is for you. Your self is God. And we make lousy gods. Humans make lousy gods, I think. We need to let God be God and us be what we are. I think that’s what changes: the focus on who you’re serving. You’re not serving you. You’re serving Christ.”

Alice Cooper (1948) American rock singer, songwriter and musician

God, Thinking, Change, Christ

“It [America] was founded and I hope that it resurges the notion of liberty, the notion of freedom, the notion of a system that treats everyone equally. I think we move further and further away from that not closer and closer and that if we could all focus on that that would be the focus and we could actually accomplish that. And that’s what I talk about all the time. As governor of New Mexico I like to think that on a daily basis it was about a system that was gonna treat everybody equally as opposed to politics which you know is hit and miss and it’s politics it’s who you know as opposed to a system that provides that equality.”

Gary Johnson (1953) American politician, businessman, and 29th Governor of New Mexico

Statement made to representatives of the Pagan Newswire Collective (PNC)
2011-10-16
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/paganswithdisabilities/2011/10/full-transcript-of-qa-with-presidential-candidate-gary-johnson/
2012-02-24
2011

Hope, Thinking, Freedom, Time

“I am very sorry that Andy Coulson has decided to resign as my Director of Communications, although I understand that the continuing pressures on him and his family mean that he feels compelled to do so. Andy has told me that the focus on him was impeding his ability to do his job and was starting to prove a distraction for the Government.”

David Cameron (1966) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

2010s, 2011

Family, Feeling, Communication, Understanding

“First of all, I can see that you love your daughter and you are a nice person who has a great future ahead of you and I hope your future is here…. This is not the focus…. And so, what we have to do is find a way to make sure that you can get right with the law and we've got to do this in a good way, so that the rug doesn't get pulled out from under you and your family gets separated…but if you're worried about, you know, some deportation force coming, knocking on your door this year, don't worry about that…. Secure the border and the people who are violent criminals, repeat offenders who keep coming back in, we've got to focus on that.”

Paul Ryan (1970) American politician

CNN Town Hall Meeting, responding to DACA audience member about her concern that she could be deported by ICE, CNN "Transcripts" http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1701/12/se.01.html aired 12 January 2017.

Love, People, Family, Law

“To win and retain the trust of the people requires an administration willing to focus on showing competence and direction in the day to day business of government.”

Alex Salmond (1954) Scottish National Party politician and former First Minister of Scotland

Principles and Priorities : Programme for Government (September 5, 2007)

People, Business

“Sometimes I see it and then paint it. Other times I paint it and then see it. Both are impure situations, and I prefer neither. At every point in nature there is something to see. My work contains similar possibilities for the changing focus of the eye.”

Jasper Johns (1930) American artist

Sixteen Americans, (1959) Dorothy C. Miller, Moma, New York, p. 22
1950s

Nature, Change, Time, Painting

“A wedge strategy is where you focus on a highly charged issue at the borders of rationality and emotion. The emotional content of the issue can create a moral conviction that the issue needs to be resolved at any cost. Tactics that would otherwise be called into question can then be employed to resolve the issue. This sets precedent for the future use of those tactics in other arenas.”

Ze Frank (1972) American online performance artist

http://www.zefrank.com/wiki/index.php/the_show:_06-29-06
"The Show" (www.zefrank.com/theshow/)

Question, Future

“Together with the histories of Polybius and Livy, Cicero’s polemical speeches and writings, and his personal correspondence, form some of the most important historical resources for understanding the Roman legal and political system. Here we focus only on his political theory narrowly construed, part of his program to adapt Greek philosophy to Roman social and political purposes, bypassing even the extended defense of the role of oratory in political life that became something like a handbook for the study of rhetoric.”

Alan Ryan (1940) British philosopher

On Politics: A History of Political Thought: From Herodotus to the Present (2012), Ch. 4 : Roman Insights: Polybius and Cicero

Life, History, Understanding, Study

“Amerika faces no meaningful threat to its security except from those who live within its own territorial borders.
The domestic upheavals of the 1960’s and 70’s taught empire some valuable lessons on just how dangerous an informed and discontent population can be. As a result, and through a steady application of misinformation, carrots, and sticks, empire has worked steadily to drain the focus, resolve, and militancy of the informed and discontented. From that point to this, empire has manufactured a discontinuity in popular struggle, while maintaining continuity in its own growth and consolidation. One of the empire’s principal tools and weapons has been its prisons.”

Kevin Rashid Johnson (1971) American prisoner and social activist

Defying the Tomb: Selected Prison Writings and Art of Kevin Rashid Johnson (2010)

“Now I am a grandfather, I am very content. I can focus on improving the economy in Taiwan now.”

Chen Shui-bian (1950) Taiwanese politician

After his daughter gave birth to his grandson, October 7, 2002
Pet Phrases, 2002

“Viewed through any conventional lens, President-elect Donald Trump’s candidacy was improbable from start to finish. Today, two things about his victory seem to be in sharper focus: one, that Trump’s victory might best be understood as the success of the country’s first independent president, and second, that the Trump coalition may be even more uniquely his than President Obama’s has turned out to be.”

Dan Balz (1946) American journalist

Donald Trump, America’s first independent president (November 19, 2016)

Success, Victory, Country

“I'm so much happier now that people seem to find better things to ask me about than all my "accomplishments" from when I was a little girl. I feel like that was so long ago, and so irrelevant to who I am now, that I am glad the focus isn't really on that as much any more.”

Alicia Witt (1975) American actress

AOL Live (1996)

People, Feeling, Girl

“We are trying to end poverty in the world by 2030 and we’re going to focus especially on the well-being of the bottom 40 per cent of every country.”

Jim Yong Kim (1959) Korean-American physician and anthropologist, 12th President of the World Bank

UN News Centre, Interview with Jim Yong Kim, 7 October 13

World, Country

“The 37-year-old was remarkable not just for Wadewitz’ Wikipedia contributions, but for her focus on chronicling the overwhelmingly under-researched roles played by women in history and present-day life.”

Adrianne Wadewitz (1977–2014) academic and Wikipedian

Turner, Lark (April 23, 2014). "Late Wikipedia editor Adrianne Wadewitz was exceptional, and if you use Wikipedia, you'll miss her" http://www.bustle.com/articles/22158-late-wikipedia-editor-adrianne-wadewitz-was-exceptional-and-if-you-use-wikipedia-youll-miss-her. Bustle.com. About

Life, Women, History

“Congress, the press, and the bureaucracy too often focus on how much money or effort is spent, rather than whether the money or effort actually achieves the announced goal.”

Donald Rumsfeld (1932) U.S. Secretary of Defense

"Rumsfeld's Rules" January 12, 1974 http://library.villanova.edu/vbl/bweb/rumsfeldsrules.pdf 1970s

Money, Effort

“To many, our democratic system seems so broken that they have simply lost faith that their participation could really matter. The politics of self-interest and catering to narrow special interests is so dominant that so many ask themselves: Why vote? … The political discourse is so formulaic, so tailored into poll-driven, focus-group-approved slogans that don't really say anything substantive or strike at the core of our lived experience.”

Cornel West (1953) African-American philosopher and political/civil rights activist

"Cornel West: Democracy Matters" in The Globalist (24 January 2005)

Faith

“Our investment style has been given a name - focus investing - which implies ten holdings, not one hundred or four hundred. The idea that it is hard to find good investments, so concentrate in a few, seems to me to be an obvious idea. But 98% of the investment world does not think this way. It's been good for us.”

Charlie Munger (1924) American business magnate, lawyer, investor, and philanthropist

Poor Charlie's Almanack, p. 100

World, Way, Idea, Thinking

“It is only as we focus our thoughts on heaven that we will correctly interpret life on earth.”

Paul P. Enns (1937) American theologian

Source: Heaven Revealed (Moody, 2011), p. 184

Life

“I'm not a part of the glamour industry. I would like to focus on my game, and there are minimal chances of me getting into films.”

Sania Mirza (1986) Indian tennis player

Source: Ekta Yadav Bhopal's adulation has energised me: Sania Mirza http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/sports/tennis/interviews/Bhopals-adulation-has-energised-me-Sania-Mirza/articleshow/24608895.cms The Times of India, 24 October 2013

Game, Chance, Parting

“Intellectual life hinges on face-to-face situations because interaction rituals can take place only on this level. Intellectual sacred objects can be created and sustained only if there are ceremonial gatherings to worship them. This is what lectures, conferences, discussions, and debates do: they gather the intellectual community, focus members’ attention on a common object uniquely their own, and build up distinctive emotions around those objects.”

Randall Collins (1941) American sociologist

Source: The Sociology of Philosophies (1998), p. 26

Life, Communication

“A corporation is a living organism; it has to continue to shed its skin. Methods have to change. Focus has to change. Values have to change. The sum total of those changes is transformation.”

Andrew S. Grove (1936–2016) Hungarian-born American businessman, engineer, and author

Andrew Grove, in: " What I've Learned: Andy Grove http://www.esquire.com/entertainment/interviews/a1449/learned-andy-grove-0500/", Esquire magazine, May 1, 2000 New millennium

Change

“Ministries that focus on manufacturing spiritual experiences may actually be retarding spiritual growth by making people experience-dependent.”

Skye Jethani

The Divine Commodity: Discovering A Faith Beyond Consumer Christianity (2009, Zondervan)

People, Dependency

Quotes about focus page 3

Quotes about focus
page 3