Quotes about focus
page 6

“One simple method is to take a pen or pencil and hold it up against a blank wall or ceiling. Now concentrate on the pen as if it is the most important thing in the world. Then allow your sense to relax, so you see the pen against the background of the wall. Concentrate again. Relax again. Keep on doing this until you become aware of the ability to focus attention at will. You will find that this unaccustomed activity of the will is tiring; it produces a sense of strain behind the eyes. My own perception is that if you persist, in spite of the strain, the result is acute discomfort, followed by a sudden immense relief - the 'peak experience.”

Colin Wilson (1931–2013) author

Source: Access to Inner Worlds (1990), p. 33

World, Sense

“But the amateur who reads poetry from love or curiosity does have at least one advantage over the trained specialist who reads it from professional obligation. Amateurs have not learned to shut off parts of their consciousness to focus on only the appropriate elements of a literary text. They respond to poems in the sloppy fullness of their humanity”

Dana Gioia (1950) American writer

19
Essays, Can Poetry Matter? (1991), Poetry as Enchantment (2015)

Love, Learning, Reading, Parting

“The focus of prayer is not the self. … It is the momentary disregard of our personal concerns, the absence of self-centered thoughts, which constitute the art of prayer. Feeling becomes prayer in the moment in which we forget ourselves and become aware of God. … Thus, in beseeching Him for bread, there is one instant, at least, in which our mind is directed neither to our hunger nor to food, but to His mercy. This instant is prayer. We start with a personal concern and live to feel the utmost.”

Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907–1972) Polish-American Conservative Judaism Rabbi

As quoted in Judaism (1998) by Arthur Hertzberg, p. 300
Variant: "It is the momentary disregard of our personal concerns, the absence of self-centered thoughts, which constitute the act of prayer."

Hunger, God, Food, Art

“Changing the world is like trying to straighten a dog's tail. However much you may try, you won't succeed. But although the tail won't straighten, if you keep trying every day, at least you will put on some muscle. Similarly, even though it is difficult to make a change, our effort to do so in itself brings positive results. It will help us change. Without waiting for others to change, if we change ourselves first, that will make a difference. Instead of worrying about results, focus on doing our best in what we are engaged in.”

Mata Amritanandamayi (1953) Hindu spiritual leader and guru

Conversation in Helsinki (2000)

World, Dogs, Effort, Change

“Recently I have gone back to church regularly with a new focus to understand as best I can what it is that makes Christianity so vital and powerful in the lives of billions of people today, even though almost 2000 years have passed since the death and resurrection of Christ. Although I suspect I will never fully understand, I now think the answer is very simple: it's true. God did create the universe about 13.7 billion years ago, and of necessity has involved Himself with His creation ever since. The purpose of this universe is something that only God knows for sure, but it is increasingly clear to modern science that the universe was exquisitely fine-tuned to enable human life. We are somehow critically involved in His purpose. Our job is to sense that purpose as best we can, love one another, and help Him get that job done.”

Richard Smalley (1943–2005) American chemist

May 2005, letter sent to the Hope College 2005 Alumni Banquet where he was awarded a distinguished alumni award; his illness prevented him from attending in person

Love, Life, Death, God

“My indulgent mum, a single mum of an only son, would let me skip games, pandering to my teary complaints as a former fat child herself. This, I suppose, is where a father figure would come in handy, a loving, authoritative strong male to affectionately shove you into adversity. As it was, notes were written and physical activity strenuously avoided, until I discovered that some exercise had an orgasm at the end of it. This syndrome of “fatherless” boys is a much-cited problem that military organizations effectively resolve: Personal identity put aside, a male ideal upon which to focus is provided and pursued.”

Russell Brand book Revolution

Revolution (2014)

Love, Exercises, Game, Boy

“Stop trying to be a Jack-of-all-trades and be a master of one thing. Whether it’s writing an email, kicking a ball around with your kids, driving through the city or simply being alone and meditating. For those ten minutes you’re doing something – or for whatever period of time it takes – do it with 100-per-cent focus.”

Nigel Cumberland (1967) British author and leadership coach

Your Job-Hunt Ltd – Advice from an Award-Winning Asian Headhunter (2003), Successful Recruitment in a Week (2012) https://books.google.ae/books?idp24GkAsgjGEC&printsecfrontcover&dqnigel+cumberland&hlen&saX&ved0ahUKEwjF75Xw0IHNAhULLcAKHazACBMQ6AEIGjAA#vonepage&qnigel%20cumberland&ffalse, 100 Things Successful People Do: Little Exercises for Successful Living (2016) https://books.google.ae/books?idnu0lCwAAQBAJ&dqnigel+cumberland&hlen&saX&ved0ahUKEwjF75Xw0IHNAhULLcAKHazACBMQ6AEIMjAE

Time

“Companies die because their managers focus on the economic activity of producing goods and services, and they forget that their organizations' true nature is that of a community of humans.”

Arie de Geus (1930) Dutch businessman

Source: The Living Company, 1997, p. 3

Communication, Nature, Forgetting

“It is an international embarrassment that we put more people behind bars than any other country on earth. Due in large part to private prisons, incarceration has been a source of major profits to private corporations. Study after study after study has shown private prisons are not cheaper, they are not safer, and they do not provide better outcomes for either the prisoners or the state. We have got to end the private prison racket in America as quickly as possible. Our focus should be on keeping people out of jail and making sure they stay out when they are released. This means funding jobs and education not more jails and incarceration.”

Bernie Sanders (1941) American politician, senator for Vermont

Sanders Applauds Decision to End Federal Use of Private Prisons http://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/sanders-applauds-decision-to-end-federal-use-of-private-prisons (18 August 2016) 2010s, 2016

People, Education, Study, Parting

“My job was not to survey other people's opinions about the Hindu movement. That would have been an interesting exercise, especially if it is called by its name, viz. a survey of outsider opinions, and not (as many such academic publications are) falsely presented as a study of the Hindu movement itself. By contrast, I endeavoured to get beyond the secondary--source and mainly hostile-source "research" that has so disastrously filled up this field of study, and focus on the primary sources instead.”

Koenraad Elst (1959) orientalist, writer

Also in: Lets combat communalism (Elst, 2001)
2000s, Return of the Swastika (2007)

Hostility, People, Exercises, Study

“I am growing increasingly convinced that if every one of these kids burning with passion to write that hit Christian song or make that hit Christian movie or start that hit Christian ministry to change the world would instead focus their passion on walking with God on a daily basis, the world would change.”

Phil Vischer (1966) American puppeter

Source: Me, Myself, & Bob (2006), p. 243

God, World, Passion, Change

“The whole perspectives in which companies are viewed needs to shift from short to the long-term, and as I would say, to a focus on shapes, not just numbers.”

Indra Nooyi (1955) Indian-born, naturalized American, business executive

CEOs need to change: Indra Nooyi

“Systems thinking is a mental discipline and framework for seeing patterns and interrelationships. It is important to see organizational systems as a whole because of their complexity. Complexity can overwhelm managers, undermining confidence. When leaders can see the structures that underlie complex situations, they can facilitate improvement. But doing that requires a focus on the big picture.”

Richard L. Daft (1964) American sociologist

Source: The Leadership Experience, 2008, p. 141.

Confidence, Thinking

“Good jobs begin with good schools, and here we've made a fine start. Republicans and Democrats worked together to achieve historic education reform so that no child is left behind. I was proud to work with members of both parties: Chairman John Boehner and Congressman George Miller. Senator Judd Gregg. And I was so proud of our work, I even had nice things to say about my friend, Ted Kennedy. I know the folks at the Crawford coffee shop couldn't believe I'd say such a thing, but our work on this bill shows what is possible if we set aside posturing and focus on results.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

2000s, 2002, State of the Union address (January 2002)

Education, School, Coffee

“Keynes ultimately placed his hopes for good government in exceptional men. The focus in Hayek’s work was rules.”

Alan O. Ebenstein (1959) American political scientist, educator and author

Hayek's Journey: The Mind of Friedrich Hayek (2003)

Men, Hope

“But some years after, a letter, which he received from Dr. Hooke, put him on inquiring what was the real figure, in which a body let fall from any high place descends, taking the motion of the earth round its axis into consideration. Such a body, having the same motion, which by the revolution of the earth the place has whence it falls, is to be considered as projected forward and at the same time drawn down to the centre of the earth. This gave occasion to his resuming his former thoughts concerning the moon, and Picard in France having lately measured the earth, by using his measures the moon appeared to be kept in her orbit purely by the power of gravity; and consequently, that this power decreases, as you recede from the centre of the earth, in the manner our author had formerly conjectured. Upon this principle he found the line described by a falling body to be an ellipsis, the centie of the earth being one focus. And the primary planets moving in such orbits round the sun, he had the satisfaction to see, that this inquiry, which he had undertaken merely out of curiosity, could be applied to the greatest purposes. Hereupon he composed near a dozen propositions, relating to the motion of the primary planets about the sun. Several years after this, some discourse he had with Dr. Halley, who at Cambridge made him a visit, engaged Sir Isaac Newton to resume again the consideration of this subject; and gave occasion to his writing the treatise, which he published under the title of Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. This treatise, full of such a variety of profound inventions, was composed by him, from scarce any other materials than the few propositions before mentioned, in the space of a year and a half.”

Henry Pemberton (1694–1771) British doctor

Republished in: Stephen Peter Rigaud (1838) Historical Essay on the First Publication of Sir Newton's Principia http://books.google.com/books?id=uvMGAAAAcAAJ&pg=RA1-PA49. p. 519 Preface to View of Newton's Philosophy, (1728)

Appearance, Time, Sun

“A discipline has six basic characteristics:
(1) a focus of study,
(2) a world view or paradigm,
(3) a set of reference disciplines used to establish the discipline,
(4) principles and practices associated with the discipline,
(5) an active research or theory development agenda, and
(6) the deployment of education and promotion of professionalism”

Donald H. Liles (1947) American engineer

Source: The Enterprise Engineering Discipline (1996), p. 1

World, Education, Study

“If, then, we focus our attention on the balanced relation, we shall be able to see unity in natural things. However, there it appears under a veil. But even though we never find unity expressed exactly, we can unify every representation, in other words, the exact representation of unity can be expressed; it must be expressed, for it is not visible in concrete reality.”

Piet Mondrian (1872–1944) Peintre Néerlandais

1910's, Natural Reality and Abstract Reality', 1919

Nature, Reality, Appearance

“Well, I'm not a yoga person. I've been told to try yoga. I just can't get myself to do yoga. I pray four or five times a day so it's about 10 minutes of total concentration… Also because when you're trying to focus only on God, you're trying to get everything else out of your head and just have that single focus. Trust me, it's very hard to do that four or five times a day. I mean, it's hard enough to do it once a day, but four or five times a day to just switch off the world and focus everything on God is difficult to do, and I do try to do that. I think that's one of the reasons yoga is not part of my routine and I feel this is better because I am actually being constructive, but in yoga I'm just going blank.”

Sania Mirza (1986) Indian tennis player

Source: Tennis Week "The Tennis Week Interview: Sania Mirza"

God, World, Feeling, Thinking

“. The central theme of contemporary autonomist Marxism is a shift from giant organizations and insurrectional seizure to gradualism and Exodus. The rapid transformation of the working class, the blurring of the lines between work and the rest of life, and the shift in meeting a growing share of our needs into the informal and social economy, mean that the Old Left’s workerism (and like Harry Cleaver, I include syndicalism and council communism in the Old Left), its focus on the production process as the center of society, and its treatment of the industrial proletariat as the subject of history, have become obsolete. In this regard, read Toni Negri’s contrast of the Multitude to previous Old Left ideas of the proletariat. Mostly, I call it a heroic fantasy because any model that envisions a post-capitalist transition based on the universal adoption of any monolithic, schematized social model is as ridiculous as Socrates and Glaucon discussing what musical instruments and poetic metres will be permitted in the perfect state. The real world version of the post-capitalist transition — just as with the transition to capitalism five centuries earlier — isn’t a matter of any single cohesive social class, as the subject of history, systematically remaking the world guided by some single, comprehensive ideology, and organized around a uniform institutional model. It’s a matter of a wide variety of prefigurative institutions and technological building blocks that already exist in the present society, continuing to grow and coalesce together until they reach sufficient critical mass for a phase transition — a phase transition whose outlines can only be guessed at in the most general terms. This is the model advocated by Michel Bauwens, by Paul Mason, by John Holloway, by Peter Frase, and by a lot of other people who can hardly be fitted into any American individualist ghetto.”

Kevin Carson (1963) American academic

'In Which the Anarcho-Syndicalists Discover C4SS' (2016)
Other Writing

Life, People, World, Music

“In order to better understand object-oriented methodologies in general, it helps to understand the people who make up the "object-oriented community" itself. Far from being monolithic, there is a great deal of diversity within this community. Many object-oriented people, for example, seem to focus almost entirely on programming language issues. They tend to cast all discussions in terms of the syntax and semantics of their chosen object-oriented programming language. These people find it impossible (for all intents and purposes) to discuss any software engineering activity (e. g., analysis, design, and testing) without direct mention of some specific implementation language.
Outside of producing executable "prototypes", people who emphasize programming languages seldom have well-defined techniques for analyzing their clients' problems or describing the overall architecture of the software product. A great deal of what they do is intuitive. If they happen to have a natural instinct/intuition for good analysis or good design, their efforts on small-to-medium, non-critical projects can result in respectable software solutions.”

Edward V. Berard

Source: Essays on object-oriented software engineering (1993), p. 5

People, Communication, Understanding, Nature

“See… Relationships are hard, man. For order, for any relationship to work, both people have to be on the same page, both people have to have the same focus, and we all know what that page is. We all know what that focus is. In order for the relationship to work both people have to have the same focus, and what's that focus? That focus is all about HER! It's all about her!”

Chris Rock (1965) American comedian, actor, screenwriter, television producer, film producer, and director

Never Scared (HBO, 2004)

People

“For more than a century, ideological extremists at either end of the political spectrum have seized upon well-publicized incidents such as my encounter with Castro to attack the Rockefeller family for the inordinate influence they claim we wield over American political and economic institutions. Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as 'internationalists' and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure — one world, if you will. If that is the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it.
The anti-Rockefeller focus of these otherwise incompatible political positions owes much to Populism. "Populists" believe in conspiracies and one of the most enduring is that a secret group of international bankers and capitalists, and their minions, control the world's economy. Because of my name and prominence as head of the Chase for many years, I have earned the distinction of "conspirator in chief" from some of these people.
Populists and isolationists ignore the tangible benefits that have resulted in our active international role during the past half-century. Not only was the very real threat posed by Soviet Communism overcome, but there have been fundamental improvements in societies around the world, particularly in the United States, as a result of global trade, improved communications, and the heightened interaction of people from different cultures. Populists rarely mention these positive consequences, nor can they cogently explain how they would have sustained American economic growth and expansion of our political power without them.”

David Rockefeller (1915–2017) American banker and philanthropist

Source: Memoirs (2003), Ch. 27 : Proud Internationalist, p. 406

People, Secret, World, Family

“.@Theresa_May, don't focus on me, focus on the destructive Radical Islamic Terrorism that is taking place within the United Kingdom. We are doing just fine!”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

Tweet by @realDonaldTrump https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/936037588372283392 after the British Prime Minister's condemnation http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-42181073 of his retweeting of inflammatory and unverified anti-Muslim videos from Britain First (30 November 2017) 2010s, 2017, November

“When I was in eighth grade there was a movie called Willard, about a rat, and I fell in love with rats. I wanted one … so one guy suggested that I call Hershey Medical Center … So I called and they said … "What experiment is it for?" I said, "I don't wanna experiment on it, I just want it for a pet!" And they said, "Well, we can't do that." … About two weeks later, I go out to the mailbox, and there's this thing from the [American Anti-Vivisection Society]. Lo and behold, I'm looking through all these different experiments and I see a rat there, spread wide open, and it said some of the experiments [were] done at Hershey med center. So boom! I put two and two together, and I decided to do a report in school about it. I took advanced bio and you had to dissect cats, and I started [asking] questions, "Where'd the cat come from?", and that really ruffled some feathers. "I'm not gonna do this, you know." So basically I got thrown out of advanced bio. From that point on I became an antivivisectionist. … [Things] are changing. When I went vegetarian it was really hard on the road, and that was just eight years ago. And I see people doing it twenty, twenty-five years, traveling, and it's like, wow! … I think on a very basic level people wanna do the right thing. And if we continue to focus on that part of them that wants to do the right thing, we can win maybe at the next generation or the one after that.”

Rikki Rockett (1961) American musician

"Something To Believe In" https://books.google.it/books?id=NWxF_V4r3PAC&pg=PA107, interview by Kirsten Rosenberg (July 1999), in Speaking Out for Animals, edited by Kim W. Stallwood, Lantern Books, 2001, pp. 107-112.

Love, People, School, Travel

“We need to try and focus less on ethnicity in this country and concentrate on trying to improve the lot of the marginalized whoever they are.”

Joni Madraiwiwi (1957–2016) Fijian politician

Speech to the Lautoka Rotary Club (Centenary Dinner), 12 March 2005 http://www.fiji.gov.fj/publish/printer_4326.shtml.

Country

“So much of acting is technical. Actually, I don’t want people to think that acting is technical, that you don’t need to have a rich fountain of emotional life and all those kinds of things, and know how to focus and concentrate and have good imagination and all of the other things that really make up an actor. One of the things they teach you, for example, in acting class is respond to your instinct, to your moment-to-moment instincts. If they just did that, they’d never get the shot, you know? Because you’d be walking all over… You’d be doing it differently every time. And the camera guys and the light guys, they need to know what you’re going to do. That’s what I mean by, if you just followed your instinct, or follow your impulses, which is what they say to you in acting class, you have to do that but you have to do it in a very confined window.”

Tobin Bell (1942) American actor

Interview: Tobin Bell Discusses His Career and His New Horror Film Dark House https://editorial.rottentomatoes.com/article/interview-tobin-bell-discusses-his-career-and-his-new-horror-film-dark-house/ (March 14, 2014)

Life, People, Guy, Imagination

“I appeal to all pupils, students and young people, asking you to focus on the horizons that are opening up for you, and which you could only dream of a year ago. Our future will depend on your desire for education and moral values as well as on your entrepreneurial spirit.”

Václav Havel (1936–2011) playwright, essayist, poet, dissident and 1st President of the Czech Republic

New Year's Address to the Nation (1991)

People, Education, Dreams, Future

“Larry is different than people think. He really loves the game and is really smart. He has the innate ability to focus on what's important and has a great feel for players. He knows how to deal with people. He's direct and definite. I think the players appreciate that.”

Larry Bird (1956) basketball player and coach

Donnie Walsh — reported in Sam Smith (February 8, 2004) "Bird sets fast pace - Hall of Fame player and former coach Larry Bird finds 'every day's exciting' in his first go-around as general manager of the Indiana Pacers", Chicago Tribune, p. 11.
About

Love, People, Feeling, Game

“The sucker’s trap is when you focus on what you know and what others don’t know, rather than the reverse.”

Nassim Nicholas Taleb book The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms

Source: The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms (2010), p. 56

“Western observers focus more on the regime's economic failures than the North Koreans themselves do. Remember that it was only in recent modern times that Western societies began expecting the state to secure constant economic growth and rising prosperity. Well into the 20th century people expected little more from the state than that it protect them from foreign powers, and expand the influence or territory of the nation. Prussia was remarkably like North Korea in many ways, yet we remember it as a very successful state. If we judge North Korea by its own standards — instead of by the communist standards we hope its people judge it by — we must admit it has performed very well.”

Brian Reynolds Myers (1963) American professor of international studies

2010s, Interview with Joshua Stanton (August 2017)

People, Hope, Way, Failure

“The last decade has seen a great deal of research on the perception of causation and the consequences of such perception. Conducted primarily within social psychology, the focus has been the perceived causes of other persons' behavior. A parallel analysis has been made of the perceived causes of one's own behavior, and the liveliest recent topic has concerned differences between other-perception and self-perception. The study of perceived causation is identified by the term "attribution theory," attribution referring to the perception inference of cause. As we will see, there is not one but many attribution "theories" and the term refers to several different kinds of problem. The common ideas are that people interpret behavior in terms of its causes and that these interpretations play an important role in determining reactions to the behavior.”

Harold Kelley (1921–2003) American psychologist & academic

Source: "Attribution theory and research." 1980, p. 458; Lead paragraph

People, Behavior, Idea, Problem

“[four years younger! ], you better paint houses, you better focus yourself on townscapes.”

Andreas Schelfhout (1787–1870) Dutch painter, etcher and lithographer

(translation from original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek, original Dutch, citaat van Schelfhout:) Jonge Bart [vier jaar jonger!], je mot liever huize schilderen, leg je liever toe op stadsgezigtjes.
short quote of Schelfhout, c. 1814; as cited in 'Van IJs naar Sneeuw - De ontwikkeling van het wintergezicht in de 19de eeuw', by Arsine Nazarian, July 2008 Utrecht Student-number: 03609533.8
Schelfhout was the four years older nephew of the painter and gave him this advice

Housing, Painting

“The basic managerial idea introduced by systems thinking, is that to manage a system effectively, you might focus on the interactions of the parts rather than their behavior taken separately.”

Fred Emery (1925–1997) Australian psychologist

Russell L. Ackoff and Fred Emery (1972) On purposeful systems, cited in: Lloyd Dobyns, Clare Crawford-Mason (1994) Thinking about quality: progress, wisdom, and the Deming philosophy. p. 40.

Behavior, Idea, Thinking, Parting

“Paycheck discrimination is not the only obstacle preventing women from having the same economic opportunities as men. As our country continues to focus on our economic recovery, leveling the financial playing field for women must be a priority. According to recent predictions, within a generation, more families will be supported by women than men. If these primary breadwinners earn lower incomes, it won't just affect their families, but also consumer spending and our larger financial growth.”

Sandra Fluke (1981) American women's rights activist and lawyer

CNN, (April 17, 2012).
Articles

Women, Men, Family, Support

“One of the curiosities of anger, of course, is that the more you focus it outward, firing it at the injustices of the world, the more it actually parses your own self-pity and resentment.”

Adam Roberts book Jack Glass: The Story of a Murderer

Part 2, Chapter 13, “Of Multitudes” (p. 238).
Jack Glass (2012)

World, Anger

“After my son get married, finally I can focus on improving the economy of Taiwan”

Chen Shui-bian (1950) Taiwanese politician

During the engagement party of his son, June 11, 2005
Pet Phrases, 2005

“Systems transfer or transform materials, energy or information - and usually all three. An information system is one whose prime function is to transfer or transform information: the telephone system is an obvious example. This book concentrates on certain types of information system: those concerned with the transfer of information between specialists, mainly with reference to their work, and mainly based on documents. The focus is thus on specialised documentary information systems.”

Brian Campbell Vickery (1918–2009) British information theorist

Preface; First paragraph
Information Systems (1973)

Books

“Well, I was interested in a subjective image [in the 1940's].... stemming perhaps from the subconscious. Because the external world as far as I was concerned had been totally explored in painting and there was a whole ripe new area in the inner world that we all have. Now in order to externalise this you have to use visual means and so the visual means may have some relation tot the external world. However what I was trying to focus on was what I experienced within my mind, within my feelings, rather than on the external world which I can see.”

Adolph Gottlieb (1903–1974) American artist

Source: 1960s, Interview with Dorothy Seckler, 1967, p. 55-59.

World, Feeling, Painting

“Most people define learning too narrowly as mere “problem-solving”, so they focus on identifying and correcting errors in the external environment. Solving problems is important. But if learning is to persist, managers and employees must also look inward. The need to reflect critically on their own behaviour, identify the ways they often inadvertently contribute to the organisation’s problems, and then change how they act.”

Chris Argyris (1923–2013) American business theorist/Professor Emeritus/Harvard Business School/Thought Leader at Monitor Group

Chris Argyris "Teaching smart people how to learn" in: Peter F. Drucker (1998) Harvard Business Review on Knowledge Management. p. 82

People, Way, Error, Problem

“A neurosurgeon once told me about operating on the brain of a young man with epilepsy. As is customary in this kind of operation, the patient was wide awake, under only local anesthesia, while the surgeon delicately explored his exposed cortex, making sure that the parts tentatively to be removed were not absolutely vital by stimulating them electrically and asking the patient what he experienced. Some stimulations provoked visual flashes or hand-raisings, others a sort of buzzing sensation, but one spot produced a delighted response from the patient: "It's 'Outta Get Me' by Guns N'Roses, my favorite heavy metal [sic] band!"I asked the neurosurgeon if he had asked the patient to sing or hum along with the music, since it would be fascinating to learn how "high fidelity" the provoked memory was. Would it be in exactly the same key and tempo as the record? Such a song (unlike "Silent Night") has one canonical version, so we could simply have superimposed a recording of the patient's humming with the standard record and compare the results. Unfortunately, even though a tape recorder had been running during the operation, the surgeon hadn't asked the patient to sing along. "Why not?" I asked, and he replied: "I hate rock music!"Later in the conversation the neurosurgeon happened to remark that he was going to have to operate again on the same young man, and I expressed the hope that he would just check to see if he could restimulate the rock music, and this time ask the fellow to sing along. "I can't do that," replied the neurosurgeon, "since I cut out that part." "It was part of the epileptic focus?"”

Daniel Dennett book Consciousness Explained

I asked, and he replied, "No, I already told you — I hate rock music."
Source: Consciousness Explained (1991), p. 58-59

Hate, Hope, Music, Learning

“Racism is simply an ugly form of collectivism, the mindset that views humans only as members of groups and never as individuals. Racists believe that all individuals who share superficial physical characteristics are alike; as collectivists, racists think only in terms of groups. By encouraging Americans to adopt a group mentality, the advocates of so-called 'diversity' actually perpetuate racism. Their intense focus on race is inherently racist, because it views individuals only as members of racial groups. Conservatives and libertarians should fight back and challenge the myth that collectivist liberals care more about racism. Modern liberalism, however, well-intentioned, is a byproduct of the same collectivist thinking that characterizes racism. The continued insistence on group thinking only inflames racial tensions. The true antidote to racism is liberty. Liberty means having a limited, constitutional government devoted to the protection of individual rights rather than group claims. Liberty means free-market capitalism, which rewards individual achievement and competence, not skin color, gender, or ethnicity. In a free market, businesses that discriminate lose customers, goodwill, and valuable employees- while rational businesses flourish by choosing the most qualified employees and selling to all willing buyers. More importantly, in a free society every citizen gains a sense of himself as an individual, rather than developing a group or victim mentality. This leads to a sense of individual responsibility and personal pride, making skin color irrelevant. Rather than looking to government to correct what is essentially a sin of the heart, we should understand that reducing racism requires a shift from group thinking to an emphasis on individualism.”

Ron Paul (1935) American politician and physician

What Really Divides Us https://web.archive.org/web/20120127094927/http://www.ronpaularchive.com/2002/12/what-really-divides-us/ (23 December 2002). 2000s, 2001-2005

Color, Understanding, Business, Thinking

“We must try to keep the mind in tranquility. For just as the eye which constantly shifts its gaze, now turning to the right or to the left, now incessantly peering up and down, cannot see distinctly what lies before it, but the sight must be fixed firmly on the object in view if one would make his vision of it clear, so too man's mind when distracted by his countless worldly cares cannot focus itself distinctly on the truth.”

Basil of Caesarea (329–379) Christian Saint

vol. 1, p. 9
Letters

Truth

“Social scientists have found that when confronted with either an enormous threat or a huge reward, people tend to focus on the magnitude of the consequence and ignore the probability.”

Al Gore (1948) 45th Vice President of the United States

Quotes, The Assault on Reason (2007)

People

“Human beings cannot endure emptiness and desolation; they will fill the vacuum by creating a new focus of meaning. The idols of fundamentalism are not good substitutes for God; if we are to create a vibrant new faith for the twenty-first century, we should, perhaps, ponder the history of God for some lessons and warnings.”

Karen Armstrong book A History of God

A History of God (1993)

God, Faith, History

“As I have discussed Zionism's colonial pedigree elsewhere, in this article I will focus on this supremacist grid, an analysis of which, I believe, is a prerequisite of the victory of the Palestinian struggle.”

Joseph Massad (1963) Associate Professor of Arab Studies

Ibid.
"The Ends of Zionism: Racism and the Palestinian Struggle"

Victory

“You have to focus on your dreams, even if they go beyond common sense. How could this young girl from the suburbs of Detroit become a success in New York? It was always that dream.”

Anna Sui (1964) American fashion designer

via MBFashionWeek.com. IMG Worldwide. 2015. http://mbfashionweek.com/designers/anna-sui

Dreams, Girl, Sense, Success

“Cultural systems will be treated as extensions of the power to learn, store, and transmit information, and the evolution of culture as dependent upon the biological development of these abilities and the cultural developments that actualize them. Man's increasing mastery over the natural world, with its increments of available energy use, can be seen from this point of view as one consequence of his capacity to learn, invent, borrow, store, and transmit the necessary technological and political inventions for the changes of scale involved in increasing utilization of energy. Instead of focusing attention on discontinuities — the invention of tool-making tools, the invention of agriculture, the invention of writing, and the invention of invention as a conscious pursuit—this discussion will focus on the continuities involved and on the extent to which older forms of communication, energy use, and social organization also undergo transformation in the course of cultural evolution.”

Margaret Mead (1901–1978) American anthropologist

Source: 1960s, Continuities in Cultural Evolution (1964), p. 31-32

World, Communication, Nature, Learning

“Feminist emphasis on "common oppression" in the United States was less a strategy for politicization than an appropriation by conservative and liberal women of a radical political white women were able to make their interests the primary focus of feminist movement and employ a rhetoric of commonality that made their condition synonymous with "oppression." Who was there to demand a change in vocabulary? What other group of women in the United States had the same access to universities, publishing houses, mass media, money? Had middle class black women begun a movement in which they had labeled themselves "oppressed," no one would have taken them seriously. Had they established public forums and given speeches about their "oppression," they would have been criticized and attacked from all sides. This was not the case with white bourgeois feminists for they could appeal to a large audience of women, like themselves, who were eager to change their lot in life. Their isolation from women of other class and race groups provided no immediate comparative base by which to test their assumptions of common oppression.”

Bell Hooks book Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center

Source: Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center (1984), Chapter 1: Black Women: Shaping Feminist Theory, p. 6.

Life, Women, Money, Universe

“I will show how a model might be applied to social control, and then more specifically focus on religions as mechanisms of social control.”

Bertram Raven (1926) American psychologist

Source: "Influence, Power, Religion, and the Mechanisms of Social Control," 1999, p. 161 Lead sentence

Religion

“Librarians need to focus not on individual, physical libraries but on the larger networks–physical and digital–of which their libraries are part.”

John Palfrey (1972) US law professor

§6 p.140
BiblioTech (2015)

Parting

“My obligation is to focus on the priorities of classroom instruction, parental involvement and student safety, targeting student performance and eliminating unnecessary administrative costs.”

John R. Leopold (1943) politician

Hometown Annapolis - County Executive Leopold's FY08 Budget Address http://www.hometownannapolis.com/cgi-bin/read/2007/05_02-02/TOP

Parent

“As I luxuriate in the discovery that I am no special sponge for sorrow, but merely another fallible animal in this stone maze of a city, I come simultaneously to see that I am the focus of some vast device fueled by an obscure desire.”

William Gibson book Count Zero

On Marly Krushkhova
Count Zero (1986)

Animals

“Another dynamic is at play in the region besides the Sunni-Shia divide. It is that between the forces of centralization and the forces of decentralization. As a rule, the U. S. sides with the former; the Arab people with whom we meddle generally side with the latter. Given the tribal, familial focus of their societies; Arabs are unlikely to abandon their particularism in favor of American statism.”

Ilana Mercer South African writer

"Ask Bush Why The Iraqi Military Won't Fight," http://www.unz.com/imercer/ask-bush-why-the-iraqi-military-wont-fight/ The Unz Review, May 29, 2015. 2010s, 2015

People, Family

“In the future I will focus on improving the economy, making big changes to win back the support from the public.”

Chen Shui-bian (1950) Taiwanese politician

DPP Campaign speech, December 7, 2002
Pet Phrases, 2002

Support, Change, Future

“People … can think of nothing better to do than to continue attacking particular evils while vaguely hoping that their work will somehow help to solve the overall problem of technology. In reality their work is counterproductive, because it distracts attention from the technological system itself as the underlying source of the evils and leads people to focus instead on problems of limited significance that moreover cannot be permanently solved while the technological system continues to exist.”

Theodore Kaczynski (1942) American domestic terrorist, mathematician and anarchist

Source: Anti-Tech Revolution: Why and How (2016), p. 1

People, Hope, Problem, Thinking

“Lacking an external focus, the mind turns inward on itself and creates problems to solve, even if the problems are undefined or unimportant. If you find a focus, an ambitious goal that seems impossible and forces you to grow, these doubts disappear.”

Timothy Ferriss book The 4-Hour Workweek

The 4-Hour Workweek (2007)

Problem

“Carley: I was wondering if there are any pre performance habits that you have before you go on stage.
Hayley: I have a big glass of um, fizzy drink. I like to have a glass of coke before I sing. I also try to work out what the person who wrote the song was trying to say and focus on that.”

Hayley Jensen (1983) Australian singer

Australian Idol, Up Close & Personal Performance

Drink, Singing, Personality

“It can be overwhelming at times but what I am trying to focus on is my main goal in the situation, and that is continuing to advocate on behalf of women affected by the contraception regulation and making sure that policy is implemented in a strong way.”

Sandra Fluke (1981) American women's rights activist and lawyer

TIME, Sandra Fluke on Her Role in the Contraception Controversy: ‘I Would Do This Again’, Alex, Altman, March 8, 2012, March 8, 2012, Time Inc. http://swampland.time.com/2012/03/08/sandra-fluke-on-her-role-in-the-contraception-controversy-i-would-do-this-again/?iid=tl-main-mostpop2, Media interviews

Women, Way, Strong, Time

“Alas, producers of commercial dinosaur products continue to churn out low quality product that is either obsolete or improperly derivative. Dino documentaries and books have become so plentiful that they are no longer special and I do not try to keep up with them. There are also serious problems with quality and accuracy which often fail to meet the expectations of scientists. More about those problems here. I about kicked in the TV screen when one dino doc claimed that the brain of Tyrannosaurus was as large as that of a gorilla when its IQ was not all that much better than a croc’s. And why are the theropods shown pausing to challenge their prey before they charge, when the actual focus of predators is to hit and overwhelm the victim before it knows what is happening? The low standards are not surprising considering how the media and press frequently carry product that promotes belief in the paranormal. But these are quibbles. Dinosaur science has almost completely transformed over the half century that my neural network has been aware of it. The old stand-bys from Allosaurus to the always strange Stegosaurus are still fascinating, but we now know about armored sauropods, fat-bellied therizinosaurs and multi-winged, near avian, sickle claws. The reptile model is out and the avian-mammalian is dominant.”

Gregory Scott Paul (1954) U.S. researcher, author, paleontologist, and illustrator

Autobiography, part V http://gspauldino.com/part5.html, gspauldino.com

Books, Problem, Science

“Sometimes success needs interruption to regain focus and shake off complacency.”

Lennox Lewis (1965) British-Canadian boxer

Lennox Lewis (From his Twitter account)

Success

“I like all styles of climbing for different things. I like the focus and the solitude of solo climbing. … The best jumper is the one who never gets hurt. Find that person and try to be like him/her. … Adventure is when you aren't sure what's going to happen.”

Steph Davis (1973) American rock climber

"10 Questions With Climber and BASE Jumper Steph Davis" https://www.adventure-journal.com/2013/07/10-questions-with-climber-and-base-jumper-steph-davis/, Adventure Journal (July 22, 2013).

Solitude, Hurt, Personality

“My drawings [c. 1945 - 1955] were almost always figures, many pseudo-self-portraits, which I often set against a kind of sun or focus, as if the whole universe radiated from my head, from a point between my eyes. My few oils make even clearer this vision of an axial character, centrally placed, facing the spectator, or turned around, with symmetrical postures, as one in prayer; they show the influence of [medieval] Catalan Romanesque art. In general, molecular rays from the periphery appear to form the central figure and converge in his head, or come out of it, and give life to his surroundings.”

Antoni Tàpies (1923–2012) Catalan painter, sculptor and art theorist

as quoted in 'Tàpies: From Within', June/November 2013 - Presse Release text, Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya (MNAC), p. 9
1971 - 1980, Memòria Personal', 1977

Life, Art, Universe, Appearance

“It can be sensed that there is a new religion arising in the country, still without a prophet, recognized by no one. Religions die slowly. But the artistic style that was the inalienable possession of an earlier era collapsed catastrophically in the middle of the nineteenth century [German Romanticism? ]. There has been no style since... Since then, serious art has been the work of individual artists whose art has had nothing to do with 'style' because they were not in the least connected with the style or the needs of the masses. Their works arose rather in defiance of their times. They are characteristic, fiery signs of a new era that increase daily everywhere. This book [The 'Almanak'], initiated by Franz Marc & Kandinsky ] will be their focus..”

Franz Marc (1880–1916) German painter

1911 - 1914, The 'Savages' of Germany' (1912)

Books, Religion, Art, Sense

“Doctor No said, in the same soft resonant voice, ‘You are right. Mister Bond. That is just what I am, a maniac. All the greatest men are maniacs. They are possessed by a mania which drives them forward towards their goal. The great scientists, the artists, the philosophers, the religious leaders – all maniacs. What else but a blind singleness of purpose could have given focus to their genius, would have kept them in the groove of their purpose? Mania, my dear Mister Bond, is as priceless as genius. Dissipation of energy, fragmentation of vision, loss of momentum, the lack of follow-through — these are the vices of the herd.’ Doctor No sat slightly back in his chair. ‘I do not possess these vices. I am, as you correctly say, a maniac – a maniac, Mister Bond, with a mania for power. That’ – the black holes glittered blankly at Bond through the contact lenses – ‘is the meaning of my life. That is why I am here. That is why you are here. That is why here exists.”

Ian Fleming (1908–1964) English author, journalist and naval intelligence officer

Dr. Julius No, in Ch. 15 : Pandora’s Box
Dr. No (1958)

Life, Men, Loss

“It is the invariable lesson to humanity that distance in time, and in space as well, lends focus.”

Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction …

Source: The Foundation series (1951–1993), Foundation and Empire (1952), Chapter 13 “Lieutenant and Clown”
Context: It is the invariable lesson to humanity that distance in time, and in space as well, lends focus. It is not recorded, incidentally, that the lesson has ever been permanently learned.

Time

“I hear him, before I go to sleep
And focus on the day that's been.”

Kate Bush (1958) British recording artist; singer, songwriter, musician and record producer

Song lyrics, The Kick Inside (1978)
Context: I hear him, before I go to sleep
And focus on the day that's been.
I realise he's there,
When I turn the light off and turn over.

Sleep

“If we have to compete with China then we have to focus on three things—skill, scale and speed.”

Narendra Modi (1950) Prime Minister of India

2014, "Read full interview of Narendra Modi to Rajat Sharma", 2014
Context: We have always focused on degrees only. Now is the time to focus on skill development that will bring employment to our youth. If we have to compete with China then we have to focus on three things—skill, scale and speed. We need better skill, greater scale and faster speed.

Speed

“In fact history does not belong to us but rather we to it. Long before we understand ourselves through the process of self-examination, we understand ourselves in a self-evident way in the family, society, and state in which we live. The focus of subjectivity is a distorting mirror. The self awareness of the Individual is only a flickering in the closed circuit of historical life. That is why the prejudices of an individual are — much more than that individual's judgments — the historical reality of his being.”

Hans-Georg Gadamer book Truth and Method

Source: Truth and Method (1960), p. 289
Variant translation: In truth history does not belong to us but rather we to history. … The focus of subjectivity is a distorted mirror. Individual self-reflection is merely a flickering in the closed circuit of historical life. That is why the prejudices of an individual are —much more than that individual's judgments — the historical reality of his being.
As quoted in Tom Neton, "Hermeneutical Truth and the Structure of Human Experience: Gadamer's Critique of Dilthey" in The Specter of Relativism: Truth, Dialogue, and Phronesis in Philosophical Hermeneutics (1995) edited by Lawrence Schmidt.

History

“However, the followers must be convinced that they can overwhelm the enemies. Thus, by a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak.”

Umberto Eco (1932–2016) Italian semiotician, essayist, philosopher, literary critic, and novelist

Ur-Fascism (1995)
Context: The followers must feel humiliated by the ostentatious wealth and force of their enemies. When I was a boy I was taught to think of Englishmen as the five-meal people. They ate more frequently than the poor but sober Italians. Jews are rich and help each other through a secret web of mutual assistance. However, the followers must be convinced that they can overwhelm the enemies. Thus, by a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak.

Strong, Time

“You say that you can’t understand this script at all, but that is because the human heart itself is impossible to understand. If you focus on the impossibility of truly understanding human psychology and read the script one more time, I think you will grasp the point of it.”

Akira Kurosawa (1910–1998) Japanese film maker

Criterion Collection essay on Rashamon, excerpted from Something Like an Autobiography as translated by Audie E. Bock (1982) http://www.criterion.com/current/posts/196-akira-kurosawa-on-rashomon Context: Human beings are unable to be honest with themselves about themselves. They cannot talk about themselves without embellishing. This script portrays such human beings — the kind who cannot survive without lies to make them feel they are better people than they really are. It even shows this sinful need for flattering falsehood going beyond the grave — even the character who dies cannot give up his lies when he speaks to the living through a medium. Egoism is a sin the human being carries with him from birth; it is the most difficult to redeem. This film is like a strange picture scroll that is unrolled and displayed by the ego. You say that you can’t understand this script at all, but that is because the human heart itself is impossible to understand. If you focus on the impossibility of truly understanding human psychology and read the script one more time, I think you will grasp the point of it.

Understanding, Thinking, Time, Reading

“I want to win the right way. I’m very competitive. I’ve got a strong will to win, but I want to win the right way. That’s my focus.”

Kenneth Chenault (1951) American business executive

A Principled Leader (2004)
Context: After 9-11, I told our senior management team that this was a tremendous leadership challenge that each of us was facing and I wanted them to be courageous. I wanted them to be decisive, to not shirk away from taking tough actions. I also told them to be compassionate. If the organization believed that they were not compassionate, particularly in these times, they would lose their privilege to lead. I wouldn’t be the one to take away their leadership – the organization – the people — would. Compassion can be offered without sacrificing a sense of urgency or a strong will to win. That’s one of the values I believe in very strongly, and I talk about it in the organization. I want to win the right way. I’m very competitive. I’ve got a strong will to win, but I want to win the right way. That’s my focus.<!-- ** p. 17

Way, Strong

“One of the worst aspects of the census is its focus on classifying people by race. When government tells us it wants information to help any given group, it assumes every individual who shares certain physical characteristics has the same interests, or wants the same things from government. This is an inherently racist and offensive assumption. The census, like so many federal policies and programs, inflames racism by encouraging Americans to see themselves as members of racial groups fighting each other for a share of the federal pie.”

Ron Paul (1935) American politician and physician

None of Your Business! https://web.archive.org/web/20120127122559/http://www.ronpaularchive.com/2004/07/none-of-your-business (12 July 2004). 2000s, 2001-2005 Context: I introduced an amendment last week that would have eliminated funds for this intrusive survey in a spending bill, explaining on the House floor that perhaps the American people dont appreciate being threatened by Big Brother. The amendment was met by either indifference or hostility, as most members of Congress either dont care about or actively support government snooping into the private affairs of citizens. One of the worst aspects of the census is its focus on classifying people by race. When government tells us it wants information to help any given group, it assumes every individual who shares certain physical characteristics has the same interests, or wants the same things from government. This is an inherently racist and offensive assumption. The census, like so many federal policies and programs, inflames racism by encouraging Americans to see themselves as members of racial groups fighting each other for a share of the federal pie.

People, Help, Fight

“I am not referring to the absolute, infinite concept of peace and good will of which some fantasies and fanatics dream. I do not deny the value of hopes and dreams but we merely invite discouragement and incredulity by making that our only and immediate goal. Let us focus instead on a more practical, more attainable peace — based not on a sudden revolution in human nature but on a gradual evolution in human institutions — on a series of concrete actions and effective agreements which are in the interest of all concerned.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

Kennedy's "focus on a more practical, more attainable peace, based not on a sudden revolution in human nature but on a gradual evolution of human institutions." was quoted by Barack Obama in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech.
1963, American University speech
Context: I am not referring to the absolute, infinite concept of peace and good will of which some fantasies and fanatics dream. I do not deny the value of hopes and dreams but we merely invite discouragement and incredulity by making that our only and immediate goal. Let us focus instead on a more practical, more attainable peace — based not on a sudden revolution in human nature but on a gradual evolution in human institutions — on a series of concrete actions and effective agreements which are in the interest of all concerned. There is no single, simple key to this peace — no grand or magic formula to be adopted by one or two powers. Genuine peace must be the product of many nations, the sum of many acts. It must be dynamic, not static, changing to meet the challenge of each new generation. For peace is a process — a way of solving problems.

Peace, Dreams, Hope, Nature

“Imagine my glimpses at that clock as the gropings of a spiritual eye which seeks to adjust its vision to an exact focus. The moment the focus is reached the object is epiphanised.”

James Joyce book Stephen Hero

Stephen Hero (1944)
Context: Imagine my glimpses at that clock as the gropings of a spiritual eye which seeks to adjust its vision to an exact focus. The moment the focus is reached the object is epiphanised. It is just in this epiphany that I find the third, the supreme quality of beauty. … No esthetic theory, pursued Stephen relentlessly, is of any value which investigates with the aid of the lantern of tradition. What we symbolise in black the Chinaman may symbolise in yellow: each has his own tradition. Greek beauty laughs at Coptic beauty and the American Indian derides them both. It is almost impossible to reconcile all tradition whereas it is by no means impossible to find the justification of every form of beauty which has ever been adored on the earth by an examination into the mechanism of esthetic apprehension whether it be dressed in red, white, yellow or black. We have no reason for thinking that the Chinaman has a different system of digestion from that which we have though our diets are quite dissimilar. The apprehensive faculty must be scrutinised in action.

Imagination

“With all humility, I think, "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might." Infinitely more important than the vain attempt to love one's neighbor as one's self. If you want to hit a bird on the wing, you must have all your will in focus, you must not be thinking about yourself, and equally, you must not be thinking about your neighbor: you must be living in your eye on that bird. Every achievement is a bird on the wing.”

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841–1935) United States Supreme Court justice

Speech to the Bar Association of Boston, in Speeches (1913), p. 85.
1910s

Love, Bird, Thinking

“We believe that an active government should focus on doing what it can to help people get on with their lives.This is the true measure of a compassionate government.”

Theresa May (1956) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech to the Conservative Party conference http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2002/oct/07/conservatives2002.conservatives1 (07 October 2002) Context: How can students and parents plan for the future when they can't rely on the country's examination system to deliver fair results? We reject Labour's "government knows best" approach, but we certainly don't subscribe to a philosophy that lets people sink or swim. We believe that an active government should focus on doing what it can to help people get on with their lives. This is the true measure of a compassionate government.

People, Help

“You learn in retrospect and appreciate as you move on. I was indeed shaped by my experience at Smith—it was the first time I had to struggle. It was the very first time I learned how to determine and focus very specifically on the things that I felt were important, to strategize and to learn how to go about getting them and making them happen.”

Yolanda King (1955–2007) American actress

1980s, A Dream Deferred (1989)
Context: It is a real thrill to be back home. When I was here I was not as endeared to this institution as I am now. You learn in retrospect and appreciate as you move on. I was indeed shaped by my experience at Smith—it was the first time I had to struggle. It was the very first time I learned how to determine and focus very specifically on the things that I felt were important, to strategize and to learn how to go about getting them and making them happen. While it was painful then, I am truly thankful for that experience now.

Learning, Time

“Often we allow ourselves to get all worked up about things that, upon closer examination, aren't really that big a deal. We focus on little problems and blow them out of proportion.”

Richard Carlson (1961–2006) Author, psychotherapist and motivational speaker

Lesson 1, Don't Sweat the Small Stuff
Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff…and it’s all Small Stuff (1997)
Context: Often we allow ourselves to get all worked up about things that, upon closer examination, aren't really that big a deal. We focus on little problems and blow them out of proportion. … Whether we had to wait in line, listen to unfair criticism, or do the lion's share of the work, it pays enormous dividends if we learn not to worry about little things. So many people spend so much of their life energy "sweating the small stuff" that they completely lose touch with the magic and beauty of life.

Problem

“How shall we pass most swiftly from point to point, and be present always at the focus where the greatest number of vital forces unite in their purest energy. To burn always with this hard, gem-like flame, to maintain this ecstasy, is success in life.”

Walter Pater (1839–1894) essayist, art and literature critic, fiction writer

Conclusion The Renaissance http://www.authorama.com/renaissance-1.html (1873) Context: Not the fruit of experience, but experience itself, is the end. A counted number of pulses only is given to us of a variegated, dramatic life. How may we see in them all that is to to be seen in them by the finest senses? How shall we pass most swiftly from point to point, and be present always at the focus where the greatest number of vital forces unite in their purest energy. To burn always with this hard, gem-like flame, to maintain this ecstasy, is success in life.

Life, Success

“With climate change and health crises rightfully receiving international attention, the time has come to focus on hunger as a top priority.”

Josette Sheeran (1954) American diplomat

The Lancet Volume 371, Issue 9608, Pages 180 - 181, (19 January 2008) http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2807%2961870-4/fulltext Context: With climate change and health crises rightfully receiving international attention, the time has come to focus on hunger as a top priority. WHO regards hunger and malnutrition as the gravest threat to public health, and climate change threatens to further destabilise already fragile food-production systems.

Hunger, Health, Change, Time

“First job in acting - …acting is not just talent there's a lot of technicality. You have to see that this is the focus points that's the light, you have to catch the light, you have to give your facing. So all these things I just learnt them, and I grew with every film.”

Preity Zinta (1975) film actress

Career

Light

“He tried to refocus his eyes to get another look at the face of this being, who by gestures alone had said to him: I do not need your first Sacrament, Man, but I am worthy to convey to you this Sacrament of Life. Now he knew what she was, and he sobbed faintly when he could not again force his eyes to focus on those cool, green, and untroubled eyes of one born free.”

Walter M. Miller, Jr. book A Canticle for Leibowitz

Ch 29
A Canticle for Leibowitz (1959), Fiat Voluntas Tua
Context: He received the Wafer from her hand. She replaced the lid of the ciborium and set the vessel in a more protected spot under a jutting rock. She used no conventional gestures, but the reverence with which she had handled it convinced him of one thing: she sensed the Presence under the veils. She who could not yet use words nor understand them, had done what she had as if by direct instruction, in response to his attempt at conditional baptism. He tried to refocus his eyes to get another look at the face of this being, who by gestures alone had said to him: I do not need your first Sacrament, Man, but I am worthy to convey to you this Sacrament of Life. Now he knew what she was, and he sobbed faintly when he could not again force his eyes to focus on those cool, green, and untroubled eyes of one born free.

Life

“For most Americans, ethical matters are usually discussed either in utilitarian terms of weighing competing goods or balancing benefits and harms, looking to the greatest good for the greatest number, or in moralist terms of rules, rights and duties, "thou shalts" and "thou shalt nots." Our public ethical discourse is largely negative and "other-directed": We focus on condemning and avoiding misconduct by, or on correcting and preventing injustice to, other people, not on elevating or improving ourselves. How liberating and encouraging, then, to encounter an ethics focused on the question, "How to live?"”

Leon R. Kass (1939) American academic

and that situates what we call the moral life in the larger context of human flourishing. How eye-opening are arguments that suggest that happiness is not a state of passive feeling but a life of fulfilling activity, and especially of the unimpeded and excellent activity of our specifically human powers—of acting and making, of thinking and learning, of loving and befriending. How illuminating it is to see the ethical life discussed not in terms of benefits and harms or rules of right and wrong, but in terms of character, and to understand that good character, formed through habituation, is more than holding right opinions or having "good values," but is a binding up of heart and mind that both frees us from enslaving passions and frees us for fine and beautiful deeds. How encouraging it is to read an account of human life—the only such account in our philosophical tradition—that speaks at length and profoundly about friendship, culminating in the claim that the most fulfilling form of friendship is the sharing of speeches and thoughts.
Looking for an Honest Man (2009)

People

“Life is too short to focus on the things you hate. Focus on the things you love instead.”

Феликс Челльберг (PewDiePie) (1989)

Love, Life, Hate

“Losers don’t lose because they focus on losing. They lose because they focus on just getting by.”

John C. Maxwell (1947) American author, speaker and pastor

Book Sometimes you win Sometimes you Learn

“Stop stressing over things you can't control or change. Overthinking leads to negative thoughts. Be grateful and focus on the positive.”

Ralph Smart

Change

“Focus on yourself, your life, your career, your family, your true friends and most importantly… your happiness.”

Ralph Smart

Family, Life, Happiness

“Certain contemporary overenthusiastic market socialists tend, contrariwise, to forget that the market is intrinsically repugnant, because they are blinded by their belated discovery of the market's instrumental value. It is the genius of the market that it (1) recruits low-grade motives to (2) desirable ends; but (3) it also produces undesirable effects, including significant unjust inequality. In a balanced view, all three sides of that proposition must be kept in focus, but many market socialists now self-deceptively overlook (1) and (3). Both (1) and (2) were kept in focus by the pioneering eighteenth-century writer Bernard Mandeville, whose market-praising Fable of the Bees was subtitled Private Vices, Public Benefits. Many contemporary celebrants of the market play down the truth in the first part of that subtitle.”

Gerald Cohen (1941–2009) Canadian philosopher

IV. Is the Ideal Feasible?
Why Not Socialism? (2009)

Forgetting, Truth, Self-confidence, Motivation

“Typography is two-dimensional architecture, based on experience and imagination, and guided by rules and readability. And this is the purpose of typography: The arrangement of design elements within a given structure should allow the reader to easily focus on the message, without slowing down the speed of his reading.”

Hermann Zapf (1918–2015) German type-designer, calligrapher, author and artist

Imagination, Reading, Speed

“Approximately, three billion people of the world live on less than 2.5 dollars a day, and over a billion people live without having even one sufficient meal on a daily basis. Forty-percent of the poorest world populations only share five percent of the global income, while twenty percent of the richest people share seventy-five percent of the total global income. More than twenty thousand innocent and destitute children die every day in the world because of poverty. What is the justification for the presence of hundreds of US military and intelligence bases in different parts of the world...? An assembly of people in contradiction with the inner human instincts and disposition who also have no faith in God and in the path of the divine prophets, replace their lust for power and materialistic ends with heavenly values. To them, only power and wealth prevail, and every attempt must bring into focus these sinister goals...”

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (1956) 6th President of the Islamic Republic of Iran

Ahmadinejad United Nations Speech: Full Text Transcript, https://www.ibtimes.com/ahmadinejad-united-nations-speech-full-text-transcript-317114 International Business Times, 22 Oct 2011 2011

God, Faith, Wealth, Intelligence

“Art can be a spiritual practice. Not all artists consider this to be true for them, but with the proper motivation and focus, it can be. A spiritual practice is an activity that enables you to develop the qualities of mental clarity, mindfulness of the moment, wisdom, compassion and access to revelations of higher mystic states of awareness. A contemplative method, such as yoga or meditation, will stabilize and assist in the progress of spiritual awareness. An artist’s craft can become a contemplative method, and the creations may provide outward signs of an inner spiritual journey.”

Alex Grey (1953) American artist

High Times interview (2002)

Motivation, Wisdom, Art

“I don’t think it’s a responsibility, but I certainly think it’s something poetry can do, and I think that poetry has a unique ability to do it because of its self-referential nature and its self-conscious nature. And I mean that in the sense that, in prose, we’re not often as conscious of the language and the operation of language itself. Our focus in on the content, on what is denotatively produced. In poetry we are trained, or at least readers of poetry are trained, to attend to or account for the structures of language as well as what that language conveys.”

Gregory Pardlo (1968) American writer

On if the poet has a responsibility in “‘The language is constructing our ideas more than we are deploying the language’: An interview with Gregory Pardlo” http://gulfcoastmag.org/reviews-and-interviews/art-and-reviews/an-interview-with-gregory-pardlo/ in Gulf Coast Magazine (2019 Jul 17)

Nature, Self-confidence, Thinking, Sense

“The most important opportunity offered by increased exposure is the chance to focus with greater faith and intensity upon the hard work of writing.”

David Chariandy (1969) Canadian writer

On his increased exposure as a writer in “Interviews: David Chariandy” https://bookpage.com/interviews/22971-david-chariandy-fiction#.XfgMUulKjcs in BookPage (2018 Aug 1)

Chance, Faith

“I wanted to have these kinds of images because other Chicano artists were doing imagery that was very political, sending messages about oppression and discrimination, honoring the great muralists in Mexico, and protesting the Vietnam war because a lot of Chicanos had been drafted into the army. There were a lot of protests against the war and the draft. I just wanted to focus on the every day life that we’re all very familiar with. We needed to re-celebrate that: the beautiful things that we have always known and grown up with…”

Carmen Lomas Garza (1948) Mexican-American artist and illustrator

On depicting everyday life for Mexican Americans in “Carmen Lomas Garza in the Artist Studio, April 2011” https://www.famsf.org/blog/carmen-lomas-garza-artist-studio-april-2011 (de Young Museum of Art)

War, Beauty, Life

“The selfish gene theory is Darwin’s theory, expressed in a way that Darwin did not choose but whose aptness, I should like to think, he would instantly have recognized and delighted in. It is in fact a logical outgrowth of orthodox neo-Darwinism, but expressed as a novel image. Rather than focus on the individual organism, it takes a gene’s eye view of nature. It is a different way of seeing, not a different theory.”

Richard Dawkins book The Selfish Gene

Preface to Second Edition (1989)
The Selfish Gene (1976, 1989)

Way, Selfishness, Thinking, Nature

“I just say to everybody in the country, including everyone in Parliament, the fundamental choice is this: Are you going to side with Jeremy Corbyn and those who want to cancel the referendum? Are you going to side with those who want to scrub the democratic verdict of the people - and plunge this country into chaos. Or are you going to side with those of us who want to get on, deliver the mandate of the people and focus with absolute, laser-like precision on the domestic agenda?”

Boris Johnson (1964) British politician, historian and journalist

Brexit: Michel Barnier rejects demands for backstop to be axed https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-49540681 BBC News (1 September 2019) 2010s, 2019

People, Country