Constructive Quotes

The arms race between [predators] and [prey] is asymmetric, in which success on either side is felt as failure by the other side, but the nature of the success and failure on the two sides is very different. The two sides are 'trying' to do very different things. [Predators] are trying to eat [prey]. [Prey] are not trying to eat [predators], they are trying to avoid being eaten by [predators].
From an evolutionary point of view asymmetric arms races are more [likely] to generate highly complex weapons systems. ~ Richard Dawkins

My efforts to prevent closing of the gold window-working through Connally, Volcker, and Shultz-do not seem to have succeeded. The gold window may have to be closed tomorrow because we now have a government that is incapable, not only of constructive leadership, but of any action at all. What a tragedy for mankind! ~ Arthur F. Burns

Emotional versatility is the art of making peace with the entire emotional spectrum by honing your capacity to channel various feelings along creative and constructive lines. It is not about controlling or condemning your feelings. It's about conducting your feelings in a self-edifying way. ~ T.K. Coleman

Constructive criticism is about finding something good and positive to soften the blow to the real critique of what really went on. ~ Paula Abdul

The axis today is not liberal and conservative, the axis is constructive-destructive. ~ Steve Jobs

The spinning wheel means national consciousness and a contribution by every individual to a definite constructive national work. ~ Mahatma Gandhi

To be successful is to be helpful, caring, and constructive, to make everything and everyone you touch a little bit better. The best thing you have to give is yourself. If ~ John C. Maxwell

They also developed a constructive doctrine, concerning degrees of probability: although we can never be justified in feeling certainty, some things are more likely to be true than others. Probability should be our guide in practice, since it is reasonable to act on the most probable of possible hypotheses. This view is one with which most modern philosophers would agree. ~ Anonymous

Turning things over and over in isolation had led me to a certain point, but I knew that to get any further I'd have to voice some ideas aloud, just to see how they sounded. But I certainly didn't go to Ellie expecting any kind of constructive input on her part. It was more that I'd hit a wall and needed someone to talk around the subject with - like when you come up against a problem that's just immune to normal logic. ~ Gavin Extence

Questions are the heart and soul of constructive conflict. They open up the exploration, bring in new information, and reframe debate. When ~ Margaret Heffernan

There is no such thing as constructive criticism. There is constructive advice, constructive guidance, constructive counsel, encouragement, suggestion, and instruction. Criticism, however, is not constructive but a destructive means of faultfinding that cripples all parties involved. Don't be fooled into thinking otherwise. ~ Richelle E. Goodrich

Employers who understand human nature, get the best there is in men, not by criticism, but by constructive suggestion. ~ Napoleon Hill

Constructive trade, the two-way exchange of goods and services, is the most efficient and logical way for each nation ... to build a stable prosperity, a prosperity based not on aid, but on mutually beneficial economic contacts. ~ Ronald Reagan

It is not our affluence, or our plumbing, or our clogged freeways that grip the imagination of others. Rather, it is the values upon which our system is built. These values imply our adherence not only to liberty and individual freedom, but also to international peace, law and order, and constructive social purpose. When we depart from these values, we do so at our peril. ~ J. William Fulbright

He philosophy of Islam will be shown in terms of the modern philosophy, and if there are imperfections in the old ideas then they shall be removed. My task is merely constructive, and in this construction I shall take into consideration the best traditions of Islamic philosophy. ~ Muhammad Iqbal

What is even more striking than the negational character of this political culture is the absence of robust and constructive affirmations. Vibrant cultures make space for leisure, philosophical reflection, scientific and intellectual mastery, and artistic and literary expression, among other things. Within the larger Christian community in America, one can find such vitality in pockets here and there. Yet where they do exist, they are eclipsed by the greater prominence and vast resources of the political activists and their organizations. What is more, there are few if any places in the pronouncements and actions of the Christian Right or the Christian Left (none that I could find) where these gifts are acknowledged, affirmed, or celebrated. What this means is that rather than being defined by its cultural achievements, its intellectual and artistic vitality, its service to the needs of others, Christianity is defined to the outside world by its rhetoric of resentment and the ambitions of a will in opposition to others. ~ James Davison Hunter

If I had done nothing more than bring McCabe's talents to the attention of what has become a world-wide audience--if I had done only this job, I believe I'd have established myself as a force for mass education and enlightenment with immediate and constructive effects on the thinking portion of the population. My association with McCabe has been enough to build a career for anyone.

{Julius on legendary scholar Joseph McCabe} ~ E. Haldeman-Julius

If a person accepts that she will stumble, fall, and even be struck down every now and then, then that is a constructive view because the person will be prepared. Preparedness is not the same as fatalism. ~ Gudjon Bergmann

Every man needs an obsessio in order to enjoy life, and it was so much the better if that obsession was constructive. ~ Louis De Bernieres

All my girlhood I always planned to do something big ... something constructive. It's queer what ambitious dreams a girl has when she is young. I thought I would sing before big audiences or paint lovely pictures or write a splendid book. I always had that feeling in me of wanting to do something worth while. And just think, Laura ... now I am eighty and I have not painted nor written nor sung."
"But you've done lots of things, Grandma. You've baked bread ... and pieced quilts ... and taken care of your children."
Old Abbie Deal patted the young girl's hand. "Well ... well ... out of the mouths of babes. That's just it, Laura, I've only baked bread and pieced quilts and taken care of children. But some women have to, don't they? ... But I've dreamed dreams, Laura. All the time I was cooking and patching and washing, I dreamed dreams. And I think I dreamed them into the children ... and the children are carrying them out ... doing all the things I wanted to and couldn't. ~ Bess Streeter Aldrich

Appreciation and recognition are qualities that most leaders forget, but desperately need, to build a positive, passionate and engaged workplace. ~ Tony Dovale

My hat is always off to those straight shooters. I love you!!! I've changed because of your constructive feedback... ~ Assegid Habtewold

Patriotism has become a mere national self assertion, a sentimentality of flag-cheering with no constructive duties. ~ H.G.Wells

A liberal knows that the only certainty in this life is change but believes that the change can be directed toward a constructive end. ~ Henry A. Wallace

Instead of engaging in cutthroat competition, we should strive to create value. In economic terms, this means a transition from a consumer economy - the mad rush for ownership and consumption - to a constructive economy where all human beings can participate in the act of creating lasting worth. ~ Daisaku Ikeda

I commend Sri Chinmoy for his faith and serenity, and I hope he will continue to exert his calming and constructive influence on the international community for many years to come. ~ Brian Mulroney

The society with lots of open disagreement and social conflict is the one surging with power in art, science, commerce, constructive social reform, and (most of all) religious revival; the hushed-up society where everyone is afraid to say what he thinks is on the brink of violence and collapse. ~ Greg Forster

Education is not an affair of 'telling' and being told, but an active and constructive process. ~ John Dewey

I've talked with many other people who have found constructive ways to bridge gaps and fill holes that others merely walk around, and in the process have annointed themelves to roles others might not have chosen for them....one of the best ways to move from one field to another is to figure out how your skills can be translated into different settings. ~ Tina Seelig

Real, constructive mental power lies in the creative thought that shapes your destiny, and your hour-by-hour mental conduct produces power for change in your life. Develop a train of thought on which to ride. The nobility of your life as well as your happiness depends upon the direction in which that train of thought is going. ~ Laurence J. Peter

Constructive Alternativism: the idea that, while there is only one true reality, reality is always experienced from one or another perspective.

What was realised by Kelly was that every individual acts, reacts and behaves according to how they view their own reality. Each person views another or an event in an entirely different way to anyone else. But what forms that basic reality was of course needed to be understood. ~ Kendra Pinder

Is constructive criticism really constructive? Not really. You can't make a child better by pointing out what you think is wrong with him or her. Criticism either crushes spirit or elicits defensiveness. Constructive criticism is an interesting combination of words. "Construct" means "to build." "Criticism" means "to tear down" It creates defiance and anger as well. ~ H. Norman Wright

You can learn a lot from criticism if you can take what's constructive out of it. If you read a review that starts with, 'This person is an idiot; who do they think they are?', you're not going to learn anything from that. ~ Blake Lively

We can passively take our place in the negative chain, accepting the harm to ourselves and passing it on to others. Or we can break the chain and turn the energy of a destructive emotion into a constructive action. ~ Laura Archera Huxley

[I]nfectious disease is merely a disagreeable instance of a widely prevalent tendency of all living creatures to save themselves the bother of building, by their own efforts, the things they require. Whenever they find it possible to take advantage of the constructive labors of others, this is the path of least resistance. The plant does the work with its roots and its green leaves. The cow eats the plant. Man eats both of them; and bacteria (or investment bankers) eat the man ... ~ Hans Zinsser

With God's help, I've not had a drink in nine and a half years. That's my whole story right there. And because of that, I'm doing this. I'm making records, I'm touring. I was so involved in just getting brain damaged, I wasn't doing anything. I had great ideas, many notebooks filled with notes, some of them I can read and some of them I just can't read, but I really didn't do anything constructive, it was all just good ideas. Now I'm trying to lead a constructive life a day at a time. ~ Ringo Starr

Friendship among nations, as among individuals, calls for constructive efforts to muster the forces of humanity in order that an atmosphere of close understanding and cooperation may be cultivated. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt

We find that one of the most rewarding features of being scientists these days ... is the common bond which the search for truth provides to scholars of many tongues and many heritages. In the long run, that spirit will inevitably have a constructive effect on the benefits which man can derive from knowledge of himself and his environment. ~ Stanford Moore

Practically all of the successful Negroes in this country are of the uneducated type or of that of Negroes who have had no formal education at all. The large majority of the Negroes who have put on the finishing touches of our best colleges are all but worthless in the development of their people. If after leaving school they have the opportunity to give out to Negroes what traducers of the race would like to have it learn such persons may thereby earn a living at teaching or preaching what they have been taught but they never become a constructive force in the development of the race. The so-called school, then, becomes a questionable factor in the life of this despised people. As another has well said, to handicap a student by teaching him that his black face is a curse and that his struggle to change his condition is hopeless is the worst sort of lynching. It kills one's aspirations and dooms him to ~ Carter G. Woodson

Compassion and love give meaning to our activities and makes them constructive. ~ Dalai Lama

If you are the sensing type, the intuitive's words may seem to ignore or even contradict facts you know to be true, but don't ignore what was said or dismiss it as foolish. It may contain an idea that could be useful, and your facts should be useful to the author of the idea. The constructive course is to state your facts as a contribution to the subject, not as a refutation of the idea. Progress in almost any direction needs contributions from both sides, facts from the sensing type and unfamiliar ideas from the intuitive. ~ Isabel Briggs Myers

For in spite of itself any movement that thinks and acts in terms of an 'ism becomes so involved in reaction against other 'isms that it is unwittingly controlled by them. For it then forms its principles by reaction against them instead of by a comprehensive, constructive survey of actual needs, problems, and possibilities. ~ John Dewey

The organization of supplies, the command of men, anything in any way constructive requires more than intellect; it requires energy and drive and an unrelenting will to serve the cause, regardless of one's personal interests. ~ Erwin Rommel

The most effective and most accessible way to acquire the maximum of constructive power is to love truly and wisely. ~ Pitirim Sorokin

[M]any people believe that memory works like a recording device. You just record the information, then you call it up and play it back when you want to answer questions or identify images. But decades of work in psychology has shown that this just isn't true. Our memories are constructive. They're reconstructive. Memory works a little bit more like a Wikipedia page: You can go in there and change it, but so can other people. ~ Elizabeth F. Loftus

Constructive criticism and self-criticism are extremely important for any revolutionary organization. Without them, people tend to drown in their mistakes, not learn from them. ~ Assata Shakur

Pedagogy, like language itself, can either liberate or imprison ideas, inspire of suffocate constructive thinking. ~ Hyman Bass

In order to excel, you must be completely dedicated to your chosen sport. You must also be prepared to work hard and be willing to accept constructive criticism. Without one-hundred percent dedication, you won't be able to do this. ~ Willie Mays

One of the causes of unhappiness among intellectuals in the present day is that so many of them, especially those whose skill is literary, find no opportunity for the independent exercise of their talents, but have to hire themselves out to rich corporations directed by Philistines, who insist upon their producing what they themselves regard as pernicious nonsense. If you were to inquire among journalists in either England or America whether they believed in the policy of the newspaper for which they worked, you would find, I believe, that only a small minority do so; the rest, for the sake of a livelihood, prostitute their skill to purposes which they believe to be harmful. Such work cannot bring any real satisfaction, and in the course of reconciling himself to the doing of it, a man has to make himself so cynical that he can no longer derive whole-hearted satisfaction from anything whatever. I cannot condemn men who undertake work of this sort, since starvation is too serious an alternative, but I think that where it is possible to do work that is satisfactory to man's constructive impulses without entirely starving, he will be well advised from the point of view of his own happiness if he chooses it in preference to work much more highly paid but not seeming to him worth doing on its own account. Without self-respect genuine happiness is scarcely possible. And the man who is ashamed of his work can hardly achieve self-respect. ~ Bertrand Russell

I have just explained my idea of how a constructive period of reflection, one that would send a clear message to the citizens of Europe: You should now what our priorities are. For Germany this means: Unemployment is one of one of our biggest problems. ~ Angela Merkel

The mark, to me, of a constructive argument is one that looks at a specific problem and says, 'What shall we do about this?' And a nonconstructive one is one that tries to label people. ~ Gloria Steinem

If people who cherish freedom, who know the importance of mutual respect and are aware of the imperative necessity to establish a constructive and critical debate, if these people are not ready to speak out, to be more committed and visible, then we can expect sad, painful tomorrows. The choice is ours. ~ Tariq Ramadan

Not to grow up properly is to retain our 'caterpillar' quality from childhood (where it is a virtue) into adulthood (where it becomes a vice). In childhood our credulity serves us well. It helps us to pack, with extraordinary rapidity, our skulls full of the wisdom of our parents and our ancestors. But if we don't grow out of it in the fullness of time, our caterpillar nature makes us a sitting target for astrologers, mediums, gurus, evangelists and quacks. The genius of the human child, mental caterpillar extraordinary, is for soaking up information and ideas, not for criticizing them. If critical faculties later grow it will be in spite of, not because of, the inclinations of childhood. The blotting paper of the child's brain is the unpromising seedbed, the base upon which later the sceptical attitude, like a struggling mustard plant, may possibly grow. We need to replace the automatic credulity of childhood with the constructive scepticism of adult science. ~ Richard Dawkins

Implanting spiritual ideas in children is very important. Many people live their entire lives according to the concepts that are implanted in them in childhood. When children learn they will get the most attention and love through doing constructive things, they will tend to stop doing destructive things. Most important of all, remember that children learn through example. No matter what you say it is what you do that will have an influence on them. ~ Peace Pilgrim

Many people begin their criticism with sincere praise followed by the word "but", which signals that the criticism is about to begin. This may make the listener questions the sincerity of the praise. Use "and" instead, and provide constructive advice rather than criticism. this is possibly the most effective ways to address an issue in written form without seeming false in your praise. ~ Dale Carnegie

I finish a lot of lyrics while I'm in the water and it's always pretty constructive for me to get out in the water. I'm not actually writing the words down, but I have time to think about words, and doing a lot of surfing usually gives me a little space and peace of mind to finish things up. ~ Jack Johnson

Rosencrantz: Shouldn't we be doing something
constructive?
Guildenstern: What did you have in mind? ... A short, blunt human pyramid ... ? ~ Tom Stoppard

NO reader has ANY obligation to an author, whether it be to leave a review or to write a "constructive" one. I put out a product. You are consumers of that product. Since when does that mean you have to kiss my ass? Hey, I like Pop-Tarts and eat them a few times a year; since when does that mean I'm obligated to support Kellogg's in any way except legally purchasing the Pop-Tarts before I eat them? I wasn't aware that purchasing and consuming a product meant I was under some sort of fucking thrall in which I'm only allowed to either praise the Pop-Tart (which to be honest isn't hard, especially the S'mores flavor) or, if I am going to criticize a flavor, offer a specific and detailed analysis as to why, phrased in as inoffensive and gentle a manner as possible so as not to upset the gentle people at Kellogg's."
[Something in the Water? (blog post; January 9, 2012)] ~ Stacia Kane

We Jews are accused of being destroyers: whatever you put up, we tear down. It is true only in a relative sense. We are not iconoclasts deliberately: we are not enemies of your institutions simply because of the dislike between us. We are a homeless mass seeking satisfaction for our constructive instincts. And in your institutions we cannot find satisfaction. ~ Maurice Samuel

When people give one star ratings, they seem to be trying to make a point. In my opinion, one star ratings don't make a constructive point. They are just unfair put downs to creativity. ~ Deborah Johnson

We can all make powerful choices. We can all take back control by not blaming chance, fate, or anyone else for our outcomes. It's within our ability to cause everything to change. Rather than letting past hurtful experiences sap our energy and sabotage our success, we can use them to fuel positive, constructive change. ~ Darren Hardy

Read somewhat in the English poets every day. You will find them elegant, entertaining and constructive companions through your whole life. ~ David McCullough

The pacifist's task today is to find a method of helping and healing which provides a revolutionary constructive
substitute for war. ~ Vera Brittain

One of our most deep-seated fears is that we might be called an "outsider." This fear has led us down the road to conformity, has put the imprint of "the organization man" on our souls, and has robbed us of originality of thought, individuality of personality, and constructive action. ~ Billy Graham

Human beings need community. If there are no communities available for constructive ends, there will be destructive, murderous communities ... Only the social sector, that is, the nongovernmental, nonprofit organization, can create what we now need, communities for citizens ... What the dawning 21st century needs above all is equally explosive growth of the nonprofit social sector in building communities in the newly dominant social environment, the city. ~ Peter Drucker

Integrating in the society is a fundamental scriptural Christian trait. This integration is a must - moderate constructive integration. All of us, as Egyptians, have to participate. ~ Pope Theodoros II

What is needed in the present plight of mankind is not more science but a change of heart that shall move mankind to devote to constructive and peaceful purposes ... ~ Ralph Barton Perry

We are our own greatest teachers. One way to follow our daily bliss is to let our inner guidance system to imagine and acknowledge, all our blessings. This determines the criteria of our day, which is JOY. It puts us in tune with the positive constructive energy and raises our vibration. Making a conscious decision to creating our day and enjoy feeling good takes some good practice but the end result is worthwhile ~ Angie Karan

Discovery comes as a result of positive discontent, a constructive dissatisfaction. In fact, one might quite truthfully say that there is no discovery when one is content. ~ Myron Allen

Ordinary experience, from waking second to second, is in fact highly synthetic (in the sense of combinative or constructive), and made of a complexity of strands, past memories and present perceptions, times and places, private and public history, hopelessly beyond science's powers to analyse. It is quintessentially 'wild' ... unphilosophical, irrational uncontrollable, incalculable. ~ John Fowles

The great constructive energies of the child ... have hitherto been concealed beneath an accumulation of ideas concerning motherhood. We used to say it was the mother who formed the child; for it is she who teaches him to walk, talk, and so on. But none of this is really done by the mother. It is an achievement of the child. What the mother brings forth is the baby, but it is the baby who produces the man. Should the mother die, the baby still grows up and completes his work of making the man. ~ Maria Montessori

In most important ways, leaders of the future will need the traits and capabilities of leaders throughout history: an eye for change and a steadying hand to provide both vision and reassurance that change can be mastered, a voice that articulates the will of the group and shapes it to constructive ends, and an ability to inspire by force of personality while making others feel empowered to increase and use their own abilities. ~ Rosabeth Moss Kanter

The United States plays, for the most part, a constructive global role, and to the extent that that role shrinks, other countries, even those most critical of what America does abroad, will suffer. ~ Michael Mandelbaum

During my time here [Guantanamo], as Nelson Mandela says ... the most important thing you have is time to think about things. I came to the conclusion that ... you're not going to gain anything with hate. Second thing, it's more destructive than it's constructive. Third thing: I came to a conclusion that love and forgiveness are more constructive and will bring people together. ~ Omar Khadr

Understand this law and you will then know, beyond room for the slightest doubt, that you are constantly punishing yourself for every wrong you commit and rewarding yourself for every act of constructive conduct in which you indulge. ~ Napoleon Hill

Granted, anger can be misplaced and is often destructive, but anger generates passion, and that energy, if used correctly, can be highly constructive. ~ David W. Earle

Why are you doing this, Caleb?" "Doing what?" He was washing industriously under one arm. "Going to all the trouble to homestead and build a house when you have no intention of staying here." Caleb soaped the other armpit, then cordially handed the bar to Lily. "I can't leave you out here alone, can I?" he reasoned in pleasant tones. "I haven't resigned my commission yet, so I can't board a train for Pennsylvania either. I might as well do something constructive while I'm waiting for you to come to your senses." Lily ~ Linda Lael Miller

Emergency food has become very useful indeed, and to a very large assortment of people and institutions. The United States Department of Agriculture uses it to reduce the accumulation of embarrassing agricultural surpluses. Business uses it to dispose of nonstandard or unwanted product, to protect employee morale and avoid dump fees, and, of course, to accrue tax savings. Celebrities use it for exposure. Universities and hospitals, as well as caterers and restaurants, use it to absorb leftovers. Private schools use it to teach ethics, and public schools use it to instill a sense of civic responsibility. Churches use it to express their concern for the least of their brethren, and synagogues use it to be faithful to the tradition of including the poor at the table. Courts use it to avoid incarcerating people arrested for Driving While Intoxicated and a host of other offense. Environmentalists use it to reduce the solid waste stream. Penal institutions use it to create constructive outlets for the energies of their inmates, and youth-serving agencies of all sorts use it to provide service opportunities for young people. Both profit-making and nonprofit organizations use it to absorb unneeded kitchen and office equipment. A wide array of groups, organizations, and institutions benefits from the halo effect of 'feeding the hungry,' and this list does not even include the many functions for ordinary individuals--companionship, exercise, meaning, and purpose. . .If we didn't have h ~ Janet Poppendieck

We will establish ourselves in Palestine whether you like it or not ... You can hasten our arrival or you can equally retard it. It is however better for you to help us so as to avoid our constructive powers being turned into a destructive power which will overthrow the world. ~ Chaim Weizmann

Bad Culture is the contaminated oxygen your staff breath, as they get indoctrinated by your limiting context. ~ Tony Dovale

Then it dawned on Kramer. The cops weren't all that much different from the assistant D.A.s. It was the muck factor. The cops got tired of packing blacks and Latins off to jail all day, too. It was even worse for them, because they had to dive deeper into the muck to do it. The only thing that made it constructive was the idea that they were doing it for somebody - for the decent people. So they opened their eyes, and now they were attuned to all the good people with colored skin ... who rose to the top ... during all this relentless stirring of the muck ... You couldn't exactly call it enlightenment, thought Kramer, but it was a fucking start. ~ Tom Wolfe

Let's get up off our knees, stop cringing before bogeymen and virtual fathers, face reality, and help science to do something constructive about human suffering. ~ Richard Dawkins

But more than anything else, we have learned that legal assistance for the poor, when properly provided, is one of the most constructive ways to help them help themselves. ~ Richard M. Nixon

…he is invariably a kind of super-size but unmistakably 'classical' neurotic, an aberrant who only occasionally, and never deeply, wishes to surrender his aberration; or, in English, a Sick Man who not at all seldom, though he's reported to childishly deny it, gives out terrible cries of pain, as if he would wholeheartedly let go of both his art and soul to experience what passes in other people for wellness, and yet (the rumor continues) when his unsalutary-looking little room is broken into and someone - not infrequently, at that, someone who actually loves him - passionately asks him where the pain is, he either declines or seems unable to discuss it an any constructive critical length, and in the morning, when even great poets and painters presumably feel a bit more chipper than usual, he looks more perversely determined than ever to see his sickness run its course, as though by the light of another, presumably working day he had remembered that all men, the healthy ones included, eventually die, but that he, lucky man, is at least being done in by the most stimulating companion, disease or no, he has ever known. ~ J.D. Salinger

America creates myths by focusing a lot of energy on its history and using it - - not always, but sometimes - for constructive purposes. ~ Bernard-Henri Levy

When we think "prophetic" we need not always think grandly about public tasks. The prophetic task needs to be done wherever there are men and women who will yield to the managed prose future offered them by the king. So, we may ask, if we are to do that alternative constructive task of imagination, if we are to reach more than the most surface group prepared to be "religious," where do we begin? What I propose is this: The royal consciousness leads people to numbness, especially to numbness about death. It is the task of prophetic ministry and imagination to bring people to engage their experiences of suffering to death. ~ Walter Brueggemann

A great change is at hand, and our task, our obligation, is to make that revolution, that change, peaceful and constructive for all. ~ John F. Kennedy

Human nature is potentially aggressive and destructive and potentially orderly and constructive. ~ Margaret Mead

I published in 1978 a report on dreams in the Journal of Clinical Psychology. It was the first study of its kind to demonstrate that it is possible for people to make constructive use of their dreams to improve their lives. ~ Henry Reed

Imagine your mind as a garden and thoughts as the seeds you plant. Habitual negative, unhealthy, self-critical thoughts produce the weeds and thistles of depression, discontent, and anxiety in the garden of your mind. Luckily, the opposite is also true. Consistently planting positive, healthy, constructive thoughts will yield a crop of beautiful feelings, such as gratitude, love, and joy. ~ Sue Thoele

I have learned to watch myself and give myself constructive criticism. Although I have to cover my face and peek sometimes! ~ Dascha Polanco

Patriotism is the wholesome, constructive love of one's land and people. Nationalism is the unhealthy love of one's government, accompanied by the aggressive desire to put down others – which becomes in deracinated modern men a substitute for religious faith. Patriotism is an appropriate, indeed necessary, sentiment for people who wish to preserve their freedom; nationalism is not. ~ Clyde N. Wilson

If you can forget the stultifying concept that there are appropriate years for certain endeavors (like getting married) and appropriate days for being gay and merry (like Saturday nights) and use these times without embarrassment or self-pity to do something creative and constructive, I believe half your single girl battle is over. ~ Helen Gurley Brown

[For constructive conflict,] we have to resist the neurobiological drive which means that we really prefer people mostly like ourselves. ~ Margaret Heffernan

[Fantasy] is a constructive aspect of the child's experimental exploration of reality, or his progressive relating of himself to reality, of his trial-and-error attempts to solve his reality problems. ~ Lauretta Bender

I can't tell you how important it is for people on the public stage to utilize that stage in a constructive, positive way. When you're in the public eye, you have a decision to make - whether you are going to be an influence or not. ~ Steve Largent

History shows that great economic and social forces flow like a tide over communities only half conscious of that which is befalling them. Wise statesmen foresee what time is thus bringing, and try to shape institutions and mold men's thoughts and purposes in accordance with the change that is silently coming on. The unwise are those who bring nothing constructive to the process, and who greatly imperil the future of mankind by leaving great questions to be fought out between ignorant change on one hand and ignorant opposition to change on the other. ~ John Stuart Mill

I believe you have constructive accidents en route through a novel only because you have mapped a clear way. If you have confidence that you have a clear direction to take, you always have confidence to explore other ways; if they prove to be mere digressions, you'll recognize that and make the necessary revisions. ~ John Irving

Advertising is a racket, like the movies and the brokerage business. You cannot be honest without admitting that its constructive contribution to humanity is exactly minus zero. ~ F Scott Fitzgerald

As human beings we have the same experience of destructive and constructive emotions. We also have a human mind capable of developing wisdom. We all have the same Buddha nature. ~ Dalai Lama