Holding Thought Quotes

Meditation does not involve trying to change your thinking by thinking some more. It involves watching thought itself. The watching is the holding. By watching your thoughts without being drawn into them, you can learn something profoundly liberating about thinking itself, which may help you to be less of a prisoner of those thought patterns (….) ~ Jon Kabat-Zinn

I always thought the desert was the antithesis of peace - something that attacks you. So you don't go to the desert for peace. ~ Sam Shepard

We never let go of that,' Cecily said. 'I mean, even for parents - that's never not your baby, you know?'

"I think you're right." As he got sicker, it was more and more often how he thought of people--of Charlie, certainly, and of everyone else here or gone: not as the sum of all the disappointments, but as every beginning they'd ever represented, every promise. ~ Rebecca Makkai

As Clover looked down the hillside her eyes filled with tears. If she could have spoken her thoughts, it would have been to say that this was not what they had aimed at when they had set themselves years ago to work for the overthrow of the human race. These scenes of terror and slaughter were not what they had looked forward to on that night when old Major first stirred them to rebellion. If she herself had had any picture of the future, it had been of a society of animals set free from hunger and the whip, all equal, each working according to his capacity, the strong protecting the weak, as she had protected the lost brood of ducklings with her foreleg on the night of Major's speech. Instead--she did not know why--they had come to a time when no one dared speak his mind, when fierce, growling dogs roamed everywhere, and when you had to watch your comrades torn to pieces after confessing to shocking crimes. There was no thought of rebellion or disobedience in her mind. She knew that, even as things were, they were far better off than they had been in the days of Jones, and that before all else it was needful to prevent the return of the human beings. Whatever happened she would remain faithful, work hard, carry out the orders that were given to her, and accept the leadership of Napoleon. But still, it was not for this that she and all the other animals had hoped and toiled. ~ George Orwell

Charlie started crying, in the convulsive, soundless way that men do. "Don't you understand," he said after composing himself, "that's a funeral dirge for the first wave." We all thought about that, the many lives lost before we even opened our eyes this morning. ~ Suzanne Hayes

Jealousy was not a green-eyed monster, she thought. It was red in tooth and claw, with glaring, fiery eyes. Her ~ Marion Chesney

Maybe you've noticed what I've noticed, and thought it strange, or dismissed it as youthful foolishness or that you were missing some critical piece of information that would reveal itself with age and wisdom – that is: every single teacher believes feverishly in the importance of the content of their class, and furthermore, believes that their assessment of you in their class is a direct measure of your capacity for future success, while simultaneously not having a clue as to the content of virtually any other discipline in the school. They will boldly state things like, That's math, I'm an English teacher or That's literature, I'm a biology teacher, practically admitting out loud that nothing learned in school is important (except, of course, the course they are teaching). ~ Brian Huskie

I'm pretty pale. In high school I was insecure and thought it'd be cool to go to a tanning bed. Now I just let it look the way it looks. ~ Taylor Swift

A good book will give you answers to questions you didn't know you had. A great book will give you questions to answers you thought you knew. ~ Beth Revis

And if the world refused to square with his version of reality then it was necessarily an uncaring world, a sour and sickening world, a penal colony, and he was doomed to be violently lonely in it.
He bowed his head at the thought of how much strength a man would need to survive an entire life so lonely. ~ Jonathan Franzen

Her lips were suddenly on his again, and he lost his balance and almost fell backward off the bench. Now that he'd finally been able to kiss her, she apparently liked it. He had thought she would take off his blindfold first, but he wasn't about to complain. ~ Melanie Dickerson

St. Thomas Aquinas, she knew, was reputed to say that he feared the man who had just one book, and she understood what he meant about the narrowness of outlook that could give. However, she thought, perhaps a man with one well-loved book might be a more rounded individual than the man who possessed hundreds and never opened any of them. ~ Cora Harrison

New Rule: Just because a country elects a smart president doesn't make it a smart country. A couple of weeks ago, I was asked on CNN if I thought Sarah Palin could get elected president, and I said I hope not, but I wouldn't put anything past this stupid country. Well, the station was flooded with emails, and the twits hit the fan. And you could tell that these people were really mad, because they wrote entirely in CAPITAL LETTERS!!! Worst of all, Bill O'Reilly refuted my contention that this is a stupid country by calling me a pinhead, which (a) proves my point, and (b) is really funny coming from a doody-face like him.

Now, before I go about demonstration how, sadly, easy it is to prove the dumbness that's dragging us down, let me just say that ignorance has life-and-death consequences. On the eve of the Iraq War, seventy percent of Americans thought Saddam Hussein was personally involved in 9/11. Six years later, thirty-four percent still do. Or look at the health-care debate: At a recent town hall meeting in South Carolina, a man stood up and told his congressman to "keep your government hands off my Medicare," which is kind of like driving cross-country to protest highways.

This country is like a college chick after two Long Island iced teas: We can be talked into anything, like wars, and we can be talked out of anything, like health care. We should forget the town halls, and replace them with study halls.

Listen to some of these stats: ~ Bill Maher

The pastor should always be pure in thought ... no impurity ought to pollute him who has undertaken the office of wiping away the stains in the hearts of others ... for the hand that would cleanse from dirt must be clean, lest, being itself sordid with clinging mire, it soil whatever it touches all the more. ~ Pope Gregory I

I am the center of attention in my job every single day; the thought of a wedding to me is exhausting. Why would I put myself through that? ~ Lady Gaga

Who is this that comes in grandeur, coming from the blazing East? This is he we had not thought of, this is he the airy Christ. ~ Stevie Smith

Keep encouraging yourself that you are good enough as a workman of God created for every good work one earth prepared for you before the world begun. ~ Israelmore Ayivor

Place in the fall of 1979, with Drs. Geisler, Hoehner, Nicole, and Radmacher in attendance. It was the consensus of those present that we should not undertake to modify a statement that so many people had signed, both at the summit meeting and afterward. But
in order to ward off misunderstandings and to provide an exposition of the position advocated by the ICBI, it was thought desirable to provide a ~ R.C. Sproul

She speculates for the first time on what Melanie could have been, could have become, if she'd lived before the Breakdown. If she'd never been bitten and infected. Because this is a child here, whatever else she is, and she's never lost that sense of her own centre before except when she smelled blood and turned, briefly into an animal. And look at how pragmatically, how ruthlessly, she's coped with that. But Justineau only pursues this train of thought for a moment. When Melanie starts to speak, she commands their full attention. "I ~ M.R. Carey

The painter folded back the heavy curtain, standing in the stream of light breaking through the damp thickness of the room. He paused, still holding the drape in his hand as he considered with suspicion that a world could exist outside the window. ~ Thomas Lloyd Qualls

In a revolution of consciousness the windows slowly become mirrors. We will see that there was only an illusion of freedom and at the same time we are forced to look at ourselves and contemplate the consequences of our own actions. ~ Freequill

The Manifesto was a cowardly proceeding, the more I thought of it the less I liked it. ~ B. H. Roberts

How could anyone ever be happy in a life like this? he thought. Then, How could anyone be evil enough to do this to us? He understood more than ever the passion the Gladers felt for finding their way out of the Maze. It wasn't just a matter of escape. For the first time, he felt a hunger to get revenge on the people responsible for sending him there. ~ James Dashner

A cloud, hitherto unseen, came upon the moon, and hovered an instant like a dark hand before a face.The illusion went with it, and the lights in the windows were extinguished. I looked upon a desolate shell, soulless at last, unhaunted, with no whisper of the past about its staring walls.
The house was a sepulchre, our fear and suffering lay buried in the ruins. There would be no resurrection. When I thought of Manderley in my waking hours I would not be bitter. I should think of it as it might have been, could I have lived there without fear. I should remember the rose-garden in summer, and the birds that sang at dawn.Tea under the chestnut tree, and the murmur of the sea coming up to us from the lawns below.
I would think of the blown lilac, and the Happy Valley. These things were permanent, they could not be dissolved.They were memories that cannot hurt. ~ Daphne Du Maurier

Let today be the day you stop being haunted by the ghost of yesterday. Holding a grudge & harboring anger/resentment is poison to the soul. Get even with people ... but not those who have hurt us, forget them, instead get even with those who have helped us. ~ Steve Maraboli

Tightly. So tightly that I feel like he's the one thing holding me together and so it's safe to collapse. I bury my face against his firm chest, feel his biceps tightening around my back. It feels so good to have him holding me again. ~ Karole Cozzo

The scarily brilliant Romantic poet and visionary William Blake dared to say what many of us have perhaps thought but kept to ourselves: A good local pub has much in common with a church, except that a pub is warmer, and there's more conversation. ~ Brian D. McLaren

I took my morning walk, I took my evening walk, I ate something, I thought about something, I wrote, I napped and dreamt something too, and with all that something, I still have nothing because so much of sum'thing has always been and always will be you.
I miss you. ~ Mark Z. Danielewski

I had never really thought of myself as a writer; any writing I had done was just to give myself something to draw. ~ Len Wein

In all common ordinary cases, we see intuitively at first view what is out duty, what is the honest part. This is the ground of the observation, that the first thought is often the best. In these cases, doubt and deliberation is itself dishonesty; as it was in Balaam upon the second message. ~ Joseph Butler

The sun kept on with its slipping away, and I thought how many small good things in the world might be resting on the shoulders of something terrible. ~ Carol Rifka Brunt

What was she dreaming about, Mrs. Ramsay wondered, seeing her engrossed, as she stood there, with some thought of her own, so that she had to repeat the message twice––ask Mildred if Andrew, Miss Doyle, and Mr. Rayley have come back?––The words seemed to be dropped into a well, where, if the waters were clear, they were also so extraordinarily distorting that, even as they descended, one saw them twisting about to make Heaven knows what pattern on the floor of the child's mind. ~ Virginia Woolf

They had been married for three days.
Lauren stirred, moving closer to him for warmth. Careful not to disturb her, he drew the satin quilt up around her shoulders. Reverently he touched her cheek, tracing its elegant curve. Lauren had brought joy to his life and laughter to his home.She thought he was beautiful. When she looked at him, he felt beautiful.
Somewhere in another part of the big house a clock began chiming the hour of midnight. Lauren's lashes slowly flickered open, and he looked into her enchanting blue eyes. "It's Christmas," he whispered.
His wife smiled up at him, and her answer made his throat tighten. "No," she said softly, laying her fingers against his jaw. "Christmas came three days ago. ~ Judith McNaught

The view that we know less than we thought we knew about how to change the human condition came, in time, to be called neoconservatism. Many ... , myself included, disliked the term because we did not think we were conservative, neo or paleo. (I voted for John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson and Hubert Humphrey and worked in the latter's presidential campaign.) It would have been better if we had been called policy skeptics; that is, people who thought it was hard, though not impossible, to make useful and important changes in public policy. ~ James Q. Wilson

If he be Mr. Hyde" he had thought, "I shall be Mr. Seek. ~ Robert Louis Stevenson

Also, as I looked at the mite of a youth with the heart of a lion, I thought, this is the type that on occasion rears barricades and shows the world that men have not forgotten how to die. ~ Jack London

It's because Gandhi believed in villages and because the British ruled from the cities; therefore, Nehru thought of New Delhi as an un-Indian city. ~ Nandan Nilekani