Make Us Think Quotes

Why do we love the sea? It is because it has some potent power to make us think things we like to think. ~ Robert Henri

The pleasures arising from thinking and learning will make us think and learn all the more. 1153a 23 ~ Aristotle.

We all make mistakes, the danger lies in letting those mistakes make us. Make us believe we can't put things right. Make us think there's no hope. Make us give up. ~ Jennifer Donnelly

I love the way dates in a text make us think that truth will follow. ~ Ben Marcus

We have an orientation that tends to make us think that everything is our responsibility and that we should be doing this. It is the Iraqis' country, 28 million of them. They are perfectly capable of running that country. ~ Donald Rumsfeld

He was trying to make us think about how life is hard and people suffer in all sorts of ways without our adding to their suffering to satisfy our sense of vengeance, but I sort of don't think that the quote holds up in the real world, where literature and schooling and philosophy and morality don't exist, because Asher and Linda and so many other culpable people seem to be fine - functioning exceptionally well within the world even - while I'm under a disgusting bridge about to put a hole in my skull. ~ Matthew Quick

Here is something I love about Gat: he is so enthusiastic, so relentlessly interested in the world, that he has trouble imagining the possibility that other people will be bored by what he's saying. Even when they tell him outright. But also, he doesn't like to let us off easy. He wants to make us think - even when we don't feel like thinking. ~ E. Lockhart

I think the best evenings are when we have messages, things that make us think, but we can also laugh and enjoy each other's company. ~ Jane Goodall

Do books about the Holocaust make us think, "Oh well, there was nothing we could've done to prevent that or prevent it from happening again"? Of course not. It makes us angry and determined to stop such atrocities. ~ James Dashner

December, being the last month of the year, cannot help but make us think of what is to come. ~ Fennel Hudson

Successful politicians are people who know how to make us think well of them without our realizing that that's what they're doing; they know how to make us admire and trust them. ~ Barton Swaim

Find something that matters deeply to you and pursue it. Question. Stand. Speak. Act. Make us uncomfortable. Make us think. ~ Terry Tempest Williams

I think most of our gestures, and even our words, are automatic. If your hand is on your knee, you didn't put it there. Montaigne wrote a wonderful chapter on this, about our hands that go where we don't tell them to go. Our hands are autonomous. Our gestures, our limbs, are practically autonomous. They're not under our command. That's cinema. What cinema is not is thinking out a gesture, thinking out words. We don't think of what we're going to say. The words come even as we think, and perhaps even make us think. In this regard, theater is unrealistic and unnatural. What I attempt with my films is to touch what's real. Perhaps I'm obsessed with reality. ~ Robert Bresson

We allow our ignorance to prevail upon us and make us think we can survive alone, alone in patches, alone in groups, alone in races, even alone in genders. ~ Maya Angelou

The office of poetry is not to make us think accurately, but feel truly. ~ Frederick William Robertson

We read books. They make us think. It matters very little whether we agree with the books or not. ~ Robert Henri

It is likely to make us think we are not caged. We cannot feel the bars unless we push against them. ~ Erin Morgenstern

The devil's first trick is to get us to say, "I have not sinned." And then his last blow is to make us think, "My sin is too great to be forgiven." But humble faith accepts God's judgment upon itself, and escapes judgment. ~ A.B. Simpson

Books give us pleasure not because they make us comfortable, though some good ones may, but because they entertain us, they make us laugh, they make us cry; they inform, persuade, disturb, convince, seduce us; they make us think, speculate, see - and we recognize what we see as true, not as the truth but as a truth in the writer's fabulous construction that corresponds to what we have observed in ourselves, or others, or in the world at large, or can conceive of observing. ~ William McPherson

The greatest trick our enemy ever did Was to make us think we are our own enemy Is to make us ashamed, and hate ourselves Thinking we are our own enemy ~ Jason King Godwise

How deluded we sometimes are by the clear notions we get out of books. They make us think that we really understand things of which we have no practical knowledge at all. ~ Thomas Merton

However, questions arise. Are there people who aren't naive realists, or special situations in which naive realism disappears? My theory - the self-model theory of subjectivity - predicts that as soon as a conscious representation becomes opaque (that is, as soon as we experience it as a representation), we lose naive realism. Consciousness without naive realism does exist. This happens whenever, with the help of other, second-order representations, we become aware of the construction process - of all the ambiguities and dynamical stages preceding the stable state that emerges at the end. When the window is dirty or cracked, we immediately realize that conscious perception is only an interface, and we become aware of the medium itself. We doubt that our sensory organs are working properly. We doubt the existence of whatever it is we are seeing or feeling, and we realize that the medium itself is fallible. In short, if the book in your hands lost its transparency, you would experience it as a state of your mind rather than as an element of the outside world. You would immediately doubt its independent existence. It would be more like a book-thought than a book-perception. Precisely this happens in various situations - for example, In visual hallucinations during which the patient is aware of hallucinating, or in ordinary optical illusions when we suddenly become aware that we are not in immediate contact with reality. Normally, such experiences make us think something is wrong ~ Thomas Metzinger

I used to think things were the way they are for a reason, that there was some hidden meaning. I used to think that this meaning governed the way the world was. But it's an illusion to think that there are good and bad reasons. Grammar is a lie to make us think that what we say is connected by a logic that you'll find if you study it, a lie that gone on for centuries. Because I now know that life just lurches between stability and instability and doesn't obey any law. ~ Delphine De Vigan

Whatsoever accidents Or qualities our sense make us think there be in the world, they are not there, but are seemings and apparitions only. The things that really are in the world without us, are those motions by which these seemings are caused. And this is the great deception of sense, which also is by sense to be corrected. For as sense telleth me, when I see directly, that the colour seemeth to be in the object; so also sense telleth me, when I see by reflection, that colour is not in the object. ~ Thomas Hobbes

Trials are intended to make us think, to wean us from the world, to send us to the Bible, to drive us to our knees. ~ J.C. Ryle

I like poems that inspire, that make us think and reflect. It's like putting love into the world for whoever picks it up. ~ Peleg Top

I don't think jealousy has much of a connection with real, objective conditions. Like if you're fortunate you're not jealous, but if life hasn't blessed you, you are jealous. Jealousy doesn't work that way. It's more like a tumor secretly growing inside us that gets bigger and bigger, beyond all reason. Even if you find out it's there, there's nothing you can do to stop it. ~ Haruki Murakami

Struggles not only make us into stronger, better and wiser people, they also let us learn more about ourselves and our purpose in life. ~ Auliq Ice

Otto Piper points out that "there is always an element of mistrust implied in the marriage contract."2 The reason we promise to love each other "till death do us part" is precisely because our society knows that such a promise will be sorely tried - otherwise, the promise wouldn't be necessary! We don't make public promises that we will regularly nourish our bodies with food or buy ourselves adequate clothing. Everyone who enters the marriage relationship will come to a point where the marriage starts to "rub" somewhat adversely. It is for these times that the promise is made. Anticipating struggle, God has ordained a remedy, holding us to our word of commitment. In this struggle we become nobler people. ~ Gary L. Thomas

I don't see [the jungle] so much erotic. I see it more full of obscenity. It's just - Nature here is vile and base. I wouldn't see anything erotical here. I would see fornication and asphyxiation and choking and fighting for survival and growing and just rotting away. Of course, there's a lot of misery. But it is the same misery that is all around us. The trees here are in misery, and the birds are in misery. I don't think they sing. They just screech in pain. ~ Werner Herzog

For most Indians in America, wealth is not inherited. Neither do we make it as heads of large hedge funds and private equity funds. For us to make it to the top, we have to use our knowhow to create great new technology products and build high-tech companies. ~ Romesh Wadhwani

I think fiction allows us to sit for a while with people we would rather not meet. ~ Uwem Akpan

The thing in jazz that will get Bix Beiderbecke out of his bed at two o'clock in the morning, pick that cornet up and practice into the pillow for another two or three hours, or that would make Louis Armstrong travel around the world for fifty plus years non stop, just get up out of his sick bed, crawl up on the bandstand and play, the thing that would make Duke Ellington, the thing that would make Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, Mary Lou Williams, the thing that would make all of these people give their lives for this, and they did give their lives, is that it gives us a glimpse into what America is going to be when it becomes itself. And this music tells you that it will become itself. And when you get a taste of that, there's just nothing else you're going to taste that's as sweet. ~ Wynton Marsalis

One of the reasons I think people are increasingly nervous about U.S. debt is because they think that we are not actually digging ourselves out of the hole, but instead are digging ourselves into a deeper and deeper hole and will not be able to pay it back because we're not actually creating the new technologies that will enable us to pay back and the money somehow is not really being invested in the future or in progress. ~ Peter Thiel

Don't be tossed away by your monkey mind. You say you want to do something - "I really want to be a writer" - then that little voice comes along, "but I might not make enough money as a writer." "Oh, okay, then I won't write." That's being tossed away. These little voices are constantly going to be nagging us. If you make a decision to do something, you do it. Don't be tossed away. But part of not being tossed away is understanding your mind, not believing it so much when it comes up with all these objections and then loads you with all these insecurities and reasons not to do something. ~ Natalie Goldberg

It would be most wicked of us to say, We will not have the heavenly treasure which exists in earthen vessels. If God will give us the heavenly treasure out of his own hand, but not through the earthen vessel, we will have it; but we think we are too wise, too heavenly minded, too spiritual altogether to care for jewels when they are placed in earthen pots. We will not hear anybody, and we will not read anything except the book itself, neither will we accept any light, except that which comes in through a crack in our own roof. We will not see by another man's candle, we would sooner remain in the dark. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon

No doubt Richard's father, like my mother, had once held his infant son in his arms, looked into the eyes of his child's mother, and believed they would move into the future together with love. The fact that they didn't was a weight each of us carried, as every child does, probably, whose parents no longer live under the same roof. Wherever it is you make your home, there is always this other place, this other person, calling to you. Come to me. Come back. ~ Joyce Maynard

Geometry, which should only obey Physics, when united with it sometimes commands it. If it happens that the question which we wish to examine is too complicated for all the elements to be able to enter into the analytical comparison we wish to make, we separate the more inconvenient [elements], we substitute others for them, less troublesome but also less real, and we are surprised to arrive, notwithstanding a painful labour, only at a result contradicted by nature; as if after having disguised it, cut it short or altered it, a purely mechanical combination could give it back to us. ~ Jean Le Rond D'Alembert

Jesus Christ did not ask much from us, He did not demand that people climb Mount Everest or make great sacrifices. He just asked that we love one another. ~ Chico Xavier

Many of us make decisions based on what brings us the most pleasure....We pursue what we want; then we make sure there are no biblical commands we are violating. In essence, we want to know what God will tolerate rather than what He desires. Maybe we are afraid to ask what will bring Him the most pleasure. Ignorance feels better than disobedience. ~ Francis Chan

The emergent capabilities bursting forth from the revolutionary advances in the life sciences are about to make us the principal agent of evolution. ~ Al Gore

This is also true in defining spirituality. The infatuation one feels toward another when one first falls in love is a mixture of dopamine, serotonin, norepinephrine. This feeling is exhilarating and intoxicating and it brings joy to most people.

The fact one knows the chemicals are involved does not lessen the experience when one is with that person. But it does help regulate your emotions if you know that the person you feel for is negatively affecting you. Oxytocin is another example of a "love" drug found in the human body that brings a greater chance of long term sometime moments.

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It does not matter if it is the chemical or not, the tantalizing excitement and astounding exhilaration of life long sometime moments makes one grateful to be alive and breathing. These events enliven us and make us feel transcendence and in turn makes one feel transcendent in the merging. ~ Leviak B. Kelly

Each person carries a hidden poetic unity that reflects the mysterious continuity of the Soul of the World. In the depths of the soul, we are each an old soul able to survive the troubles of the world and contribute to its healing and renewal. The key to what we miss and secretly long for is hidden within us. Medicine men and healers of all kinds from cultures around the world have used various techniques to not only "heal" the soul, but also to restore individuals to their proper place in the world and in their culture. To heal means to "make whole," and when we feel whole we are in touch with the whole world. When in touch with our underlying soul, we are naturally in touch with nature and the Soul of the World. We are the missing ingredient in the solutions needed for all that ails us, if we but awaken to the nature of our own souls. ~ Michael Meade

I've learned so much from the Pirahas over the years. But this is perhaps my favorite lesson. Sure, life is hard and there is plenty of danger. And it might make us lose some sleep from time to time. But enjoy it. Life goes on. ~ Daniel Everett

When we begin to think like everybody else thinks, that is dangerous. Individualism is part of our divine endowment. God made us as individuals and we are responsible before Him. ~ Dr. J. Otis Yoder

We must give up believing that we can 'improve' the world, that at least we can make man better, even if we cannot make him happy. At the same time, if we take this situation of the Christian seriously, we must refuse to further the disintegrating tendency in the world. We must not say to ourselves, 'We can't do anything about it!' To talk like this is to play into the hands of the Prince of this world. Thus we seem caught between two necessities, which nothing can alter: on the one hand it is impossible for us to make this world less sinful; on the other hand it is impossible for us to accept it as it is. ~ Jacques Ellul

Is not at all uncommon for women in my country to be illiterate, but to see my mother, a proud and intelligent woman, struggle to read the prices in the bazaar was an unspoken sadness for both of us, I think. ~ Malala Yousafzai

My biggest objection to Fox News, I say, is not the scaremongering, it's the way it's reshaped the Republican party. It will misrepresent social and economic issues, and promote the more extreme elements of the party, politicians such as Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee, in a way that is hugely detrimental to American politics. (For the record, Rupert Murdoch disagrees, and last year claimed that Fox News "absolutely saved" the Republican party.) "Watching these channels all day is incredibly depressing," says Stewart. "I live in a constant state of depression. I think of us as turd miners. I put on my helmet, I go and mine turds, hopefully I don't get turd lung disease. ~ Anonymous

Life is like a game of bridge ... we did not invent the game or design the cards;
we did not frame the rules and we cannot control the dealing. The cards are dealt out to us whether they be good or bad... But we can play the game well or play it badly. A skillful player may have poor hand and win the game. A bad player may have a good hand and yet make a mess of it. Our life is a mixture of necessity and freedom, chance and choice... we may not change events but we can change our approach to events. ~ Dr. S Radhakrishnan

If you give anybody the chance, they can always make a decent human being out of themselves. It's the people that don't have a chance, that we look down at like they're monsters or they're animals or that they want something different than the rest of us. ~ Ice Cube

I don't want to be your friend," he said. We breathed in together and exhaled in harmony. "I want to be yours, I want you to be mine, and I hate that we can't be us. Because I think we were meant to be us. ~ Brittainy C. Cherry

We make our money out of our friends. Our enemies will not do business with us. ~ Elbert Hubbard

Not to be daily employing the Spirit and new nature for the mortifying of sin is to neglect that excellent succor which God has given us against our greatest enemy. If we neglect to make use of what we have received, God may justly hold his hand from giving us more. His graces, as well as his gifts, are bestowed on us to use, exercise, and trade with. Not to be daily mortifying sin is to sin against the goodness, kindness, wisdom, grace, and love of God, who has furnished us with a principle of doing it. ~ John Owen

It's tough when your brain and heart don't seem to agree. But I've found it's easier to change your mind than it is your heart. You should follow your heart, because a good heart makes a good person, whereas a good brain can still make a bad person. The Recruits all have good hearts - that's what makes us special. ~ Rob Buyea

Let us suppose that the great empire of China, with all its myriads of inhabitants, was suddenly swallowed up by an earthquake, and let us consider how a man of humanity in Europe, who had no sort of connection with that part of the world, would be affected upon receiving intelligence of this dreadful calamity. He would, I imagine, first of all, express very strongly his sorrow for the misfortune of that unhappy people, he would make many melancholy reflections upon the precariousness of human life, and the vanity of all the labours of man, which could thus be annihilated in a moment. He would too, perhaps, if he was a man of speculation, enter into many reasonings concerning the effects which this disaster might produce upon the commerce of Europe, and the trade and business of the world in general. And when all this fine philosophy was over, when all these humane sentiments had been once fairly expressed, he would pursue his business or his pleasure, take his repose or his diversion, with the same ease and tranquillity, as if no such accident had happened. The most frivolous disaster which could befall himself would occasion a more real disturbance. If he was to lose his little finger to-morrow, he would not sleep to-night; but, provided he never saw them, he will snore with the most profound security over the ruin of a hundred millions of his brethren, and the destruction of that immense multitude seems plainly an object less interesting to him, than this paltry misfortune ~ Adam Smith

I definitely think we get a lot of respect for what we do, but I definitely think that some people don't like us, which is fine. ~ Matt Stone

I trust the mystery. I trust what comes in silence and what comes in nature where there's no diversion. I think the lack of stimulation allows us to hear and experience a deeper river that's constant, still, vibrant, and real. And the process of deep listening with attention and intention catalyzes and mobilizes exactly what's needed at that time. ~ Angeles Arrien

Music is the one art we all have inside. We may not be able to play an instrument, but we can sing along or clap or tap our feet. Have you ever seen a baby bouncing up and down in the crib in time to some music? When you think of it, some of that baby's first messages from his or her parents may have been lullabies, or at least the music of their speaking voices. All of us have had the experience of hearing a tune from childhood and having that melody evoke a memory or a feeling. The music we hear early on tends to stay with us all our lives. ~ Fred Rogers

Don't strive to be a well-rounded leader. Instead, discover your zone and stay there. Then delegate everything else.

Admitting a weakness is a sign of strength. Acknowledging weakness doesn't make a leader less effective.

Everybody in your organization benefits when you delegate responsibilities that fall outside your core competency. Thoughtful delegation will allow someone else in your organization to shine. Your weakness is someone's opportunity.

Leadership is not always about getting things done "right." Leadership is about getting things done through other people.

The people who follow us are exactly where we have led them. If there is no one to whom we can delegate, it is our own fault.

As a leader, gifted by God to do a few things well, it is not right for you to attempt to do everything. Upgrade your performance by playing to your strengths and delegating your weaknesses.

There are many things I can do, but I have to narrow it down to the one thing I must do. The secret of concentration is elimination.

Devoting a little of yourself to everything means committing a great deal of yourself to nothing.

My competence in these areas defines my success as a pastor.

A sixty-hour workweek will not compensate for a poorly delivered sermon. People don't show up on Sunday morning because I am a good pastor (leader, shepherd, counselor).

In my world, it is my communication ~ Andy Stanley

Just as creativity enables us to envision novel solutions to tough problems, it can also enable us to develop original paths around rules, all the while allowing us to reinterpret information in a self-serving way. Putting our creative minds to work can help us come up with a narrative that lets us have our cake and eat it too, and create stories in which we're always the hero, never the villain. If the key to our dishonesty is our ability to think of ourselves as honest and moral people while at the same time benefitting from cheating, creativity can help us tell better stories - stories that allow us to be even more dishonest but still think of ourselves as wonderfully honest people. ~ Dan Ariely

This is not just a fling." He pulls away and peers at me intently. "I am not that kind of man. You make me richer, you matter to me. I want us to be together. ~ Karina Halle

Following feeling, relying on liking or wanting, we are not free. The freedom to "do as we like" is not freedom of choice because we are ruled by the powerful property of feeling; we cannot choose apart from liking and disliking. Likes and dislikes may be articulated in the form of sophisticated-sounding opinions, but the decision is made for us by feeling.

The Western world places a high value on personal feelings and opinions: Each individual "has a right" to an opinion. But rarely do we question how we have arrived at our opinion. Upon examination, we may discover that opinions tend to stem from convenience, familiarity, and selfishness–what feels good or what is pleasing or comfortable to us. Upon this basis, we act, and receive the consequences of our action.

Even if we compile a large number of such opinions, there is no guarantee that we will develop a wise perspective as a ground for action. Often this process only creates a mass of confusion, for opinions of one individual tend to conflict with the opinions of another. If there appears to be agreement, we tend to assume this agreement will remain stable. But agreement only means that the needs of the individuals involved are temporarily similar, and when those needs shift, agreement will evaporate.

To make certain decisions, we rely on logic or scientific findings, which are supposedly free from personal opinion but are still weighted with the opinions of a particular culture. This ~ Dharma Publishing

Failing doesn't make us a failure. But not trying to do better, to be better, does make us fools. ~ Wes Moore

We may be aware of small increments of getting older; we may meet an increasing number of people who make us uneasy with their youth; but the fact of being old ourselves comes as a surprise, and is often accompanied by the belief that there has been some mistake. ~ Terri E Apter

I dread our own power and our own ambition; I dread our being too much dreaded ... We may say that we shall not abuse this astonishing and hitherto unheard-of-power. But every other nation will think we shall abuse it. It is impossible but that, sooner or later, this state of things must produce a combination against us which may end in our ruin. ~ Edmund Burke

The fact to be remembered in considering... contact with [the] thought currents of others, is that we may decide the character of the thoughts that we shall receive by carefully observing the rule to think only along such lines as may be worthy of us, and which may tend to our betterment, strength, and advancement. In other words, we have the power to select our mental company. ~ Edward Walker

The number of individuals who know how to make a can of Coke is zero. The number of individual nations that could produce a can of Coke is zero. This famously American product is not American at all. Invention and creation is something we are all in together. Modern tool chains are so long and complex that they bind us into one people and one planet. ~ Anonymous

Doesn't it make you crazy??
The thought that everything is one day, the time doesn't exist (it's an illusion), everything has happen in one day, but in different periods (I still ask my self how scientist even live?? With such thoughts, just thinking on what they know about the space and how something can eat us and how something is so powerful that is called quasar and it's other stars + that it's bigger than the sun, it's more powerful... How they even live, for god sake..What's the interesting thing to watch how one shadow it makes the moon (where is magic - I know it and I sound and I'm like a person who is spoiled), so the moon makes the shadow the big shadow on this planet, the moon can't handle the whole circle planet so it (1) ~ Deyth Banger

Mrs. Casey, do you love Christmas?
Well you know, she answered reflectively, Christmas can be a sad time for people too. It's a remembering time for us older ones. We remember the people who are gone.
Oh, I never thought of that, I told her in surprise.
Well that's youth for you, she said; you don't start to look back over your shoulder until there is something to look back at, and around Christmas I tend to think of the Christmases past and the people gone with them. ~ Alice Taylor