Thinking Things Through Quotes

Do you know what courage is? Not a willingness to fling oneself into danger without proper thought – that is nothing, nothing. There is cowardice in all impulse. Real courage lies in thinking things through, seeing all the risks, and taking them anyway. Lady Tamarind has courage. ~ Frances Hardinge

I thought back to the counselling sessions, how we'd talked about thinking things through rationally, recognizing unhelpful patterns of behaviour and being brave enough to try doing things differently. ~ Gail Honeyman

Majority decisions tend to be made without engaging the systematic thought and critical thinking skills of the individuals in the group. Given the force of the group's normative power to shape the opinions of the followers who conform without thinking things through, they are often taken at face value. The persistent minority forces the others to process the relevant information more mindfully. Research shows that the deciscions of a group as a whole are more thoughtful and creative when there is minority dissent than when it is absent. ~ Philip G. Zimbardo

Imagination doesn't just mean making things up. It means thinking things through, solving them, or hoping to do so, and being just distant enough to be able to laugh at things that are normally painful. Head teachers would call this escapism, but they would be entirely wrong. I would call fantasy the most serious, and the most useful, branch of writing there is. And this is why I don't, and never would, write Real Books. ~ Diana Wynne Jones

You can't be an FBI agent without being cautious and thinking things through. That's just part of the training. ~ Malik Yoba

I spend all my time thinking things through. It's acting on my thoughts that gets tricky. Which ones should I act on, and which ones should I ignore? ~ Orson Scott Card

Exhibit A TO Z: The root of everything that has gone wrong in my life. Like falling for people without thinking things through. ~ S.K. Ali

I could still turn back before I pass the last houses and really have to commit to this. ~ Claire Wong

I meet with Satya [Nadella] what probably amounts to four or five times a year - either to brainstorm something or just as a shareholder, we'll sit down and chat. That's always quite helpful for me and hopefully him in terms of thinking things through. I still have a number of friends and colleagues who occasionally want to brainstorm or chat about something, and that's always fun. ~ Steve Ballmer

My mother had a philosophy that guided her through many a rough time. 'Only worry when you can do something about it--whatever it is. Then it's not worry, it's thinking things through, trying to decide what's best. When there's nothing you can do, it's just plain worry, and it's pointless and self-destructive. ~ Jeanne M. Dams

Kerry is an adult - he thinks things through. He learns from the present as well as the past. To George Bush, thinking things through is for sissies. ~ Richard Dreyfuss

...why not let nature show you a few things? Cutting grass and pulling weeds can be a way of life... Lilacs on a bush are better than orchids. And dandelions and devil grass are better! Why? Because they bend you over and turn you away from all the people and the town for a little while and sweat you and get you down where you remember you got a nose again. And when you're all to yourself that way, you're really yourself for a little while; you get to thinking things through, alone. Gardening is the handiest excuse for being a philosopher. Nobody guesses, nobody accuses, nobody knows, but there you are, Plato in the peonies, Socrates force-growing his own hemlock. A man toting a sack of blood manure across his lawn is kin to Atlas letting the world spin easy on his shoulder. As Samuel Spaudling, Esquire, once said, 'Dig in the earth, delve in the soul.' Spin those mower blades, Bill, and walk in the spray of the Fountain of Youth. ~ Ray Bradbury

Think logically, and you have a chance to solve a problem. Reacting emotionally to it prolongs and worsens your dilemma. ~ Stewart Stafford

The possibility of interpretation lies in the identity of the observer with the observed. Each material thing has its celestial side; has its translation, through humanity, into the spiritual and necessary sphere, where it plays a part as indestructible as any other. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Once more, he was immersing himself in books, reaching the end of long articles, even going back over paragraphs to make sure he'd grasped things. How much more satisfying it was than all that skimming, all that jumping around. At present, he was working his way, deliciously, through a book on Mendel, the father of genetics. A man who might not have spend seven years watching peas, if he'd had the internet. ~ Julie Highmore

The more you walk in relationship with the Lord, the more you learn to trust him. I'm learning not to focus so much on the issues I think are so big right now-our bus has broken down, or someone said something that frustrated me. I'm learning to slowly let things roll off my back, to say, 'Hey, God knew about this before it happened and He's got a way out or a plan better than mine.' I've learned to stop freaking out and just trust that God knows what he's doing. He's not going to leave me in a bad place because He never has before. ~ Francesca Battistelli

So what I do, more than play any instrument - I mean, I love to play - but more than that, I write songs. Songs that are about living, about what it's like to be going through all the things that people go through in life. ~ Jackson Browne

When I was at college, the idea of fashion was more immediate to me, whereas art photography, the depth of it, was a different thing. Storytelling - fanciful storytelling - can only be told through fashion photography. It's the perfect way to play with fantasy and dreams. ~ Tim Walker

If you are not spending all of your waking life in discontent, worry, anxiety, depression, despair, or consumed by other negative states; if you are able to enjoy simple things like listening to the sound of the rain or the wind; if you can see the beauty of clouds moving across the sky or be alone at times without feeling lonely or needing the mental stimulus of entertainment; if you find yourself treating a complete stranger with heartfelt kindness without wanting anything from him or her... it means that a space has opened up, no matter how briefly, in the otherwise incessant stream of thinking that is the human mind. When this happens, there is a sense of well-being, of alive peace, even though it may be subtle. The intensity will vary from a perhaps barely noticeable background sense of contentment to what the ancient sages of India called ananda - the bliss of Being. Because you have been conditioned to pay attention only to form, you are probably not aware of it except indirectly. For example, there is a common element in the ability to see beauty, to appreciate simple things, to enjoy your own company, or to relate to other people with loving kindness. This common element is a sense of contentment, peace, and aliveness that is the invisible background without which these experiences would not be possible.

Whenever there is beauty, kindness, the recognition of the goodness of simple things in your life, look for the background to that experience within yours ~ Eckhart Tolle

Things are never as good as you think they are or ever as bad as you think they are. ~ Troy Aikman

My parents had an independent theater company here in Sweden during the 1980s, so I was raised watching my parents create independently, having a lot of fun and just doing what they wanted to do. I think that idea of independence as an artist was something I was always used to. And then I entered the industry from a very commercial perspective, and things were very different then from what I grew up with. ~ Robyn

There are certain things I believe we need to keep in our emotional arsenal as we navigate through life. Hope is a big one. The more of that we can carry, the better. ~ Wendelin Van Draanen

There is an ability to move and transform things. I think each human being has that power, and it's often one that we are willing to relinquish to others. ~ Fred Alan Wolf

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36 As it is written: "For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered." 37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. ~ Anonymous

Jesus said, 'Greater things of these you shall do ... ' Become a peace builder, a bridge builder, not a destroyer, and the way you do that is through friendships and relationships, and through authentic character. ~ Ravi Zacharias

I guess I'm a Gemini through and through, but I'm mercurial. I get bored doing the same things. ~ Jewel

I always think its easier for me to write without thinking about the strict meter that's required for songs and song structures and things like that. It's much easier to just write on the page. ~ Jeff Tweedy

Nature doesn't see things through the prism of good or bad. It rewards efficiency. That's the beautiful simplicity of evolution. It matches design to environment. ~ Blake Crouch

Why certainly I'd like to have that fellow who hits a home run every time at bat, who strikes out every opposing batter when he's pitching, who throws strikes to any base or the plate when he's playing outfield and who's always thinking about two innings ahead just what he'll do to baffle the other team. Any manager would want a guy like that playing for him. The only trouble is to get him to put down his cup of beer and come down out of the stands and do those things. ~ Danny Murtaugh

Please don't think that I am one of those squishy types who can't handle reality. I have plenty of real-world things to deal with all the time. I have deadlines, meetings, I answer the phone, I get turned down, I wait in lines and am forced to pass for normal all the time. ~ Henry Rollins

There are certain things about my game I don't want to change, but I think it's about time that I realized I can't fight every battle. Three hundred minutes in penalties is way too many. Way too many. ~ Rick Tocchet

There are probably more annoying things than being hectored about African development by a wealthy Irish rock star in a cowboy hat, but I can't think of one at the moment. ~ Paul Theroux

In this I conformed to my usual manner of thinking in symbols; this because the things of the invisible world attract me more than those of actual life ~ Ibn Arabi

We had started thinking of ourselves not in terms of things that we had done, but in terms of what we were going to do. ~ Heather O'Neill

I have passed days thinking of these matters, out in the silent woods, and I have come to the opinion, boy, that as Providence rules all things, no gift is bestowed without some wise and reasonable end. ~ James Fenimore Cooper

The question of maintaining a serious moral order while allowing economic freedom has, I think, troubled people right from the beginning of history, and has always been a tension within conservative thinkers, going right back to [Edmund] Burke. The traditional way of reconciling these two things was through religion, which would remove certain things from the market. Sex is removed from the market and made into a religious ceremony, and parent-child relations, education, etc. I think that's the great benefit that religion has deferred on people down the centuries. Take it away now and we don't know quite what's going to happen. ~ Roger Scruton

Out there in the middle of the maelstrom the Eater awaits, heaving and gulping, its mouth like a giant clam's . . . its mind a frenzy of beige-colored rapid foam. A horrifying uproar, all things considered. Imagine floating through that nonsense in a life jacket. - EDWARD ABBEY ~ Kevin Fedarko

I'm not the type to generalise about an entire generation. I think the most general thing I can say, is that things are way more dispersed, and way more de-centralised than they were twenty years ago. I don't really feel like people talk about my generation the way people would talk about Generation X in their early 90's when Nirvana blew up. I feel like there was an easier, more coherent narrative to find, than you can now. ~ Chris Baio

There is so much temptation to hold on to my career even more now. To try to micromanage and dictate every little aspect. But that's not how I want to do things anymore. I'm thinking about how can I trust God more. How can I surrender more? How can I bring him more glory? It's a fight. But it's one I'm going to keep fighting. ~ Jeremy Lin

I wanted to figure out how long to cook things. I did some experiments and then wrote a program using Mathematica to model how heat is transferred through food. ~ Nathan Myhrvold

I haven't been able to think straight since I met you. I can't think of a day when you haven;t been in my thoughts. There are a hundred other things I should be thinking about, but I think about you. What you're doing, when I'll see you next, what you're thinking. ~ Becca Fitzpatrick

God has given us music so that firstly we are lead towards higher things. Music combines all characteristics in it. It can elevate, it can tease, it can cheer us up, yes, it can even break the most brazen temperament with its tender and yearning sounds. However, its main aim is to direct our thinking towards higher things, to elevate and even deeply disturb us ... ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

The feelings which assailed me as I looked up at the summer night sky heavy with rain were not of fury or hatred, nor even of sadness. They were of overpowering fear, not the terror the sight of ghosts in a graveyard might arouse, but rather a fierce ancestral dread that could not be expressed in four or five words, something perhaps like encountering in the sacred grove of a Shinto shrine the white-clothed body of the god. My hair turned prematurely grey from that night. I had now lost all confidence in myself, doubted all men immeasurably, and abandoned all hopes for the things of this world, all joy, all sympathy, eternally. This was truly the decisive incident of my life. I had been split through the forehead between the eyebrows, a wound that was to throb with pain whenever I came in contact with a human being. ~ Osamu Dazai

Learning to be flexible in values takes a very long time ... Of course I felt a little uncomfortable during questioning the concept of God, but then reading about the history and evolution of Gods. There were many different Gods: the God of war, the God of peace, the God of love, which was more like the people that invented them. They behaved, they got angry, they made sacrifices, they created floods when they didn't like the way things are going. This didn't come through as superior intelligence. ~ Jacque Fresco

Overcomers have a 'finishing' anointing. They don't merely start things. They keep on moving forward until they complete the task. Many people love to start new things. They like to be creative. They enjoy thinking of new projects and dreaming about new adventures. Often, these people actually start some of the new things they are planning for the future. The problem is that they seldom finish what they start. ~ Barbara Wentroble