#Attention Quotes

“Things in motion sooner catch the eye than what not stirs.”

“If I gaze at my beloved she may feel embarrassed and if I do not, she will feel neglected. I can see the stars reflecting in the calm water of her face but if I look away I lose my clarity.”

“Not everyone coming to you with a problem wants a solution. They are attached to the attention it brings them.”

“He that despiseth small things will perish by little and little.”

“The faculty of voluntarily bringing back a wandering attention, over and over again, is the very root of judgment, character, and will... An education which should improve this faculty would be the education par excellence.”

“The art of remembering is the art of thinking. When we wish to fix a new thing in either our own mind or a pupil's, our conscious effort should not be so much to impress and retain it as to connect it with something else already there. The connecting is the thinking; and, if we attend clearly to the connection, the connected thing will certainly be likely to remain within recall.”

“The exercise of voluntary attention in the schoolroom must therefore be counted one of the most important points of training that take place there; and the first-rate teacher, by the keenness of the remoter interests which he is able to awaken, will provide abundant opportunities for its occurrence.”

“The prescription is that the subject must be made to show new aspects of itself; to prompt new questions; in a word, to change. From an unchanging subject the attention inevitably wanders away.”

“The function of ignoring, of inattention, is as vital a factor in mental progress as the function of attention itself.”

“The only thing that can grow is the thing you give energy to.”

“Any object not interesting in itself may become interesting through becoming associated with an object in which an interest already exists.”

“For the moment, what we attend to is reality.”

“Millions of items in the outward order are present to my senses which never properly enter into my experience. Why? Because they have no interest for me. My experience is what I agree to attend to. Only those items which I notice shape my mind --without selective interest, experience is an utter chaos.”

“The education of attention would be an education par excellence”

“Geniuses are commonly believed to excel other men in their power of sustained attention . . . But it is their genius making them attentive, not their attention making geniuses of them.”

“What holds attention determines action.”

“All that we need explicitly to note is that, the more the passive attention is relied on, by keeping the material interesting; and the less the kind of attention requiring effort is appealed to; the more smoothly and pleasantly the classroom work goes on.”

“My experience is what I agree to attend to.”

“A genius is the man in whom you are least likely to find the power of attending to anything insipid or distasteful in itself. He breaks his engagements, leaves his letters unanswered, neglects his family duties incorrigibly, because he is powerless to turn his attention down and back from those more interesting trains of imagery with which his genius constantly occupies his mind.”

“A witty saying proves nothing, but saying something pointless gets people's attention.”

“In solitude we give passionate attention to our lives, to our memories, to the details around us.”

“We all wish to be of importance in one way or another. The child coughs with might and main, since it has no other claim on the company.”

“No one is listening until you make a mistake.”

“I was always making my friends laugh but I never wanted the attention of the whole classroom.”

“I don't need to be vindicated, and I don't want attention.”

“There is no good talking to him," said a Dragon-fly, who was sitting on the top of a large brown bulrush; "no good at all, for he has gone away." "Well, that is his loss, not mine," answered the Rocket. "I am not going to stop talking to him merely because he pays no attention. I like hearing myself talk. It is one of my greatest pleasures. I often have long conversations all by myself, and I am so clever that sometimes I don't understand a single word of what I am saying." "Then you should definitely lecture on Philosophy," said the Dragon-fly.”

“The average TV commercial of sixty seconds has one hundred and twenty half-second clips in it, or one-third of a second. We bombard people with sensation. That substitutes for thinking.”

“When you are everywhere, you are nowhere. When you are somewhere, you are everywhere.”

“Look sharply after your own thoughts. They come unlooked for, like a new bird seen on your trees, and, if you turn to your usual task, disappear; and you shall never find that perception again; never, I say-but perhaps years, ages, and I know not what events and worlds my lie between you and its return.”

“We despise no source that can pay us a pleasing attention.”

“If it's attention you want, don't get involved with a man during play-off season.”

“If you are who you are on stage, people pay attention.”

“Everyone always noticed Ashley. She was like a flashing neon sign for anyone with an ounce of testosterone.”

“Expert advice on improving ur relationship - 4A's - attention,appreciation, affection & attraction.”

“Concentration, itself, is nothing but a matter of control of the attention! Learn to fix your attention on a given subject, at will, for whatever length of time you choose, and you will have learned the secret passage-way to power and plenty! This is concentration!”

“A friend gave me a drug for attention deficit disorder, because he's afflicted, but I'm not. So what happened to me is I suddenly had an extra-long attention span. People would tell me a story, and it would end, and I'd get all mad. "Come on, man, there has to be more to that story."”

“Great events ever depend but upon a single hair. The adroit man profits by everything, neglects nothing which can increase his chances; the less adroit, by sometimes disregarding a single chance, fails in everything.”

“[E]very job is composed of many small details, any one of which, if overlooked, can create big problems later.”

“Direct thy attention to what is said. Let thy understanding enter into the things that are doing and the things which do them.”

“Consider the fellow. He never spends his time telling you about his previous night's date. You get the idea he has eyes only for you and wouldn't think of looking at another woman.”

“How heron comes It is a negligence of the mind not to notice how at dusk heron comes to the pond and stands there in his death robes, perfect servant of the system, hungry, his eyes full of attention, his wings pure light”

“I don't know exactly what a prayer is. I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass, how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields, which is what I have been doing all day. Tell me, what else should I have done? Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon? Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

“Tell me what it is you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? When it's over, I want to say: all my life I was a bride, married to amazement. I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms. Instructions for living a life: pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.”

“The end of life has its own nature, also worth our attention.”

“To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work.”

“Attention without feeling is only a report.”

“Instructions for living a life. Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.”

“To find a new word that is accurate and different, you have to be alert for it.”

“Attention is the beginning of devotion.”

“Let me keep my mind on what matters, which is my work, which is mostly standing still and learning to be astonished.”