Everything is blooming most recklessly; if it were voices instead of colors, there would be an unbelievable shrieking into the heart of the night.

“By paying a certain kind of attention, you can humanise or dehumanise, cherish or strip of all value. By a kind of alienating, fragmenting and focal attention, you can reduce humanity – or art, sex, humour, or religion – to nothing. You can so alienate yourself from a poem that you stop seeing the poem at all, and instead come to see in its place just theories, messages and formal tropes; stop hearing the music and hear only tonalities and harmonic shifts; stop seeing the person and see only mechanisms – all because of the plane of attention. More than that, when such a state of affairs comes about, you are no longer aware that there is a problem at all. For you do not see what it is you cannot see.”

I try to find my way in the world you know, I try to be somebody instead of just, make money off of everybody.

When it comes to art and science, people don’t like a lot of either. Instead of being open to it, they’re closed off about it.

When a highly successful leader retires after a long career, it is very unlikely that his successor will be of comparable caliber. Anyone of similar ability and drive would have gone somewhere else, instead of waiting in the wings for years for a chance to show his own leadership

The people made worse off by slavery were those who were enslaved. Their descendants would have been worse off today if born in Africa instead of America. Put differently, the terrible fate of their ancestors benefitted them.

For perfect hope is achieved on the brink of despair, when instead of falling over the edge, we find ourselves walking on air

We will not just say, “I love him very much,” but instead, “I will do something so that he will suffer less.” The mind of compassion is truly present when it is effective in removing another person’s suffering.

To know what you prefer instead of humbly saying Amen to what the world tells you you ought to prefer, is to have kept your soul alive.

The secret of sound education is to get each pupil to learn for himself, instead of instructing him by driving knowledge into him on a stereotyped system.

It’s all generated, maybe, by the fact that the attitude of the populace is to try to find the answer instead of trying to find a man who has a way of getting at the answer.

Have no respect whatsoever for authority; forget who said it and instead look what he starts with, where he ends up, and ask yourself, ‘Is it reasonable?’

You see, the chemists have a complicated way of counting: instead of saying “one, two, three, four, five protons”, they say, ‘hydrogen, helium, lithium, beryllium, boron.’

They encouraged me to always look for the good in people instead of assuming the worst and trying to find fault.

Listen to what you know instead of what you fear.

The space for what you want is already filled with what you settled for instead.

We know that the train carries all loads, so after getting on it why should we carry our small luggage on our head to our discomfort, instead of putting it down in the train and feeling at ease?

It’s no accident many accuse me of conducting public affairs with my heart instead of my head. Well, what if I do? … Those who don’t know how to weep with their whole heart don’t know how to laugh either.

Change the voices in your head. Make them like you instead.

I don’t like a failure. I identify my own mistakes immediately. I don’t dwell on things. And I think dusting yourself down and becoming vulnerable is the key to my success because it keeps it fresh instead of becoming complacent.

Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.

Instead of using medicine, better fast today.

It’s so much easier to tell people what they want to hear instead of what they need to hear.

The dark ages still reign over all humanity, and the depth and persistence of this domination are only now becoming clear. This Dark Ages prison has no steel bars, chains, or locks. Instead, it is locked by misorientation and built of misinformation.

If you want to teach people a new way of thinking, don’t bother trying to teach them. Instead, give them a tool, the use of which will lead to new ways of thinking.

Staffing the opportunities instead of the problems not only creates the most effective organization, it also creates enthusiasm and dedication.

Company cultures are like country cultures. Never try to change one. Try, instead, to work with what you’ve got.

Do something instead of killing time. Because time is killing you.

My mother said to me, if you are a soldier, you will became a general. If you are a monk will become the Pope. Instead, I was a painter, and became Picasso.

When I was a child my mother said to me, ‘If you become a soldier, you’ll be a general. If you become a monk, you’ll be the pope.’ Instead I became a painter and wound up as Picasso.

Shoot for the stars but if you happen to miss shoot for the moon instead.