Not Helpful Quotes

#1. Do you mind even a little that you are still addicted to people-pleasing, and are still putting everyone else's needs and laundry and career ahead of your creative, spiritual life? Giving all your life force away, to "help" and impress. Well, your help is not helpful, and falls short.

Anne Lamott

#2. I have learned not to do predictions. It's not helpful, psychologically. I don't sit and fret about things.

Mumia Abu-Jamal

#3. The sexual conquest is huge with men in terms of affirming themselves and their feelings of masculinity. That's a misguided kind of affirmation. That is not helpful, but that stuff happens.

Donald Miller

#4. Then I will myself to feel nothing at all. It's not helpful to react the way a normal person would. I banish what will interfere with my clinical discipline and reason, I run it off and far away from me. After all these years I'm good at emptying myself out.

Patricia Cornwell

#5. Forward movement is not helpful if what is needed is a change of direction.

David Fleming

#6. To get angry with oneself and reject oneself is not helpful and is not what the Buddha teaches. The best thing is not to say either "I'm all good" or "I'm worthless; I'm no good." The best thing is not to think about oneself, not talk about oneself, not dwell upon

Eknath Easwaran

#7. The responses that environmentalists evoke - fear, anxiety, numbness, despair - are not helpful, even if they are understandable. It should be fascinating, even enthralling, to be in the milieu of environmental change.

Paul Hawken

#8. If it is not truthful and not helpful, don't say it. If it is truthful and not helpful, don't say it. If it is not truthful and helpful, don't say it. If it is truthful and helpful, wait for the right time.

Gautama Buddha

#9. I grew up fundamentalist, evangelical, Protestant. Those are my roots, and they are good roots. But it means the Pharisees are my people. I grew up with an image of God that was not helpful
largely the face of my father expanded.

William P. Young

#10. I've found that if I tell somebody 'Eat this and don't do that,' it's not only not helpful, it's counterproductive because even more than being healthy, we want to feel free and in control, and as soon as somebody tells us to do something, there's a tendency to do just the opposite.

Dean Ornish

#11. Are you entirely sure of that knot?' asked Morveer. 'There is no place in the plan for a lengthy drop'.
'Twenty-eight strides', said Friendly.
'What?'
'The drop'.
A brief pause, 'That is not helpful'.

Joe Abercrombie

#12. I'm really grateful to you for saving us, Maia, and Jace is too, even though he's so stubborn that he'd rather jam a seraph blade through his eyeball than say so. And don't you say you hope he does," she added hastily, seeing the look on the other girl's face, "because that's really not helpful.

Cassandra Clare

#13. Therapists need to have a long experience in personal therapy to see what it's like to be on the other side of the couch and see what they find helpful or not helpful.

Irvin D. Yalom

#14. Everything is not all right. It's not helpful, but insulting, to say that it is. What we can hope for is that it will be all right one day.

Tullian Tchividjian

#15. A duty is to be chosen from what is virtuous, and from what is useful, and also from the comparison of the two, one with the other; but nothing is recognized by Christians as virtuous or useful which is not helpful to the future life.

Saint Ambrose

#16. To be a deep listener, one of the first things we have to do is give up the need and the desire to give advice. Knowing answers does not require stating them; there are times when offering answers is not helpful, as when a person is in the middle of their own learning process.

John Earle

#17. Relax. This isn't the scary part yet."
"Mmm, not helpful."
"Try to think about puppies," he suggested. "No wait, not puppies. Think about kittens. Demons don't eat kittens. Too many hairballs."
"Hey, maybe we could try not talking for a while.

Cecily White

#18. It is not helpful to help a friend by putting coins in his pockets when he has got holes in his pockets.

Elizabeth Bowen

#19. I learned my lesson early in my career that it's not helpful to go and look at what other people's opinions are.

Jenny Slate

#20. A panic state is not helpful to good decision making.

Max Barry

#21. When trouble strikes, which it always does - bad economy, bad quarter, activists, takeover - when trouble strikes, those board members who don't understand or are not committed are not helpful.

Carol Bartz

#22. Testing stools for C. diff in patients after they have finished their Flagyl or Vanco for 10 days and after their bowel movements have returned to normal (that is, formed and not watery) is a waste of time and money, and is not helpful to the doctor or patient.

J. Thomas LaMont

#23. Hey, slow breaths," Cassia said.
Solara hadn't realized she was gasping. "Right. Sorry."
"If you faint among pirates, don't bother waking up."
Oh god. That was not helpful.

Melissa Landers

#24. It is not helpful to have those kind of comments come out when we've got troops in combat.

Richard Myers

#25. Genuine relationships are marked by submission even when your choices are not helpful or healthy.

Wm. Paul Young

#26. Material things are not helpful after a certain degree of saturation. So you turn to other products. I think that therapy is a product that can transform you. But why does it need to be packaged as a product? Why can't I work on myself with my friends and family?

Tino Sehgal

#27. The Strait of Hormuz is an international waterway, and it is not helpful for any nation to suggest that it would attempt to restrict traffic through the strait.

John C. Stennis

#28. Judgment of the people in the situation is not helpful. How can you help them is the question.

Russell Simmons

#29. It's not helpful if we spend every day dreading tomorrow ~Jai

Randy Pausch

#30. I don't write anything that I haven't lived. In terms of integrity, you have to write what you live. And if you write beyond what you live, it is theory. And theory is not helpful. It is just not.

John Eldredge

#31. I think the time in between albums, as much as it was not anticipated, it was much-needed, and very helpful, very useful. I've done nothing but hone my craft, and get better, and learn, and gather information in the process. So I'm grateful for it in retrospect.

Joe Budden

#32. Truly Christian conduct is not predicated on whether I have the right to do something, but whether my conduct is helpful to those about me.

Gordon D. Fee

#33. People are not on a truth quest; they are on a happiness quest. They will continue to attend your church - even if they don't share your beliefs - as long as they find the content engaging and helpful.

Andy Stanley

#34. I actually think the reason I am interested in certain parts is because I was such a dweeb in high school. When you are such a loser, it's a helpful way in to a lot of characters because even very powerful people are not all that powerful, really.

Sigourney Weaver

#35. It would be helpful if we opened up ANWR. I think it's a mistake not to. And I would urge you all to travel up there and take a look at it, and you can make the determination as to how beautiful that country is.

George W. Bush

#36. When we are devoted to the development of kindness, it becomes our ready response, so that reacting from compassion, from caring, is not a question of giving ourselves a lecture: 'I don't really feel like it, but I'd better be helpful, or what would people think?'

Sharon Salzberg

#37. It is ... very helpful to think of adversity not so much as a threat to our peace of mind but rather as the very means by which patience is attained.

Dalai Lama

#38. The practice of thrift is not outdated. We must discipline ourselves to live within our incomes even if it means going without or making do. The wise person can distinguish ... between basic needs and extravagant wants. Some find budgeting extremely painful, but I promise you, it is never fatal.

Marvin J. Ashton

#39. Boys are different from girls, but boys are also different from other boys, just as girls are different from other girls. Calling a book 'for boys' or 'for girls' is well-meaning, but to me, not terribly helpful.

Marie Lu

#40. I try not to think in terms of good and bad but more in terms of helpful or unhelpful in regards to specific moral codes and goals.

Richard Brancatisano

#41. I remember calling the council's cemetery department to ask about body decomposition in different soil types. Once they had verified that I was a novelist and not a sicko, they were extremely helpful.

Sara Sheridan

#42. Telling an individual company to do better is a lot like telling an individual poor person to save more - true and helpful, but not so easy in practice.

Linda Tirado

#43. We need to tell people not to be helpful. Trying to be helpful and giving advise are really ways to control others ... Advice, recommendations, and obvious actions are exactly what increase the likelihood that tomorrow will be just like yesterday.

Peter Block

#44. Its helpful to know the reasons for our faith ... it helps us not be so vulnerable to doubt, and it helps us not be so vulnerable to false doctrine.

Holly Ordway

#45. Meaning bad isn't the issue. Meaning you do what you do. Not without consequences for other people, of course, sometimes very grave ones. But it's not very helpful to regard your choices as a series of right or wrong moves. They don't define you as much as you define them

Ann Packer

#46. Some people are hard to hold accountable because they are so helpful. Others because they get defensive. Others because they are intimidating. I don't think it's easy to hold anyone accountable, not even your own kids

Patrick Lencioni

#47. Fear is an enemy to fight and defeat and not an enemy to fear. Fear of falling, fear of the unknown, fear of making mistakes, fear of trying new ideas, fear of failure or fear of those already there."
~ Ikechukwu Joseph

Ikechukwu Joseph

#48. Those questions which are unexpected and complicated are the ones I appreciate most. They can help me a great deal. as I am compelled to take an interest in something that might not otherwise have occurred to me.

Dalai Lama XIV

#49. I want to get involved in things that makes a difference in peoples lives and lifts them up. I don't want to be a part of anything that's not inspiring or helpful to the community that I'm serving.

Russell Simmons

#50. Now an extraordinary and helpful fact is that by making Mind the object of our attention, not only does the serenity which is its nature begin to well up of its own accord but its steady unchanging character itself helps spontaneously to repel all disturbing thoughts.

Paul Brunton

#51. Romanticizing the act of writing or any other art is not very helpful to the artist or the art. It's much better if one simply does.

Anne Roiphe

#52. one reason why schooling is so seldom helpful to children, and almost always deeply harmful, is that they have no reality of encounter with their teachers. The teachers are not themselves, but players of roles. They

John Holt

#53. I know I'm not a wordsmith. And I don't write poetry. Sometimes I think I should, because it's really helpful. But I always wanted to write novels.

Candace Bushnell

#54. I'm always amused when the 'New York Times' writes editorials trying to be helpful to Republicans and say, 'This is the way Republicans can save themselves.' Look, the 'New York Times' disagrees with us. They're entitled to disagree with us, but it's not like we should take their advice.

Ted Cruz

#55. More helpful than all wisdom is one draught of simple human pity that will not forsake us.

George Eliot

#56. On the contrary, I like men. They are polite and helpful and necessary for dancing. And men are so handsome and different, aren't they?"
"Not all of us, clearly, but I'll let that go.

Victoria Dahl

#57. Well. That's helpful. We'll put an APB out on the Gingerbread Man. I'm not hopeful it'll do us much good, though. Word on the street is you can't catch him.

Joe Hill

#58. The most productive, healthy and satisfying relationships are based, not on a quid pro quo but an ebb and flow of mutual support over time. Don't just be a giver. Be an extremely helpful giver who demonstrates an awareness of what that person most needs.

Kare Anderson

#59. The fame of an actor is won in minutes and seconds, not in years. The latter are only helpful in the recurrence of opportunities; in the possibilities of repetition.

Bram Stoker

#60. Often the pronouns I, me, and you are not just harmless but downright helpful. They simulate a conversation, as classic style recommends, and they are gifts to the memory-challenged reader.

Steven Pinker

#61. To be able to say 'sorry' to a woman- a sister, or a mother, is a most helpful thing, whether sorry or not. Still, for the sake of peace and gentleness at home just 'Sorry'which doesn't bind you to anything---but it turns away wrath! And soreness! And is like sunshine and hurts no one.

Catherine Bailey

#62. They don't have classes on bravery in middle school. If they did I'd have signed up. It would have been helpful to learn how to stare down what I feared most and not blink.

Shannon Wiersbitzky

#63. Will Rogers wasn't helpful to me at all. He was just concerned with his way of doing things. He didn't like me much because I used to wear slacks to the studio, and that was not done much in those days, so I guess he thought I was rather fast.

Maureen O'Sullivan

#64. Cromwell saw that the destruction of these men would not only ruin Ormonde's military power, but spread a helpful terror throughout the island. He therefore resolved upon a deed of "frightfulness" deeply embarrassing to his nineteenth-century admirers and apologists. Having

Winston S. Churchill

#65. The more useful approach is to ask, "Is this thought helpful? Does it help me take action to create the life I want?" If it's helpful, pay attention. If it's not, defuse it.

Russ Harris

#66. The counsel and care of others, while helpful and necessary, is not the ultimate solution. Jesus is the one who gives strength and contentment in the midst of suffering. Cling tightly to Jesus, who already has you in his invincible grip.

Stephen Altrogge

#67. The more readily we admit the possibility of our own cherished convictions being mixed with error, the more vital and helpful whatever is right in them will become; and no error is so conclusively fatal as the idea that God will not allow us to err, though He has allowed all other men to do so.

John Ruskin

#68. It was helpful to be able to call a lawyer ... it turns out, that not only did they help me, but they really helped the whole community ...

David Allen

#69. Prudence is not the same thing as caution. Caution is a helpful strategy when you're crossing a minefield; it's a disaster when you're in a gold rush.

John Ortberg

#70. The key is to set realistic customer expectations, and then not to just meet them, but to exceed them - preferably in unexpected and helpful ways.

Richard Branson

#71. Let positive, strong, helpful thoughts enter into your brains from very childhood. Lay yourselves open to these thoughts, and not to weakening and paralysing ones.

Swami Vivekananda

#72. If you decide not to make use of the opportunities you have, not to live your life in a way that's constructive and helpful, you end up looking back and asking, 'why did I bother living?

Noam Chomsky

#73. Fear is like fire; it can be helpful if you know how to use. If not, you'll get burned.

Mike Tyson

#74. It will be helpful to keep the following underlying themes in mind: Peace of mind is our single goal. Forgiveness is our single function and the way to achieve our goal of peace of mind. Through forgiveness, we can learn not to judge others and to see everyone, including ourselves, as guiltless.

Gerald G. Jampolsky

#75. It is always helpful to us to fix our attention on the God-ward aspect of Christian work; to realise that the work of God does not mean so much man's work for God, as God's own work through man.

Hudson Taylor

#76. It is helpful to know the proper way to behave, so one can decide whether or not to be proper.

Gail Carson Levine

#77. Again and again I find that my own inner counselor, my secret dreaming self, is not only wise and helpful but usually amusing as well.

Sheldon B. Kopp

#78. When it comes to desire, it's not a matter of avoiding desire, but rather learning to discern those desires that are helpful and necessary for your growth - those that serve your soul and help you continue to thrive - from those that do not.

Rod Stryker

#79. When I was young, I kept trying to be in the most helpful place for me, when sometimes, as players, you have to look in the mirror and say, "It's not always going to be comfortable."

Drew Gooden

#80. Some stories feel like they need more time or less time to tell. To not obsessively have to trim or add that final two or three minutes is very helpful, because you can just organically follow how the story feels.

Judd Apatow

#81. Tim Cook has been asked a very specific question, in public by the way, and Tim Cook has refused in public. I don't blame him for that. I will guarantee you that there are all kinds of things that the private sector can be doing to be helpful, and they have not been engaged.

Carly Fiorina

#82. When I was in the private sector, one characteristic that differentiated the best entrepreneurs from the others was that they were not in it for the stock options, but for a mission - to deliver something that was helpful ... Every entrepreneurial journey, it turns out, is like this.

Todd Park

#83. The highest type of meditation is done in silence. In silence there are no mantras. Mantras are not essential, but they can be very helpful.

Frederick Lenz

#84. I am fortunate to have a very helpful team that enables me to spend time doing things that are important but not necessarily urgent. People who have no such team need to also make these larger decisions so that they can cheerfully say No to that which is urgent but not important.

Stephen Covey

#85. Study then, but study first that which will most help you to help others. Work patiently at your studies, not that men may think you wise, not even that you may have the happiness of being wise, but because only the wise man can be wisely helpful.

Jiddu Krishnamurti

#86. I would not necessarily say that scientists and artists need to collaborate with one another, but it would be helpful for them to talk to one another to, perhaps, give rise to specific ideas that may or may not be carried out together.

Eric Kandel

#87. Which meant he had about eight weeks to pull something amazing out of his butt.
His butt was not being terribly helpful.

Cherie Priest

#88. If you can build a company and make money, great. But eventually, my intention is to give all my money away. I told my kids that. [Wealth] is not particularly helpful to kids. It's almost a burden. It's better to allow them to do their own thing and have their own successes.

Steve Case

#89. I did not ask for objections, but for comments, or helpful suggestions. I looked for more loyalty from you, Captain Hornblower.'
That made the whole argument pointless. If Leighton only wanted servile agreement there was no sense in continuing ...

C.S. Forester

#90. Mother used to say it meant Christopher was a nice name because it was a story about being kind and helpful, but I do not want my name to mean a story about being kind and helpful. I want my name to mean me.

Mark Haddon

#91. Failure is an event, never a person; an attitude, not an outcome; a temporary inconvenience; a stepping stone. Our response to it determines just how helpful it can be.

Zig Ziglar

#92. Every work brings new and different challenges. Research is always helpful, regardless of whether the play is contemporary or not.

Gideon Glick

#93. One country ... one ideology, one system is not sufficient. It is helpful to have a variety of different approaches ... We can then make a joint effort to solve the problems of the whole of humankind.

Dalai Lama

#94. Yoga really helped with stress relief and just not hurting myself when I tour. It really was super helpful.

John Feldmann

#95. Having a child makes you strong and gives you chutzpah. It relaxed my attitude to the job; my center of focus shifted, which I think is very helpful, because even if you're not a very indulgent actor you spend a lot of time thinking about yourself. I don't think that is particularly healthy.

Imelda Staunton

#96. There are a group of people who would like to silence everybody and have everybody go along to get along, but that's not going to be very helpful for us in the long run, in terms of solving our problems. And somebody has to be courageous enough to actually stand up to, you know, the bullies.

Ben Carson

#97. When you're alone you can long so hard for something like an embrace that you mine it from the air. You find it in meanings that you might not otherwise grasp, for which it is helpful to arise early in the morning, when the mind is clear and the heart is gentle.

Mark Helprin

#98. My background has been very helpful for this experience. But everyone was so accommodating because they knew it's not the most comfortable position to be the new kid.

Jeri Ryan

#99. I think a Moon base is not necessary to get to Mars, but I think it will be helpful. It would give you a chance to develop and mature some systems; long duration, deep space stuff; and you're close enough to get some help, via radio from Earth.

Charles Duke

#100. The doctrines that have been preached in our churches in Africa and globally has not been helpful for believers to dominate the earth.

Sunday Adelaja