Quotes About Thinking Not Doing

#1. born in a line of men who used their leisure for thinking, not doing, for spinning brightly coloured dreams that had in them no touch of reality.

Margaret Mitchell

#2. I've seen people who are not very likeable but hilarious. I think comedians get to a point where they know they're funny, so they don't care - in the sense that they know what they're doing. They have a skill.

Ted Alexandro

#3. The only thing I wouldn't like to do is to play roles as a musician. I'm not sure that I would be comfortable doing that, and I'm not sure I'd be very good at it. I think I would be better served, and would be a better partner, if I was in something outside of myself.

Larry Mullen Jr.

#4. I don't have any advice at all. I think we all make the films that reflect the kind of people we are; we all make such different films. There's not just one way of doing it.

Kim Longinotto

#5. Some people may regard my views well and show respect to me, and I hope they have not deceived themselves in doing so. Some people think that I am a leader of a movement.

Fethullah Gulen

#6. I think that some of the best Crowes stuff we did had that spontaneous vibe. Thats something thats always interested me in music. Im not really the kind of person to get too bogged down in the details. I think that takes away from the emotion and the vibe of what youre doing.

Chris Robinson

#7. You're not going to see a new Bernard Hopkins. I'm too old for that crap. I think what you will see is something different that I know I am capable of doing.

Bernard Hopkins

#8. Servants think of ministry as an opportunity, not an obligation. They enjoy helping people, meeting needs, and doing ministry.

Rick Warren

#9. If we spent the majority of our focus just concentrating on our side of the street, not so much on what the next guy is doing, I think I'd get a lot more done - we'd all get a lot more done - and we'd probably have a lot less criticism for everybody else.

Grant Bowler

#10. I used to think that I wouldn't change anything from my past, because doing so would inevitably affect who I am now. But considering my current state, I'm thinking it might not be a bad idea to go back in time to fix things.

Megan McCafferty

#11. I think it's up to the parents to determine whether what they're doing is consigning their child to difficulty. It's not as though they were crippling their children after they were born.

Andrew Solomon

#12. Not everybody can create a foundation that's worth a billion dollars, but all of us can figure out those things we do. I really think God loves us too much to give us an assignment we don't enjoy doing.

Max Lucado

#13. I think just dreaming big and having aspirations is important. So you know I want to be the greatest of all time at what I do and if you're not trying to be the greatest at what you do then you're not doing it for real.

Big Sean

#14. Recently we've been hearing a lot about women "having it all." Myself, I think that is not really an accurate description of female lives today. It seems to me that what we have been up to is DOING it all.

Sylvia Ann Hewlett

#15. I think it's such a risky thing doing interviews. I try to limit the amount of interviews that I do because no one is that interesting especially when you're not really saying anything. And I don't particularly want to be an character in society or whatever.

Robert Pattinson

#16. I would just say try it and see if you like it. See how it makes you feel and remember that it's not about being perfect, it's about just doing your best. I think it would have tremendous benefits for everyone.

Jayne Middlemiss

#17. People think that digital language is a fixed language, but it's not: it's very fluid. It's like I'm doing a painting where the paint refuses to dry.

Neville Brody

#18. The thing about the state of hip-hop is that people are too concerned. I don't think that there's a problem with being too concerned about videogames, especially for me, because I'm not in the industry. I'm just a consumer. But hip-hop is constantly like, "What are you doing for the scene?"

Aesop Rock

#19. I'm not doing a Mulder, there was no character reference-point. I think Mark Buchman shot it very David Fincher, but we did not know what the [X-Files] show was going to be.

David Giuntoli

#20. TV is a very sensitive thing. If you're not happy with what you're doing, I don't think you should do it because you will do it for awhile.

Bill Skarsgard

#21. A novel it's different. It's kind of exhilarating not to have to cut to the bone constantly. Oh, well I can go over here for a moment. I can say what I think the guy was thinking or what the day looked like or what the bird was doing. If you do that as a playwright, you're dead.

David Mamet

#22. Some things go better than you expected, other things go worse, so I'm ... I think the only sensible thing is just to wait and see and what I'm doing when I'm writing books - I'm not doing science so much anymore.

Freeman Dyson

#23. Sound is what drives my solos, not verbal concepts, I never think 'I'm going to use a Lydian Dominant scale and then go up a half-step', even though that might be exactly what I end up doing ...

John Scofield

#24. Did Gran go to a gynecologist? That is totally weird. I never thought about my grandmother's vagina before. I don't want to be thinking about my grandmother's vagina. Not here, at her funeral. In a church. While i'm doing a reading from the Bible.

Meg Cabot

#25. If there's 10,000 people looking at the stocks and trying to pick winners, one in 10,000 is going to score, by chance alone, a great coup, and that's all that's going on. It's a game, it's a chance operation, and people think they are doing something purposeful ... but they're really not.

Merton Miller

#26. I've appeared in those kind of films and have great fun doing it, and I'm always up for a challenge. I think with things like Mission: Impossible and Star Trek, those things are such an ensemble, it's not like I'm Ethan Hunt. I'm Benji. I'm the guy that does the computer business. I know my place.

Simon Pegg

#27. You think that you can judge what's good or evil from whether you enjoy doing it or not. You think that evil is what always appears in the form of a temptation, while good is what you never spontaneously want to do. I think this is all total rubbish, if you don't mind my saying so.

Hannah Arendt

#28. I started when I was 15 years old. And at that time, I was not thinking about changing the world, I was doing graffiti - writing my name everywhere, using the city as a canvas. I was going in the tunnels of Paris, on the rooftops with my friends. Each trip was an excursion, was an adventure.

JR

#29. I think the big danger of madness is not madness itself, but the habit of madness. What I discovered during the time I spent in the asylum is that I could choose madness and spend my whole life without working, doing nothing, pretending to be mad. It was a very strong temptation..

Paulo Coelho

#30. It's hard not to be kind of pessimistic about human beings generally, because we do tend to mess things up. If you just look at the history of extinctions, we've killed off an awful lot of animals - and I don't think we're doing a very good job of looking after the planet.

Bill Bryson

#31. As Americans we like to believe that we're loved in international politics or that people like what we're doing. But we also recognize that we have an extraordinary responsibility to do what we think is right, and that sometimes what we do is not very popular.

Condoleezza Rice

#32. I am happiest when I am working though, when I am being creative. I realized at a very young age what I loved doing. I think it is so important for people to pursue the things that they love and not give up on their dreams.

Josh Peck

#33. Truth is, I didn't know what the hell I was doing when I got out of Cal Arts. I think I wasted a lot of time not being bold enough, or still engaged in the questioning that you get into at school.

David Salle

#34. Drop all negative thoughts from the mind. Do not dwell on adversity but think plenty into everything, for there is power in the word. Meditate on the things you are doing as being already done - complete and perfect.

Ernest Holmes

#35. If you think art is a competitive forum, then you're going to stop doing it if you're not good. But if it's not competitive, it's something that you'll keep doing.

Zephyr Teachout

#36. Humans do not engage in activities that are meaningless. If you think you see people doing things you find meaningless, look again and try to understand what the activities mean for them.

Henry Jenkins

#37. What you don't want is to repeat a formula over and over or impose a formula to a movie that ... when you impose yourself and you impose a formula and you're not open to explore and to find what is right for the movie, I think you're doing a disservice to the story and what you're trying to express.

Emmanuel Lubezki

#38. Sad will be the day for any man when he becomes contented with the thoughts he is thinking and the deeds he is doing - where there is not forever beating at the doors of his soul some great desire to do something larger; which he knows he was meant and made to do.

Phillips Brooks

#39. I'm not a writer, but today I think you have to be everything. As an artist you have an obligation to let people know what is on your mind and why you're doing this.

Ai Weiwei

#40. So the point of my keeping a notebook has never been, nor is it now, to have an accurate factual record of what I have been doing or thinking. That would be a different impulse entirely, an instinct for reality which I sometimes envy but do not possess.

Joan Didion

#41. While I have not ruled out the possibility of doing music, what I don't want to do is go onstage and perform old songs. I do, all the time, but I don't think it is artistically brave.

Henry Rollins

#42. If by doing some work which the undiscerning consider 'not spiritual work' I can best help others, and I inwardly rebel, thinking it is the spiritual for which I crave, when in truth it is the interesting and exciting, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

Amy Carmichael

#43. In my 20s because I was working on films so much and travelling so much and doing press, I was single with no kids and I think that's the time when not only are you trying on looks, but you're trying on personalities - you're still really forming.

Gwyneth Paltrow

#44. In your actor's heart, you know when you're playing well. Others may not always agree with you, but I'm always aware of when the scene is cooking or not. You have an instinct about that from years of doing scenes and plays, and I think it stands you in good stead even in the TV world.

Michael Emerson

#45. As frustrating as it gets, at times, and as frustrating as it is, at times, I don't think I've ever considered doing something else, or not wanted to do it anymore. To me, it's just the greatest job. It's a good fit for who I am and what I want to be.

Ronald D. Moore

#46. I don't agree with the copyright laws and I don't have a problem with people downloading the movie and sharing it with people ... as long as they're not doing it to make a profit off my labor - You share things with people and I think information, and art, and ideas should be shared.

Michael Moore

#47. Unless you seek out help for your symptoms, you'll never really know that that's not how everyone feels. You go through life thinking that this is how you feel in certain situations and that I can ease the tensions by doing this or that.

Matty Mullins

#48. If I could make the same amount of money doing standup it would be no contest. The problem is that if you do make that kind of money doing standup, it's not in clubs, it's in big auditoriums and large venues, and I really think something is lost when you do standup for a big crowd.

Joe Rogan

#49. I think with a comedian, when you get to the point of a greatest hits, it's kind of an acknowledgment that you've been doing stand-up a long time, which not very many people do.

Jeff Foxworthy

#50. Every year before a big competition, I get hurt doing stuff I should not be doing. One year it was my little brother's 12th birthday. We all played hide-and-seek late at night. I climbed up a 30-foot tree, thinking he'd never catch me. I tripped and fell on one of the branches and I hit my head.

Ryan Lochte

#51. I get a bit nervous because I just want the show to go well. I think you always have to be a little bit nervous, or else you're a little checked-out, and that's maybe the time when you're not doing your best stuff, because you're kind of just checked-out and falling back on stuff.

Amy Poehler

#52. If you don't concentrate on what you are doing then the thing that you are doing is not what you are thinking.

Alfred Lord Tennyson

#53. If you are exercising to that point it is not doing you any good in terms of fitness, as it is all lactic acid and you can get injured but I think coaches were seeing how far you'd go for the team.

Colin Kazim-Richards

#54. The big question now is who will take power in Afghanistan once the Taliban is defeated. I was thinking, how about Al Gore? He's not doing anything, he needs a job, and he's already got the beard.

Jay Leno

#55. In fact, a case could be made that worrying about a problem actually prevents you from resolving it, because it deceives your mind into thinking that you're doing something when really you're not.

Sarah Strohmeyer

#56. I don't think that what I'm doing [political cartooning] is necessarily left versus right. What I'm addressing is top versus bottom. If I'm not spending a lot of time making fun of the more extreme elements of the Green Party, it's because what I do is to critique power.

Tom Tomorrow

#57. I think if you had to map that out at the beginning and you said, "Right, sit down, this is what you're going to be doing," you'd probably freak out. But I'm someone who really enjoys not being himself. So if you consider that, then it all sort of makes sense.

Eric Bana

#58. If I was to interrupt this article every few sentences, asking you whether or not I was making a good impression on you, I hope and believe that you would think I was a servile jerk. Yet this is what our politicians are doing in every speech.

Christopher Hitchens

#59. I think sometimes Richmond, especially the House of Delegates, thinks too small ... Richmond is not doing what needs to be done, forward thinking, big bold ideas.

Terry McAuliffe

#60. Pray inwardly, even if you do not enjoy it. It does good, though you feel nothing. Yes, even though you think you are doing nothing.

Julian Of Norwich

#61. Most people think it's all about the idea. It's not. EVERYONE has ideas. The hard part is doing the homework to know if the idea could work in an industry, then doing the preparation to be able to execute on the idea.

Mark Cuban

#62. Worry is simply thinking the same thing over and over again and not doing anything about it.

Branch Rickey

#63. I would hate to think I am not an amature. An amateur is one who loves what he is doing. Very often, I'm afraid, the professional hates what he is doing. So, I'd rather be an amateur.

Yehudi Menuhin

#64. When it comes to immigration reform, now is the time ... I've never seen a better political environment ... I'm not doing immigration reform to solve the Republican Party's political problem. I'm trying to save our nation from, I think, a shortage of labor and a catastrophic broken system.

Lindsey Graham

#65. Go ahead and do what you really love to do! Do nothing else! You have so little time. How can you think of wasting a moment doing something for a living you don't like to do? What kind of a living is that? That is not a living, that is a dying!

Neale Donald Walsch

#66. It was a weird moment in my life and a weird experience [doing a theater]. It made me think, "Gee, I don't know if I ever want to do this again." And I love theater. I love going. I love the experience of theater. But I am not sure it's for me.

Jodie Foster

#67. There was a certain amount of discipline, I think; my parents wanted to be sure that I was not just sitting around doing nothing.

Paul Smith

#68. I don't mind if someone thinks I'm a sell out. I go to bed happy knowing I do what I do and I'm not doing anything for reasons of money, and if I were trying to pick up chicks, I'm doing a horrible job. And if I wanted to drive awesome cars, I'm doing a really bad job there too.

Patrick Stump

#69. You feel pressured to do what you think the public wants, when in actuality the sales aren't reflecting what the radio is doing. Not in the least bit!

Pharoahe Monch

#70. There's always pressure, from other people and yourself. If you're happy with the looks you're born with, then what are you going to do your whole life? We keep thinking up new things and finding better ways of doing things because we're not happy with what we're given.

Natalie Portman

#71. I think the TAC was just a disgrace, a disgrace not only to the [health] department but a disgrace to the whole country. But I think, as South Africa, we really demonstrated that we are doing pretty well.

Manto Tshabalala-Msimang

#72. The thing about architecture is that it's an art [you] simply learn more by doing more. It's one of those things that is really not an art about thinking, but doing. So in a way, what it has done is greatly intensify the way that I build.

David Adjaye

#73. I will not avoid doing what I think is right, though it should draw on me the whole artillery that falsehood and malice can invent, or the credulity a deluded population can swallow.

William Murray, 1st Earl Of Mansfield

#74. I think anyone who's not as good a writer as me is absolutely a hack, and I think anybody who's a slightly better writer than me is brilliant. So of course that makes me a horrible critic when it comes to books, because I can't distance my own experience from what I'm doing.

Chuck Klosterman

#75. To do anything truly worth doing, I must not stand back shivering and thinking of the cold and danger, but jump in with gusto and scramble through as well as I can.

Og Mandino

#76. If your novel seems to be dragging, one of the first places to look is at the heart of your lead character. Is he giving up too easily? Has she been taking it too long? Are there too many scenes where he's thinking and not doing? - James Scott Bell

Anonymous

#77. You can talk yourself out of doing something if you start to think about, "How would this person see it, or that person see it?" So sometimes it's allowing myself to be in it and not talking myself out of it.

Kalup Linzy

#78. I would never go back to doing the show again. I mean, every day I think about Lifestyles because somebody comes up to me and tells me how much they love the show and I should bring it back, but this is not the time to bring it back. I don't think it would be as successful today as it once was.

Robin Leach

#79. I think in the Western world we have gotten overly identified with doing, and we've kind of forgotten about the art of being. And we don't see value in it; we think that if you're not doing something all of the time, being very active and producing something, then you're sort of wasting your time.

Shakti Gawain

#80. Any human being who does not wish to be part of the masses need only stop making things easy for himself. Let him follow his conscience, which calls out to him: Be yourself! All that you are now doing, thinking, desiring, all that is not you.

Friedrich Nietzsche

#81. But if you sit around thinking what to do and end up not doing anything, why bother even thinking about it? You're better off going out on the town and having a good time. No, we have to think and act. That's what we're doing here, and that's what you have to do.

Elvia Alvarado

#82. The soul is forever being. It is being what it is being, regardless of what the body is doing, not because of what it's doing. If you think your life is about doingness, you do not understand what you are about.

Neale Donald Walsch

#83. Sometimes great things come from doing things quickly and not over-thinking stuff.

Jamie Bell

#84. I think that when you're doing a comedy and it makes you laugh, there's a certain ... like you can reject it, and it's okay. It's not promoting it or making it seem cool. I think that's when you get into hot water.

Michael Pena

#85. My parents were not pushy or anything like that. I think my mom was still expecting me to be an astronaut, but now she is very happy that I'm not doing that.

Berenice Bejo

#86. If I'm on skates, I feel at home no matter what I'm doing. If they wanted me to sing and dance I think I could do it just becauseI was on skates. When I'm not on skates, though, I feel very strange.

Dorothy Hamill

#87. Women need to shift from thinking "I'm not ready to do that" to thinking "I want to do that- and I'll learn by doing it.

Sheryl Sandberg

#88. From a creative standpoint, I'm interested not only in the idea of helping couples and women, but challenging myself creatively, and doing each one better than the last thing I did. I think by doing that, by adding a visual element to these films, it really makes a huge difference.

Sasha Grey

#89. A true hero is not someone who thinks about doing what is right, but one that simply does what is right without thinking!

Kevin Heath

#90. I think life is too short not to be doing something which you really believe in.

Steve McCurry

#91. I never think of this business as fun. I don't know why. I think I've actually said something about it being fun, but I don't think of it that way. It's not fun, doing it. It's joyful, it's passionate, it's rewarding, it's a pursuit of truth, but I don't think of it as fun. It's not a game.

Donald Sutherland

#92. I think the art of filmmaking is something you learn through actions, by doing it, not by learning theories. And as you do it, your mind starts to change.

Alejandro Jodorowsky

#93. He was always thinking of what else to do and she told him that it was rare for her, because she had grown up not doing, but being.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

#94. I'm certainly not a lyricist first. I prefer doing it intuitively and not really thinking about it so much.

Daniel Rossen

#95. And there's been occasions where I've gone brown and got parts! I'm not above doing that! I hope after this, I can get a role where it won't be: "Oh, you can't play any role other than a blonde." I'm proud of being a blonde. I'd be proud of being a brunette or a red-head. I don't think it matters.

Laura Bell Bundy

#96. You see, the problem with me is I'm so good even my friends think I'm doing something wrong. Flair and flamboyance is not illegal. It may be detestable, it may be offensive, but it's not illegal.

Don King

#97. Americans think anything you do not get paid for is not worth doing. As a consequence, the things that don't get done are often the most worthwhile.

Laurence Overmire

#98. There is a technique, a knack, for thinking, just as there is for doing other things. You are not wholly at the mercy of your thoughts, any more than they are you. They are a machine you can learn to operate.

Alfred North Whitehead

#99. We should not allow fear or anxiety to stop us from doing something. If you think through something well and prepare thoroughly, you can do a lot of things you think you can't.

Kumar Sangakkara

#100. I'm not oblivious to that connotation of changing careers, so I'm just going in and doing the job. I think that you can't fake doing the job. All I want to do is deliver. That's my focus.

Agyness Deyn