Distractions Quotes

“My imagination functions much better when I don't have to speak to people.”
― Patricia Highsmith

“You will never reach your destination if you stop and throw stones at every dog that barks.”
― Winston S. Churchill

“Phones are distracting. The internet is distracting.The way he looked at you? He wasn't distracted. He was consumed.”
― Stephanie Perkins, Isla and the Happily Ever After

“He punched me in the face," Ash said, who understandably did not seem to find the situation humorous at all. "And then he yelled at me for sleeping with our personal trainer!"
"I was told breakup scenes were a good way to distract people," Jared said with beautiful simplicity.
"Ash looked so surprised," Holly said. "He had no idea what was going on. He said, 'I didn't sleep with our personal trainer! We don't even have a personal trainer!'"
Angela and Holly giggled. Ash held the back of his hand to his bleeding mouth and glared.
Jared was still grinning like a maniac. "In that case," he told Ash solemnly, "I will consider taking you back.”
― Sarah Rees Brennan, Unspoken

“In those days a boy on the classical side officially did almost nothing but classics. I think this was wise; the greatest service we can to education today is to teach few subjects. No one has time to do more than a very few things well before he is twenty, and when we force a boy to be a mediocrity in a dozen subjects we destroy his standards, perhaps for life.”
― C.S. Lewis

“Social media not only snatches your time, but it also teaches you attention deficiency.”
― Neeraj Agnihotri, Procrasdemon - The Artist's Guide to Liberation from Procrastination

“Fire, ice, asteroids and pole shifts are bogeymen with which we distract ourselves from the real threat of our time. In an age when everyone invents his own truth, there is no community, only factions. Without community, there can be no consensus to resist the greedy, the envious, the power-mad narcissists who seize control and turn the institutions of civilization into a series of doom machines.”
― Dean Koontz, Relentless

“Learning to let go is not giving up! It is simply passing the burden to a better fighter, so you can fight another day. (God)”
― Shannon L. Alder

“We lead our lives so poorly because we arrive in the present always unprepared, incapable, and too distracted for everything.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters on Life

“Frequently we do not leave the past behind. We clasp on to it. We dissect it, and let fears for the future, tempered by the past, unconsciously prevent us from taking up the task eternal.”
― Ray Simpson, Exploring Celtic Spirituality

“Procrasdemon is fighting hard to feed off of distractions and pleasures.”
― Neeraj Agnihotri, Procrasdemon - The Artist's Guide to Liberation from Procrastination

“I just follow God's lead. One step, one day and one opportunity at a time. The hardest part is not becoming distracted.”
― Carlos Wallace, The Other 99 T.Y.M.E.S: Train Your Mind to Enjoy Serenity

“Procrastination is an eclipse to your true potential.”
― Neeraj Agnihotri, Procrasdemon - The Artist's Guide to Liberation from Procrastination

“The only good thing for men therefore is to be diverted from thinking of what they are, either by some occupation which takes their mind off it, or by some novel and agreeable passion which keeps them busy, like gambling, hunting, some absorbing show, in short by what is called diversion.

That is why gaming and feminine society, war and high office are so popular. It is not that they really bring happiness, nor that anyone imagines that true bliss comes from possessing the money to be won at gaming or the hare that is hunted: no one would take it as a gift. What people want is not the easy peaceful life that allows us to think of our unhappy condition, nor the dangers of war, nor the burdens of office, but the agitation that takes our mind off it and diverts us. That is why we prefer the hunt to the capture.

That is why men are so fond of hustle and bustle; that is why prison is such a fearful punishment; that is why the pleasures of solitude are so incomprehensible. That, in fact, is the main joy of being a king, because people are continually trying to divert him and stop him thinking about himself, because, king though he is, he becomes unhappy as soon as he thinks about himself.

That is all that men have been able to devise for attaining happiness; those who philosophize about it, holding that people are quite unreasonable to spend all day chasing a hare that they would not have wanted to buy, have little knowledge of our nature. The hare itself would not save us from thinking about death and the miseries distracting us, but hunting it does so. Thus when Pyrrhus was advised to take the rest towards which he was so strenuously striving, he found it very hard to do so.”
― Blaise Pascal, Pensées

“Underachieving persons often display traits like disliking authority figures, resisting adult supervision, and disregarding rules. They may be easily distracted, unorganized, and rebellious, focusing only on tasks they find pleasant. Identifying these behavioural patterns is key to intervention and support.”
― Asuni LadyZeal

“Distractions mimic achievements.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“Lesser things are distractions disguised as aspirations.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“If a significant number of modern humans cannot experience joy and eudaimonia from life, it’s likely because the new technologies and corporate forces surrounding us have kept us shackled to an existence that is at odds with our souls’ explorative and creative needs.”
― Enric Mestre Arenas, THE MODERN WORLD AGAINST THE HUMAN SOUL: Exploring modernity's impact on the human spirit and well-being

“We can’t control our environment everywhere we go, of course, but we have more control than we usually choose to exercise. Distractions literally make you stupid. Students whose classroom was situated near a noisy railroad line ended up academically a full year behind students with a quiet classroom. When the noise was dampened, the performance difference vanished. Offices aren’t much different. Research shows that the most productive computer programmers have one thing in common. It’s not experience, salary, or hours spent on a project. They had employers who gave them an environment free from distraction.”
― Eric Barker, Barking Up the Wrong Tree: The Surprising Science Behind Why Everything You Know About Success Is (Mostly) Wrong

“One of the greatest enemies to our freedom and self-development in this modern era is not bombs, corrupt democracies, or the will of ruthless despot dictators. Instead, the enemy we should fear the most is the array of enticing technologies adeptly exploiting our almost limitless appetite for distractions.”
― Enric Mestre Arenas, THE MODERN WORLD AGAINST THE HUMAN SOUL: Exploring modernity's impact on the human spirit and well-being

“the proliferation of highly addictive and distracting superstimuli in our modern world is not solely the result of an economic business model that prioritizes profits over personal wellness; it is also a premeditated and intentional act orchestrated from
the highest echelons of power to keep the masses distracted, spellbound and blind to their own condition of slaves.”
― Enric Mestre Arenas, THE MODERN WORLD AGAINST THE HUMAN SOUL: Exploring modernity's impact on the human spirit and well-being

“The greatest distraction to a productive life is competition.”
― Zinny Ekechukwu

“In the newspapers, in conversation, in the office, the impetuosity of language often leads one astray, also the hope, springing from temporary weakness, for a sudden and stronger illumination in the very next moment, also mere strong self-confidence, or mere carelessness, or a great present impression that one wishes at any cost to shift into the future, also the opinion that true enthusiasm in the present justifies any future confusion, also delight in sentences that are elevated in the middle by one or two jolts and open the mouth gradually to its full size even if they let it close much too quickly and tortuously, also the slight possibility of a decisive and clear judgement, or the effort to give further flow to the speech that has really ended, also the desire to escape from the subject in a hurry, one’s belly if it must be, or despair that seeks a way out for its heavy breath, or the longing for a light without shadow – all this can lead one astray to sentences like: ‘The book which I have just finished is the most beautiful I have ever read,’ or, ‘is more beautiful than any I have ever read’.”
― Franz Kafka, Diaries, 1910-1923

“How can you expect to go in, where thorough and lasting change can only happen, if you’re always busy chasing loose and fake change outside yourself in the quote-unquote ‘real world’?”
― Sol Luckman, Get Out of Here Alive: Inner Alchemy & Immortality

“Already long ago, from when we sold our vote to no man, the People have abdicated our duties; for the People who once upon a time handed out military command, high civil office, legions — everything, now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things: bread and circuses.”
― Juvenal, The Satires of Juvenal

“If we opt, over and over, to surrender our valuable energy and time to people and things that hold no real value and, worse, separate us from the people and things that do, the joke’s on us and we have only ourselves to blame.”
― Sol Luckman, Get Out of Here Alive: Inner Alchemy & Immortality

“What will you say when the Grim Reaper suddenly appears and asks, ‘What do you have to show for your life?’

In a world of many time-consuming pursuits, most utterly inane and many major drags on our creative potential, if your answer is ‘Not much,’ it’s at least worth considering that you’ve spent your time wisely.”
― Sol Luckman, Get Out of Here Alive: Inner Alchemy & Immortality

“Presence is the oxygen of deep relationships—silence the screens and breathe together.”
― Farshad Asl

“Distractions don’t always come to destroy you. Sometimes they come to delay you just long enough to miss divine timing.”
― Dr. Angela L. Hood

“In withdrawing from noise,
a new voice emerged.
In losing my voice,
I could speak to my soul.”
― Shekhar Sahu