Inattention Quotes

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

  William James

  Science, Mind, Progress

  William James (2012). “The Principles of Psychology”, p.298, Courier Corporation

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• When a girl marries she exchanges the attentions of many men for the inattention of one.

  Helen Rowland

  Funny, Marriage, Girl

  Quoted in Evan Esar, The Dictionary of Humorous Quotations (1949)

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• Cinema, radio, television, magazines are a school of inattention: people look without seeing, listen in without hearing.

  Robert Bresson

  School, Media, People

  "Notes on the Cinematograph".

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• Fate is shaped half by expectation, half by inattention.

  Amy Tan

  Fate, Expectations, Half

  Amy Tan (2006). “The Joy Luck Club”, p.131, Penguin

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• And I think now that fate is shaped half by expectation, half by inattention. But somehow, when you lose something you love, faith takes over. -Rose

  Amy Tan

  Fate, Thinking, Expectations

  Amy Tan (2006). “The Joy Luck Club”, p.131, Penguin

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• A single inattention may lose a chess game, whereas a single successful approach to a problem, among many which have been relegated to the wastebasket, will make a mathematician's reputation.

  Norbert Wiener

  Successful, Games, Chess Game

  Norbert Wiener (1953). “Ex-prodigy: My Childhood and Youth”

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• I never knew any man cured of inattention.

  Jonathan Swift

  Men, Attention

  Jonathan Swift (1751). “The Works of Jonathan Swift ...: Containing, I. His Miscellanies in prose. II. His poetical writings. III. The travels of Capt. Lemuel Gulliver. IV. Papers relating to Ireland, and The Drapier's letters. V. The conduct of the allies, and The examiners. VI. The publick spirit of the Whiggs, &c. with Polite conversation. VII. Letters to and from Dr. Swift. VIII. Directions to servants, sermons, poems, &c”, p.205

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• In India, there are real consequences to inattention; drivers who jeopardize pedestrians can be lynched on the spot.

  Bharati Mukherjee

  Real, India, Spots

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• I would much rather sit, dimmed by inattention, and study the atmosphere and the silence and dance between people, but often times I’m not offered this privilege. The necessity for isolation, and the striving for popularity is the only contradiction I find in being a writer and an actress.

  Masiela Lusha

  People, Silence, Atmosphere

  "REEL Lady: Masiela Lusha". REEL Ladies Interview, reelladies.wordpress.com. September 1, 2008.

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• The Advantage is that mathematics is a field in which one's blunders tend to show very clearly and can be corrected or erased with a stroke of the pencil. It is a field which has often been compared with chess, but differs from the latter in that it is only one's best moments that count and not one's worst. A single inattention may lose a chess game, whereas a single successful approach to a problem, among many which have been relegated to the wastebasket, will make a mathematician's reputation.

  Norbert Wiener

  Success, Math, Games

  "Ex-Prodigy: My Childhood and Youth". Book by Norbert Wiener, 1964.

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• Familiarity breeds contempt only when it breeds inattention.

  George Santayana

  Contempt, Familiarity Breeds Contempt, Familiarity

  George Santayana (2012). “The Sense of Beauty”, p.103, Courier Corporation

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• There are two types of people in this world. People who hate clowns...and clowns. (Bobby Pendragon)

  D. J. MacHale

  Hate, Two, People

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• Simple inattention kills empathy, let alone compassion. So the first step in compassion is to notice the other's need. It all begins with the simple act of attention.

  Daniel Goleman

  Simple, Compassion, Empathy

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• Cultivate the habit of attention and try to gain opportunities to hear wise men and women talk. Indifference and inattention are the two most dangerous monsters that you ever meet. Interest and attention will insure to you an education.

  Robert Andrews Millikan

  Education, Wise, Opportunity

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• Many a good intention dies from inattention. If, through carelessness or indolence, or selfishness, a good intention is not put into effect, we have lost an opportunity, demoralized ourselves, and stolen from the pile of possible good. To be born and not fed, is to perish. To launch a ship and neglect it is to lose it. To have a talent and bury it, is to be a "wicked and slothful servant." For in the end we shall be judged, not alone by what we have done, but by what we could have done.

  Maltbie Davenport Babcock

  Opportunity, Selfishness, Wicked

  Maltbie Davenport Babcock (1901). “Thoughts for Every-day Living from the Spoken and Written Words of Maltbie Davenport Babcock”

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• the apathy and inattention of the average citizen is beyond comprehension.

  Abigail McCarthy

  Average, Apathy, Citizens

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• Our destruction, should it come at all, will be from...the inattention of the people to the concerns of their government, from their carelessness and negligence.

  Daniel Webster

  Government, People, Destruction

  Daniel WEBSTER (1860). “The Union Text Book: Containing Selections from the Writings of D. W.; the Declaration of Independence; and Washington's Farewell Address, Etc”, p.259

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• Adolescents sometimes say..."My friends listen to me, but my parents only hear me talk." Often they are right. Familiarity breeds inattention.

  Laurence Steinberg

  Parent, Sometimes, Listen To Me

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• Be conscious of yourself, watch your mind, give it your full attention. Don't look for quick results; there may be none within your noticing. Unknown to you, your psyche will undergo a change; there will be more clarity in your thinking, charity in your feeling, purity in your behavior. You need not aim at these - you will witness the change all the same. For, what you are now is the result of inattention and what you become will be the fruit of attention.

  Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

  Thinking, Giving, Feelings

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• Training a child is exactly like training a puppy; a little heedless inattention and it is out of hand immediately; the great thing is not to let it acquire bad habits that must afterward be broken.

  Emily Post

  Children, Hands, Broken

  Emily Post (2007). “Etiquette: In Society, in Business, in Politics and at Home”, p.571, Cosimo, Inc.

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• As crowds increase we build our forts of inattention, and the more we talk the easier it is to mean little and listen not at all.

  Frank Moore Colby

  Mean, Crowds, Littles

  Frank Moore Colby (1926). “The Colby essays ...”

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• I go out of my way, but rather by license than carelessness.... It is the inattentive reader
  who loses my subject, not I. Some word about it will always be found off in a corner, which will not fail to be sufficient, though it takes little room.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Reading, Littles, Way

  Michel de Montaigne (1958). “Complete Essays”

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• It is a happy art to know when one has said enough. I would leave my hearers wishing me to say more rather than give them cause toshow, by their inattention, that I had said too much.

  Samuel Richardson

  Art, Giving, Wish

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• Each time a mediocre singer performs, he is saying, in effect, "This is good enough for you." The audience, thrust into that familiar American mood of knowing something is wrong but not knowing what it is, unconsciously absorbs the insult and projects it back onto the mediocre performer in the form of inattention, rudeness and noise.

  Florence King

  Knowing, Mediocrity, Singers

  Florence King (1991). “Lump It Or Leave It”, p.58, Macmillan

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• That the discovery of this great truth, which lies so near and obvious to the mind, should be attained to by the reason of so veryfew, is a sad instance of the stupidity and inattention of men, who, though they are surrounded with such clear manifestations of the Deity, are yet so little affected by them, that they seem as it were blinded with excess of light.

  George Berkeley

  God, Truth, Lying

  George Berkeley (2015). “A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge”, p.85, Sheba Blake Publishing

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