concentration

The dangers of a concentration of all power in the general government of a confederacy so vast as ours are too obvious to be disregarded.

Do stuff. be clenched, curious. Not waiting for inspiration's shove or society's kiss on your forehead. Pay attention. It's all about paying attention. attention is vitality. It connects you with others. It makes you eager. stay eager.

Mental attitude and concentration are the keys to pitching.

She was dark-haired, fierce; she wore two drop earrings made of crystal; her face was a pure oval tickled with dimples; her skin was golden; and her laugh was like a fire in the night. But on her face you could also read the concentration of a soul whose life is entirely inward, and a mischievous gravity which acquires a silver patina with age.

If you want to concentrate deeply on some problem, and especially some piece of writing or paper-work, you should acquire a cat. Alone with the cat in the room where you work ... the cat will invariably get up on your desk and settle placidly under the desk lamp ... The cat will settle down and be serene, with a serenity that passes all understanding. And the tranquility of the cat will gradually come to affect you, sitting there at your desk, so that all the excitable qualities that impede your concentration compose themselves and give your mind back the self-command it has lost. You need not watch the cat all the time. Its presence alone is enough. The effect of a cat on your concentration is remarkable, very mysterious.

We know that attention acts as a lightning rod. Merely by concentrating on something one causes endless analogies to collect around it, even penetrate the boundaries of the subject itself: an experience that we call coincidence, serendipity _ the terminology is extensive. My experience has been that in these circular travels what is really significant surrounds a central absence, an absence that, paradoxically, is the text being written or to be written.

Attention to a subject depends upon our interest in it.

I can't concentrate on golf or bowling. Those bowling pins aren't going to hurt me. I can concentrate in the ring because someone is trying to kill me.

No horse gets anywhere until he is harnessed. No steam or gas ever drives anything until it is confined. No Niagara is ever turned into light and power until it is tunneled. No life ever grows great until it is focused dedicated disciplined.

A full mind is an empty baseball bat.

I've learned ruthless concentration. I can write under any circumstances ... street noises loud talk music you name it.

To do two things at once is to do neither.

The ability to concentrate and to use your time well is everything.

Choice of attention to pay attention to this and ignore that is to the inner life what choice of action is to the outer.

The immature mind hops from one thing to another the mature mind seeks to follow through.

I like to laugh but on the court it is my work. I try to smile but it is so difficult. I concentrate on the ball not on my face.

When I come into a game in the bottom of the ninth bases loaded no one out and a one-run lead ... it takes people off my mind.

The perplexity of life arises from there being too many interesting things in it for us to be interested properly in any of them.