Every man is the architect of his own life. He builds it just the way he wants it. However, after he has built what he wants, he sometimes decides that he doesn’t like what he has built and looks for someone or something to blame instead of changing himself.
The greatest task before civilization at present is to make machines what they ought to be, the slaves, instead of the masters of men.
War is an instrument entirely inefficient toward redressing wrong; and multiplies, instead of indemnifying losses.
The whole idea of a stereotype is to simplify. Instead of going through the problem of all this great diversity – that it’s this or maybe that – you have just one large statement; it is this.
My parents were involved in community theater in New Jersey. Instead of hiring a baby sitter, they would take me with them. So my love of acting seeped in from watching my parents and seeing them having fun.
I want to live perfectly above the law, and make it my servant instead of my master.
We know there’s no use in getting miserable, so we go out on the town instead!
I could have made a small film and kept all the money from ‘Life is Beautiful’. Instead, I spent more money than I had on ‘Pinocchio’, a very risky film.
Investigations during the last few decades have brought hydrogen instead of carbon, and instead of CO2 water, the mother of all life, into the foreground.
Sometimes the biggest problem is in your head. You’ve got to believe you can play a shot instead of wondering where your next bad shot is coming from.
Hollywood is a place where they place you under contract instead of under observation.
I know that when I get stressed, I want to eat junk food. So now I just know – ‘I’m stressed, I want to eat junk food, so I’m going to go work out instead, or eat something healthy.’ It really works.
Instead of large-scale occupations, we should rely on small units of Special Forces who have proved it’s infinitely more effective to work with a country’s soldiers and citizens at eye level.
It is an honor and a privilege to be of service and support; however, I realize people are not putting their confidence in me. Instead, they are actually learning to trust themselves. My job is to affirm and support them in the process and teach them to do what I do when I need strength: I begin within.
When people criticize me, instead of putting my head down, it gives me energy to do even more.
I think everyone can recognize the one-upmanship and the competition that go on wherever you are, especially among groups where the women don’t have to hold down office jobs and instead get in a total snit about who won the longest carrot contest or took first prize for summer chutney in the August fete.
If you got a vibe with a producer I think you should go full-fledged instead of being satisfied with two songs.
My dreams of NHL glory were never fulfilled so I had to settle for politics instead.
Instead of being concerned that you have no office, be concerned to think how you may fit yourself for office. Instead of being concerned that you are not known, seek to be worthy of being known.
The issue is not abortion. The issue is whether women can make up their own mind instead of some right-wing pastor, some right-wing politician telling them what to do.
If you were to see me as a cheerleader, that would mean I was only watching instead of thinking.
One of the big questions in the climate change debate: Are humans any smarter than frogs in a pot? If you put a frog in a pot and slowly turn up the heat, it won’t jump out. Instead, it will enjoy the nice warm bath until it is cooked to death. We humans seem to be doing pretty much the same thing.
Instead of focusing on, ‘Oh, there’s a black lady who plays videogames,’ focus on that there’s another person out there who loves the same stuff that you do.
I was accepted to multiple fashion schools. But I had two kids when I was a teenager. My kids’ mom already had two kids when she was still in high school. So I had to be in the streets early. Instead of going to fashion school, I took the street route.
I have no interest in feeling like a trophy. Money itself has never been attractive to me; instead, I prefer ambition and integrity.
Failure is not a single, cataclysmic event. You don’t fail overnight. Instead, failure is a few errors in judgement, repeated every day.
Men should stop treating feminists like ladies, and instead treat them like the men they say they want to be.
When asked to explain this space, I often ask people to forget pretty much everything you’ve heard about blockchains, crypto-currencies, and bitcoin, and instead dumb it down a lot and think about something no more complex or intimidating than good old-fashioned database technology.
Uber is efficiency with elegance on top. That’s why I buy an iPhone instead of an average cell phone, why I go to a nice restaurant and pay a little bit more. It’s for the experience.
If atheism solved all human woe, then the Soviet Union would have been an empire of joy and dancing bunnies instead of the land of corpses.
Instead of holding grudges, it’s better to learn from the bad experiences.
Illusions commend themselves to us because they save us pain and allow us to enjoy pleasure instead. We must therefore accept it without complaint when they sometimes collide with a bit of reality against which they are dashed to pieces.
There are very few people who are going to look into the mirror and say, ‘That person I see is a savage monster;’ instead, they make up some construction that justifies what they do.
We will be safer from terrorist attack only when we have earned the respect of all other nations instead of their fear, respect for our values and not merely our weapons.
If you look at Washington right now, we do not have a system that the Founding Fathers envisioned, where people go to Washington and be part of the servant class. Instead, we have a permanent political class that fashions itself the rulers of the people.
I’m not a stand-up comedian by any means, but I do think it’s tougher for a woman to go to that territory because it does make people go, ‘Aww,’ instead of laughing.
And for all my rampant technological optimism, sometimes I think I’d be more comfortable if I were regarding these transcendental events from one thousand years remove… instead of twenty.
Some people call this artificial intelligence, but the reality is this technology will enhance us. So instead of artificial intelligence, I think we’ll augment our intelligence.
We need to be around our families not because we have so many shared experiences to talk about, but instead because they know precisely which subjects to avoid.
Let love flow so that it cleanses the world. Then man can live in peace, instead of the state of turmoil he has created through his past ways of life, with all those material interests and earthly ambitions.
I had once thought I would become a doctor but gave up on the thought soon enough. I took up the racquet instead. Later, when I saw my sister studying so much to become a doctor, I was like, ‘Thank God I am a shuttler!’
What’s different about the Gospel of Thomas is that, instead of focusing entirely on who Jesus is and the wonderful works of Jesus, it focuses on how you and I can find the kingdom of God, or life in the presence of God.
I’m probably an actor that tends to, instead of putting things on, think about it more in terms of taking away what’s not in the character, until I’m left with what is. If that makes sense. That’s probably a particularly American way of working, but maybe not. The end of any movie is a readjustment.
One of the most tragic things I know about human nature is that all of us tend to put off living. We are all dreaming of some magical rose garden over the horizon instead of enjoying the roses that are blooming outside our windows today.
I’ve always remembered something Sanford Meisner, my acting teacher, told us. When you create a character, it’s like making a chair, except instead of making someting out of wood, you make it out of yourself. That’s the actor’s craft – using yourself to create a character.
I want young girls to dream about being professional soccer players instead of just watching the boys go out and play.
Every government program needs to be more efficient. Instead of pointing out how other programs can tighten their belts, every program administrator must look inward to save money.
I do think one success of Northern Europe, which the United States came from, was its willingness to accept innovation in business practices like Adam Smith and the whole Enlightenment. It essentially made the merchant class free instead of controlled by the king and aristocracy. That was essential.
A lot of the problems I had with fame I was bringing on myself. A lot of self-loathing, a lot of woe-is-me. Now I’m learning to see the positive side of things, instead of, like, ‘I can’t go to Kmart. I can’t take my kids to the haunted house.’
Lets take away the incentives to do ‘to’ patients and instead create incentives to do ‘for’ patients, to be ‘with’ patients. We don’t need to do comparative effectiveness trials to see if that works; we can just ask patients.
The mistake British comedians often make is trying to beat the Americans at their own game – getting visiting American singers on their shows, talking about ‘sidewalk’ instead of ‘pavement,’ sitting on high stools in a white dinner jacket doing ballads. That way, you simply end up with a mid-Atlantic mishmash.
