Stimulus Quotes

“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”
― Viktor E. Frankl

“The basic stimulus to the intelligence is doubt, a feeling that the meaning of an experience is not self-evident.”
― W.H. Auden, Selected Essays

“There is a tension between what is good for someone and what they want to do. This is because people, especially older people, like to do things as they've always done them. The problem is that when the brain develops ingrained habits, it doesn't need to think anymore. Things get done very quickly and efficiently on automatic pilot, often in a very advantageous way. This creates a tendency to stick to routines, and the only way of breaking these is to confront the brain with new information.”
― Hector Garcia Puigcerver, Ikigai: Los secretos de Japón para una vida larga y feliz

“When there is silence,
Give your voice.
When there is darkness,
Shine your light.
When there is desperation,
Offer hope.”
― Tim Fargo

“Our flesh shrinks from what it dreads and responds to the stimulus of what it desires by a purely reflex action of the nervous system. Our eyelid closes before we are aware that the fly is about to enter our eye.”
― James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

“For every dollar that is spent on the (boondoggle) bridge a dollar will be taken away from taxpayers. If the bridge costs $1,000,000 the taxpayers will lose $1,000, 000. They will have that much taken away from them which they would otherwise have spent on the things they needed most.”
― Henry Hazlitt, Economics in One Lesson

“Necessary policemen, firemen, street cleaners, health officers, judges, legislators and executives perform productive services as important as those of anyone in private industry. They make it possible for private industry to function in an atmosphere of law, order, freedom and peace. But their justification consists in the utility of their services. It does not consist in the "purchasing power" they possess by virtue of being on the public payroll.”
― Henry Hazlitt, Economics in One Lesson

“We are product of neither nature nor nurture; we are a product of choice, because there is always a space between stimulus and response. As we wisely exercise our power to choose based on principles, the space will become larger.
(p. 62)”
― Stephen R. Covey

“A person living in everyone else's style reacts only to stimulus”
― Sunday Adelaja

“Early intervention is essential to overcoming an addictive habit.”
― Asa Don Brown

“It is a scientific fact that time is infinitely divisible, that each moment contains within it the fragments of a thousand others, and each of them can be splintered into a thousand more, and so on and so on. Somewhere then, hidden within these shards of time that occur in the endless instants between the second hand, Cinnabar moved, setting his webbed palm around the pistol at his waist and fanning off two shots. To the subjective observer, however - to Angie and her unfortunate sibling - the salamander's movements were impossible to follow. Before their brains could process the information gathered by their senses, perhaps even before their senses had recognized the stimulus itself, bits of iron had exploded through their skulls and made either act impossible.”
― Daniel Polansky, The Builders

“Composer found himself faced with a public whose attention had to be roused and captivated by more effective means than those to which the older public had responded. Simply because he was afraid of losing contact with his audience, he developed the musical composition into a series of constantly renewed impulsed, and worked it up from one expressive intensity to another.”
― Arnold Hauser, The Social History of Art Volume 3: Rococo, Classicism and Romanticism

“I finished kindergarten and 3 grades in Russia.
I don't really remember anyone talking about religion back there. Over here kids start asking me stupid shit right away... like ARE YOU JEWISH. ARE YOUR PARENTS RICH... obviously not. Now, I have a question for YOU. Are those things supposed to go together somehow? Will you give me lots of money if I give you a little part of penis perhaps? How does that whole Making money out of nothing scheme work exactly? I've been trying to figure this shit out for 20+ years now. Mnuchin promised people like me 1200 bucks a month ago. I still didn't get shit. WTF. Im pretty sure he said "Immediately" TWO MONTHS ago.”
― Dmitry Dyatlov

“The process of delivering funds to individuals and small businesses was riddled with friction and complexity. Many individuals have still not received their stimulus checks from the CARES Act...”
― Forbes

“If you can't handle me when I'm broke, then you sure as Hell don't deserve me when I get my $600 check.”
― Kianu Starr

“If you can't handle me when I'm broke, then you don't deserve me when I get my $600 check.”
― Kianu Starr

“Ever Since I Discovered How Reading Stimulates The Mind's Imagination, I Have Never Stopped Reading”
― James Hauenstein

“We’re asking you to undo years of practice, maybe even eons of genetic shaping that prod you to take flight or pick a fight (when under attack), and recode the stimulus. “Ah, that’s a sign that the other person feels unsafe.” And then what? Do something to make it safe.”
― Kerry Patterson, Crucial Confrontations: Tools for Resolving Broken Promises, Violated Expectations, and Bad Behavior

“If you had caught me in a quiet moment, when [...] stimuli weren’t bombarding me, [and asked me how I was feeling] I would have responded [...]: Something’s not right. I feel unsettled. Everything feels like the same old, same old. Something is missing. [...]

I saw that all of my perceived happiness was really just a reaction to stimuli in the external world that made me feel certain ways. I then understood that I was totally addicted to my environment, and I was dependent on external cues to reinforce my emotional addiction.

What a moment for me. I had heard a million times that happiness comes from within, but it never hit me like this before [...]

Staying busy keeps unwanted emotions at bay. [...] But when we never overcome our limitations and continue carrying the baggage from our past, it will always catch up with us. [...]

[People may try to make all sorts of external environmental changes in] futile efforts to do or try something new so that they can feel better or different. But emotionally, when the novelty wears off, they are still stuck with the same identity. [...]

When we keep that diversion up, guess what eventually happens? We grow more dependent on something outside of us to change us internally. [...]

Nothing outside of us can ever make us happy. [...]
Nothing in our environment is going to “fix” the way we feel. [...]

Let go of the façade, the games, and the illusions. [...]

Happiness comes from within. [...] Once you change your internal state, you don’t need the external world to provide you with a reason to feel joy, gratitude, appreciation, or any other elevated emotion.”
― Joe Dispenza, Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself: How to Lose Your Mind and Create a New One

“The term -stress- is almost always used to refer to a negative stimulus but increases in cortisol also occur during positive and beneficial experiences, such as mating and exercise. Cortisol serves other functions across the soma, including in energy metabolism. Therefore, accurately interpreting changes in cortisol levels requiere knowledge of context, perception and activity levels.”
― Kimberly A. Plomp, Palaeopathology and Evolutionary Medicine: An Integrated Approach