“If we describe someone we dislike intensely, a single state-ment usually does it. But if, instead, we are forced to describe the person in great detail, eventually there will be some quality we appreciate.” — Ellen J. Langer Copy Share Image
“If we examine what is behind our desires, we can usually get what we want without compromising: love, caring, confidence, respectability, excitement. Compromising is… — Ellen J. Langer Copy Share Image
“Most tasks are not inherently pleasant or unpleasant, but an evaluation imposed on a task carries such a presumption. Virtually any activity can be… — Ellen J. Langer Copy Share Image
“The hefty price for accepting information uncritically is that we go through life unaware that what we’ve accepted as impossible may in fact be… — Ellen J. Langer Copy Share Image
“Our life is what our thoughts make it. —Marcus Aurelius, Meditations” — Ellen J. Langer Copy Share Image
“the promise of a big payoff diminishes our appreciation of the present situation” — Ellen J. Langer Copy Share Image
“The way we first take in information (that is, mindfully or mindlessly) determines how we will use it later.” — Ellen J. Langer Copy Share Image
“It is by logic that we prove. It is by intuition that we discover," said the mathematician Henri Poincare.l” — Ellen J. Langer Copy Share Image
“When we notice new things, we become mindful, and mindfulness begets more mindfulness. The more mindful we become, the more we see ourselves as… — Ellen J. Langer Copy Share Image
“It is not primarily our physical selves that limit us but rather our mindset about our physical limits.” — Ellen J. Langer Copy Share Image
“mindful approach to any activity has three characteristics: the continuous creation of new categories; openness to new information; and an implicit awareness of more… — Ellen J. Langer Copy Share Image
“If we describe someone we dislike intensely, a single state-ment usually does it. But if, instead, we are forced to describe the person in… — Ellen J. Langer Copy Share Image
“An awareness of alternatives at the early stages of learning a skill gives a conditional quality to the learning, which, again, increases mindfulness.” — Ellen J. Langer Copy Share Image
“Florida Scott-Maxwell, a Jungian analyst who did not begin her training until midlife, began writing a private notebook at the age of eighty-two, in… — Ellen J. Langer Copy Share Image
