136 Quotes On Focus

In today's fast-paced world, maintaining focus can be a challenge amidst numerous distractions vying for our attention. Yet, the power of a concentrated mind cannot be overstated. Focus is the bedrock of productivity, creativity, and ultimately, success. Whether you're an entrepreneur honing in on a new venture, a student managing rigorous coursework, or simply looking to bring more intention into your daily life, the right kind of inspiration can sharpen your skills. Discover our curated collection of the top 136 quotes on focus, designed to inspire, motivate, and guide you toward achieving your goals with unparalleled clarity and determination. Dive in and let these words serve as your compass on the journey to a more focused and fulfilling life.

1. “Always focus on the front windshield and not the review mirror.” - Colin Powell

2. “Very occasionally, if you pay really close attention, life doesn't suck.” - Joss Whedon

3. “In those days a boy on the classical side officially did almost nothing but classics. I think this was wise; the greatest service we can to education today is to teach few subjects. No one has time to do more than a very few things well before he is twenty, and when we force a boy to be a mediocrity in a dozen subjects we destroy his standards, perhaps for life.” - C.S. Lewis

4. “I didnt pay atteniton to times or distance, instead focusing on how it felt just to be in motion, knowing it wasn't about the finish line but how I got there that mattered.” - Sarah Dessen

5. “...you cannot eat every tadpole and frog in the pond, but you can eat the biggest and ugliest one, and that will be enough, at least for the time being.” - Brian Tracy

6. “Knowing the Techniques of Survival........Our fears and anxieties will often drive us to build impenetrable walls that act like blinders deflecting others and preventing us from seeing who surrounds us. Getting focused to the things that matter are the Key to what has to be to COMPLETE our MISSION. "I Had Every Excuse to Fail but I Chose None" Speak Life!!!(sky)” - Sebastian K. Young

7. “Instead of focusing on how much you can accomplish, focus on how much you can absolutely love what you’re doing.” - Leo Babauta

8. “You only have to do a very few things right in your life so long as you don't do too many things wrong.” - Warren Buffett

9. “Inspiration is the windfall from hard work and focus. Muses are too unreliable to keep on the payroll.” - Helen Hanson

10. “Sometimes, we feel conscious but unable to move our body. The first thing to do is focus in a prayer, then start to wink frequently.By this way, slowly but sure our body can be moved totally by our persistent willpower.” - Toba Beta [Betelgeuse Incident]

11. “Lack of direction, not lack of time, is the problem. We all have twenty-four hour days.” - Zig Ziglar

12. “I guess we speak pretty loosely, don't we, about looking forward to the Ashes and all that—and we are, but it's not with both eyes. We've got one eye on that and one eye on what we need to get in place to make sure we're the best team we can be for November.” - Ricky Ponting

13. “Once out of your cradle, you don't focus on the world in the abstract, perceiving things for the first time, but in synchrony with your accumulated knowledge, which enriches and helps define your experience, as well as ensuring its uniqueness.” - Winifred Gallagher

14. “Horse Frightened by a Lion depicts a majestic stallion in a very different situation. Stubbs painted this magnetic masterpiece to illustrate the nature of the sublime, which was one of his era's most popular philosophical concepts,and its relation to a timelessly riveting feeling: fear. The magnificent horse galloping through a vast wilderness encounters the bottom-up stimulus of a crouching predator and responds with a dramatic display of what psychologists mildly call "negative emotion." The equine superstar's arched neck, dilated eyes, and flared nostrils are in fact the very picture of overwhelming dread. The painting's subject matter reflects he philosopher Edmund Burke's widely circulated Philosophical Enquiry into the Origins of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, which asserts that because "terror" is unparalleled in commanding "astonishment," or total, single-pointed,--indeed, rapt--attention, it is "the ruling principle of the sublime.” - Winifred Gallagher

15. “Consciousness, which is the "reflective" element of Norman's conceptual brain, handles the "higher" functions at the metaphorical tip of the very top of that complicated organ. Because consciousness pays a lot of attention to your thoughts, you tend to identify it with cognition. However, if you try to figure out exactly how you run your business or care for your family, you soon realize that you can't grasp that process just by thinking about it. As Norman puts it, "Consciousness also has a qualitative, sensory feel. If I say, 'I'm afraid,' it's not just my mind talking. My stomach also knots up.” - Winifred Gallagher

16. “this observation leads Rozin to a stunning conclusion: "Disgust is the basic emotion of civilization.” - Winifred Gallagher

17. “Among these temperamentally unhappy campers are "reactant" personalities, who focus on what they often wrongly perceive as others' attempts to control them. In one experiment, some of these touchy individuals were asked to think of two people they knew: a bossy sort who advocated hard work and a mellow type who preached la dolce vita. Then, one of the names was flashed before the subjects too briefly to register in their conscious awareness. Next, the subjects were given a task to perform. Those who had been exposed to the hard-driving name performed markedly worse than those exposed to the easygoing name. Even this weak, subliminal attention to an emotional cue that suggested control was enough to get their reactant backs up and cause them to act to their own disadvantage. All relationships involve give-and-take and cooperation, so a person who habitually attends to ordinary requests or suggestions like a bull to a red flag is in for big trouble in both home and workplace.” - Winifred Gallagher

18. “Where visual artists are concerned, the Baroque sculptor and architect Bernini and the painter and sculptor Picasso were clearly adept at both experiential and instrumental attending, says Tellegen, as is the modern architect Frank Gehry. Choosing a literary example, he says that F. Scott Fitzgerald once admitted to "wrapping one of his romantic flings in cellophane" for later artistic use and notes that "this kind of heartless but honest professionalism is not uncommon among creative people.” - Winifred Gallagher

19. “Over time, a commitment to challenging, focused work and leisure produces not only better daily experience, but also a more complex, interesting person: the long-range benefit of the focused life. As Hobbs put it, the secret of fulfillment is "to choose trouble for oneself in the direction of what one would like to become.” - Winifred Gallagher

20. “Because you actually might not know what activities truly engage your attention and satisfy you, he says, it can be helpful to keep a diary of what you do all day and how you feel while doing it. Then, try to do more of what's rewarding, even if it takes an effort, and less of what isn't. Where optimal experience is concerned, he says, "'I just don't have the time' often means 'I just don't have the self-discipline.” - Winifred Gallagher

21. “After he wrote The Paradox of Choice, Schwartz got fervent amens from European governments as well as individual readers for insisting that the management of your focus has become one of decision-laden modernity's major challenges. Many behavioral economists and social psychologists also share his concern about what he calls "the consequences of mis-attention.” - Winifred Gallagher

22. “Yet he argued that even a tedious topic can take on a certain fascination if you make an effort to look at it afresh: "The subject must be made to show new aspects of itself; to prompt new questions; in a word, to change. From an unchanging subject the attention inevitably wanders away.” - Winifred Gallagher

23. “Recently, the search for what he calls "the splinters that make up different attention problems" has taken Castellanos in a new direction. First, he explains that your brain is far less concerned with your brilliant ideas or searing emotions than with its own internal "gyroscopic busyness," which consumes 65 percent of its total energy. Every fifty seconds, its activity fluctuates, causing what he calls a "brownout." No one knows the purpose of these neurological events, but Castellanos has a thesis: the clockwork pulses enable the brain's circuits to stay "logged on" and available to communicate with one another, even when they're not being used. "Imagine you're a cabdriver on your day off," Castellanos says. "You don't need to use your workday circuits on a Sunday, but to keep those channels open, your brain sends a ping through them every minute or so. The fluctuations are the brain's investment in maintaining its circuits online.” - Winifred Gallagher

24. “Your motivations--get that promotion, throw the best parties, run for public office--aren't impersonal abstractions but powerfully reflect who you are and what you focus on. An individual's goals figure prominently in the theories of personality first developed by the Harvard psychologist Henry Murray. According to his successor David McClelland, what Friedrich Nietzsche called "the will to power," which he considered the major driving force behind human behavior, is one of the three basic motivations, along with achievement and affiliation, that differentiate us as individuals.A simple experiment show show these broad emotional motivations can affect what you pay attention to or ignore on very basic levels. When they examine images of faces that express different kinds of emotion, power-oriented subjects are drawn to nonconfrontational visages, such as "surprise faces," rather than to those that suggest dominance, as "anger faces" do. In contrast, people spurred by affiliation gravitate toward friendly or joyful faces.” - Winifred Gallagher

25. “Temperamentally anxious people can have a hard time staying motivated, period, because their intense focus on their worries distracts them from their goals.” - Winifred Gallagher

26. “The more choices we have, the greater the need for focus.” - Tom Butler-Bowdon

27. “I don't judge people. It blurs out the center of my attention,my focus, myself.” - Toba Beta [Betelgeuse Incident]

28. “Such a simplified lifestyle can be truly wonderful - you'll finally have time for the things you really love, for relaxation, for outdoor activities, for exercise, for reading or finding peace and quiet, for the loved ones in your life, for the things you're most passionate about. This is what it means to thrive - to live a life full of the things you want in them, and not more. To live a better quality of life without having to spend and buy and consume.” - Leo Babauta

29. “Michael wasn't on the pool deck, which was hard for me. None of my old Coral Springs teammates were around. Still, that old plane of cement felt like home. I folded my clothes and put them on the bench. I placed my water bottle under my starting block, and I dove in. Once again, I felt that ultimate state of transition, my feet no longer on the ground, my hands not yet in the water.” - Dara Torres

30. “When you try to persistently abolish hatred,at that very moment...you lose focus on love.” - Toba Beta

31. “You can't get attention of one who focused on himself.” - Toba Beta

32. “Focusing is about saying No.” - Steve Jobs

33. “Find your focus by seeking all that is good in your life.” - Lorii Myers

34. “Hatred can't erase love memories.You need to focus on anything else.” - Toba Beta

35. “You cannot run at full throttle when applying your mindset to all of the different things running through your head. Focusing is the key to manifesting your desires.” - Stephen Richards

36. “He said focus. The word focus. I hear angels singing. Everything goes dark except for a light that beams down on Sean. It is a God-given sign- like when people see the Virgin Mary in their grilled cheese, except this isn't religious and I'm actually not a big fan of dairy. I stare at the back of his head. His HEAD. Something I see every day but never really see because it's been there forever. Since the first day of third grade.I crumple up my web. I don't need it. Praise be, the Focus Gods have spoken.I am going to write about Sean Griswold's Head.” - Lindsey Leavitt

37. “Ah yes, the head is full of books. The hard part is to force them down through the bloodstream and out through the fingers.” - Edward Abbey

38. “I am roots in the earth. I am water that flows. I am grounded. I am Watcher.” - Veronica Wolff

39. “In the game of life, we all receive a set of variables and limitations in the field of play. We can either focus on the lack thereof or empower ourselves to create better realities with the pieces we play the game with.” - T.F. Hodge

40. “I don't spend a lot of time asking "WHY?" Instead I focus on what I should do now or how I should react." (p.180)” - Jeff Dixon-The Key To The Kingdom

41. “Becoming wealthy is about accumulating wealth.” - Stephen Richards

42. “Be yourself and become wealthy!” - Stephen Richards

43. “[T]he success of every novel -- if it's a novel of action -- depends on the high spots. The thing to do is to say to yourself, "What are my big scenes?" and then get every drop of juice out of them."(Interview, The Paris Review, Issue 64, Winter 1975)” - P.G. Wodehouse

44. “There is nothing around me but money, money, money.” - Stephen Richards

45. “It's as if when I open myself up to every perception, things create their own focus.” - Kristin Cashore

46. “There is nothing like suspense and anxiety for barricading a human's mind against the Enemy. He wants men to be concerned with what they do; our business is to keep them thinking about what will happen to them.” - C.S. Lewis

47. “Success will be within your reach only when you start reaching out for it.” - Stephen Richards

48. “If you think you can then you can.” - Stephen Richards

49. “When your back is to the wall and you are facing fear head on, the only way is forward and through it.” - Stephen Richards

50. “When you fail, that is when you get closer to success.” - Stephen Richards

51. “The only time you fail is when you fall down and stay down.” - Stephen Richards

52. “Doing the tough things sets winners apart from losers.” - Stephen Richards

53. “Happiness is something we reap from the seeds we sow. Plant misery seeds and that us what you reap.” - Stephen Richards

54. “Our way of thinking creates good or bad outcomes.” - Stephen Richards

55. “Before you can successfully make friends with others, first you have to become your own friend.” - Stephen Richards

56. “While amidst the crowd and seeking quieteness in another zone you can still get away from them by homing in on matters within.” - Stephen Richards

57. “Happy people produce. Bored people consume.” - Stephen Richards

58. “It occurred to Susan that men were always waiting for something cataclysmic--love or war or a giant asteroid. Every man wanted to be a hot-headed Bruce Willis character, fighting against the evil foreign enemy while despising the domestic bureaucracy. Men just wanted to focus on one big thing, leaving the thousands of smaller messes for the women around them to clean up.” - Bonnie Jo Campbell

59. “The whole concatenation of wild and artificial things, the natural ecosystem as modified by people over the centuries, the build environment layered over layers, the eerie mix of sounds and smells and glimpses neither natural nor crafted- all of it is free for the taking, for the taking in. Take it, take it in, take in more every weekend, every day, and quickly it becomes the theater that intrigues, relaxes, fascinates, seduces, and above all expands any mind focused on it. Outside lies utterly ordinary space open to any casual explorer willing to find the extraordinary. Outside lies unprogrammed awareness that at times becomes directed serendipity. Outside lies magic.” - John Stilgoe

60. “No matter how small you start, always dream big.” - Stephen Richards

61. “Attention is a resource as abundant as sunlight. It streams outward all day long whether we choose to tap into it or not. By developing conscious focus of our attention, we learn to harness one of the greatest creative powers available to humankind, one that happens to be freely available within ourselves at all times.” - Scott Edmund Miller

62. “It is not for me to judge another man's life. I must judge, I must choose, I must spurn, purely for myself. For myself, alone.” - Herman Hesse

63. “What you focus on expands. So focus on what you want, not what you do not want.” - Esther Jno-Charles

64. “He had sprung from a rigid Puritan stock, and had been brought up to think much more intently of the duties of this life than of its privileges and pleasures.” - Henry James

65. “Sometimes we focus so much on what we don't have that we fail to see, appreciate, and use what we do have!” - Jeff Dixon

66. “You must really want to win with all of your heart! Plan your race; do not ever get side tracked. Focus on your goal - “the finishing line”!” - Lucas Remmerswaal

67. “To be a highflier and a name to conjure with, you must decide your dimension, plan your path, master the moment, focus on the future, determine your degree, push your persistence and leadyour life.” - Ifeanyi Enoch Onuoha

68. “Listen for the call of your destiny, and when it comes, release your plans and follow.” - Mollie Marti

69. “Those who row the boat don't have time to rock it while those who rock it don't have time to row it.” - Orrin Woodward

70. “When life gives you lemons, use Cosmic Ordering!” - Stephen Richards

71. “Cosmic Ordering is a dish best served today.” - Stephen Richards

72. “The first law of attraction is use Cosmic Ordering now.” - Stephen Richards

73. “If you weren’t born with a silver spoon in your mouth, use Cosmic Ordering.” - Stephen Richards

74. “When you use Cosmic Ordering you will move from cloud nine to cloud ten.” - Stephen Richards

75. “With Cosmic Ordering you will never eat humble pie again.” - Stephen Richards

76. “Cosmic Ordering is a licence to print money.” - Stephen Richards

77. “The proof of the pudding is in the Cosmic Ordering.” - Stephen Richards

78. “No more need to rob Peter to pay Paul with Cosmic Ordering.” - Stephen Richards

79. “There is no eleventh hour with Cosmic Ordering, only the golden hour.” - Stephen Richards

80. “Believe and achieve with Cosmic Ordering.” - Stephen Richards

81. “Some people only dream of success… while others wake up and use Cosmic Ordering.” - Stephen Richards

82. “Cosmic Ordering success sticks to you like mud to a blanket.” - Stephen Richards

83. “On the road to success some will always expect tragedy ... ditch your doubts and experience success with Cosmic Ordering.” - Stephen Richards

84. “Whatever your desire, use Cosmic Ordering to get what you require!” - Stephen Richards

85. “In the beginning man was poor, then along came Cosmic Ordering.” - Stephen Richards

86. “A clever person solves a problem; a wise person uses Cosmic Ordering!” - Stephen Richards

87. “The only secret of wealth creation is knowing how to use Cosmic Ordering.” - Stephen Richards

88. “Human beings are incredibly slow, Cosmic Ordering is incredibly fast!” - Stephen Richards

89. “Twenty years from now you will be disappointed you never used Cosmic Ordering today.” - Stephen Richards

90. “Everybody talks about being rich, Cosmic Ordering does something about it.” - Stephen Richards

91. “A man may fail many times, and then he turns to Cosmic Ordering.” - Stephen Richards

92. “Often the only difference between success and failure is not using Cosmic Ordering.” - Stephen Richards

93. “The universe is full of magical things to be manifested with Cosmic Ordering.” - Stephen Richards

94. “Fear   Only  Constraints  Undeveloped                       Strength                      where your eyes look to within,                      is what your heart will believe.” - Anthony Liccione

95. “The camera has always been a guide, and it's allowed me to see things and focus on things that maybe an average person wouldn't even notice.” - Don Chadwick

96. “Keep your eyes on the prize for you cant hit an unseen target but don't forget to pay the price” - Bernard Kelvin Clive

97. “A tenacious grip on our own ideals, irrespective of hurdles, would propel us towards self-actualization!” - Deeba Salim Irfan

98. “Create your own miracles, don't just wait for miracles to happen. Infinite possibilities exist by keeping focus on what you really want.” - Steven Redhead

99. “With sticky thinking you can become unstuck!” - Stephen Richards

100. “Tell me your story and I will get back your life.” - Stephen Richards

101. “Willful blindness sees no end of damage done.” - Stephen Richards

102. “To make 2013 (or any other)your year, keep it simple:1) Count your blessings first2) Whatever you did last year, Do it better3) Go step by step, One day at a time.4) Create/make your own opportunities.5) Believe in your abilities at all times,6) Qutting is not an option. Keep Going.7) Finish what you started” - Pablo

103. “Be focused in what you do and what you say. There is much noise in the world to detrack you.” - Moazzam Shaikh

104. “In order to pick something up, you've got to put something down.” - Todd Stocker

105. “Focus on the highest, clearest, and most meaningful teaching you can find, and let all else go.” - Alan Cohen

106. “It's not always that we need to do more but rather that we need to focus on less.” - Nathan W. Morris

107. “We spend a lot of time trying to get more and more things, not realizing that those things can never fulfill us. Learn from those who have gone before you - stuff can never satisfy your desires, so focus on THE ONE who can.” - Osayi Osar-Emokpae

108. “I’ve got a question for you… Are you the person who you thought you’d be by now? I know I am not. The fact is that life may not be what you thought it would be by now (If It is, I congratulate you & applaud you) You may feel stuck in a job you don’t like, not making enough money, jobless, or maybe you are in a bad relationship/marriage, or unhappy because you are out of shape…but don’t let that get you down.The key is 2 focus on what you have (Health,Fam,friends etc) instead of what you don’t have. And also in the things that you have done (Finished a Race-College/Got that Diploma/Raise a Family etc) Instead of the things you haven’t done. yetIF where you are now, it’s not where you want to be…know that where you’re going is far more important than where you are now or where you’ve been.Forgive yourself, Accept the current situation & MOVE ON, knowing that from now on you will focus your time & energy on the possibilities & opportunities that lie ahead 4 you in the near future.” - Pablo

109. “Sophia was asked to speak to the students of a local medical school. “Sophia, what do we need to be better doctors?” the students asked. “Doctors,” Sophia said, “need strong stomachs and strong powers of observation.” Then she opened a canister. The putrid smell quickly moved through the classroom. Sophia stuck a finger in the jar, pulled it up, and then licked it. She passed the jar around encouraging each doctor in training to do the same. Each did, and though many felt nauseas, no one got sick. “You all have very strong stomachs,” she said. “But your powers of observation need some work.” “What do you mean?” they asked. “We did just what you did.” “There is one difference,” she replied. “The finger I dipped in the jar was not the finger I licked.” - David W. Jones

110. “Activities such as chanting, bowing, and sitting in zazen are not at all wasted, even when done merely formally, for even this superficial encounter with the Dharma will have some wholesome outcome at a later time. However, it must be said in the most unambiguous terms that this is not real Zen. To follow the Dharma involves a complete reorientation of one's life in such a way that one's activities are manifestations of, and are filled with, a deeper meaning. If it were not otherwise, and merely sitting in zazen were enough, every frog in the pond would be enlightened, as one Zen master said. Dōgen Zenji himself said that one must practice Zen with the attitude of a person trying to extinguish a fire in his hair. That is, Zen must be practiced with an attitude of single-minded urgency.” - Francis Harold Cook

111. “No matter what your wishes, they are not crazy so long as they are not crazy to you!” - Stephen Richards

112. “Make the goal huge and you cannot miss!” - Stephen Richards

113. “Focus is the soul of success.” - Sandeep Kakkar

114. “Whatever else in the Bible catches your eye, do not let it distract you from Him.” - J.I. Packer

115. “Often success goes hand-in-hand with the sum total of sexual activity in your life.” - Stephen Richards

116. “You put yourself where you are, and if you find yourself unsatisfied with how you are, then get yourself out of it.” - Stephen Richards

117. “To control your life, control your mind. To control your mind, control your breath.” - Stephen Richards

118. “Your life is in your hands. Only YOU have the capacity to turn it into a rosy path or a thorn filled one. Increase your vibrational output with Cosmic Ordering and your future will be rosy.” - Stephen Richards

119. “Everyone defends his treasure, and will do so automatically.The real questions are, what do you treasure, and how much do you treasure it? Once you have learned to consider these questions and to bring them into all your actions, you will have little difficulty in clarifying the means. The means are available whenever you ask. You can, however, save time if you do not protract this step unduly. The correct focus will shorten it immeasurably.” - Helen Shucman

120. “The ability to focus is the key separation point between those who move ahead and those who fall behind.” - Orrin Woodward

121. “As long as you allow your past to haunt you, you'll never be free to pursue your future. You won't even be able to focus on your present.” - Brian Klemmer

122. “May our eyes focus rightly on Christ ... before the need to please others, before church, and before the busyness of Christian life. Those things will surely have their place, but they will be most valuable if put in their proper position.” - Traci LaRussa

123. “I make love with a focus and intensity that most people reserve for sleep.” - Dark Jar Tin Zoo

124. “I BELIEVE EVERYONE IS SPECIAL . . . BUT SOME PEOPLE THINK . . . . IT'S JUST ANOTHER WAY OF SAYING NO-ONE IS” - ASHISH RANJAN

125. “When the zone calls, you must listen. You never know how long being in the zone lasts. It is a cardinal rule - you must take advantage of every second that you are in the zone.” - John Passaro

126. “Focusing on what you don’t want instead of focusing on what do want gets you nowhere. Negativity makes a horrible motivator. Decide what you want and move in that direction.” - Steve Maraboli

127. “If you are in a prison of fear ... break out!” - Stephen Richards

128. “When you know who you are, you know what to do.” - Shelley Hendrix

129. “Urgent equals ephemeral, and ephemeral equals unimportant.” - John le Carré

130. “Don't look at the present storm, but look to the Son coming.” - Anthony Liccione

131. “Yesterday's shortcuts are today's nightmares. The race is quicker when we're stricter. Keep your eyes on today, and declare what you may.” - Mark O'Brien

132. “Be on guard. The road widens, and many of the detours are seductive.” - David Foster Wallace

133. “Long before they had ever met, I think this destiny awaited them. They were not like ships passing in the night. It wasn't like they didn't understand each other. They understood each other better than anyone else, and each was focused solely on the other.” - Gen Urobuchi

134. “Don’t compromise your focus by comparing what you are trying to learn to what you already know. Focus in the moment, on what you are trying to learn now.” - Lorii Myers

135. “Own 100 percent of your focus. The most challenging of endurance drills will bring you to a level of optimal mental and physical performance.” - Lorii Myers

136. “Positive thinking without any thought is wasted ...” - Stephen Richards