Preoccupations Quotes

We will discuss ... the current security preoccupations in the world and how we co-operate better on the (United Nations) Security Council. - Tony Blair

There are a combination of forces which could be positive, on net. The market's been held hostage by the election and Iraq, and those may at least temporarily fade as preoccupations if better economic news takes hold. - William Hummer

The passionate controversies of one era are viewed as sterile preoccupations by another, for knowledge alters what we seek as well as what we find. - Freda Adler

Self-absorption in all its forms kills empathy, let alone compassion. When we focus on ourselves, our world contracts as our problems and preoccupations loom large. But when we focus on others, our world expands. Our own problems drift to the periphery of the mind and so seem smaller, and we increase our capacity for connection - or compassionate action. - Daniel Goleman

Leaders can express the values that hold the society together. Most important, they can conceive and articulate goals that life people out of their petty preoccupations, carry them above the conflicts that tear a society apart, and unite them in the pursuit of objectives worthy of their best efforts. - John W. Gardner

It is the individual only who is timeless. Societies, cultures, and civilizations /past and present /are often incomprehensible to outsiders, but the individual's hungers, anxieties, dreams, and preoccupations have remained unchanged through the millennia. - Eric Hoffer

Idle people are often bored and bored people, unless they sleep a lot, are cruel. It is not accident that boredom and cruelty are great preoccupations in our time. - Renata Adler

I wanted to reimagine the role, in a way that was respectful of its traditional responsibilities but made them part of a wider pattern of poetry about national incidents, events, preoccupations; and to spend a great deal of time going to schools trying to demystify poetry. - Andrew Motion

Europe has to address people's needs directly and reflect their priorities, not our own preoccupations. - Peter Mandelson

Education came to be one of the great preoccupations, enlightenment was viewed as the greatest single opportunity to escape . . . . Parents made untold sacrifice to secure learning for their children that they had been denied. - John Hope Franklin