Mort Sahl Quotes

You have to say what comes into your head, and sometimes the wrong words come, in the wrong order or I'd make prophecies which immediately turned out to be wrong.

It is a common experience that a problem difficult at night is resolved in the morning after the committee of sleep has worked on it.

Sometimes when people are under stress, they hate to think, and it's the time when they most need to think.

When the brain is silent, the executive function, which is this part of the brain that makes decisions, can work much better. So when you get quiet, you make better decisions. You're also more rested - you're not as reactive.

Sometimes it just becomes so technical that you forget what you're doing. If you start thinking about how you come down the stairs and think about how each muscle is working, you can't go down the stairs. Anyway, I'm a person who overthinks and overanalyzes everything, so if you give me one thought, it creates a lot more.

The ability to remain calm and focused in stressful situations is central to making positive decisions.

If you can get rid of the emotion and concentrate on the problem, you can solve the problem.

I have always tended to over-think things and that had come into my game. That's good in certain moments but not when you have to make a quick decision.

Without our emotions, we can't make smart decisions.

I think it works differently for everyone. Some people do amazing things with research, but for me, it just gets convoluted, and I start to think too much.

Basically, I have to stop overthinking.

I found that cardiovascular exercise boosts my mental performance. If I have a problem to solve, like an engineering one, and I get on a treadmill, then time disappears; all I know is an hour later I'm all sweaty and the problem has been solved.

In late 1999, I was walking down Ventura Boulevard in Sherman Oaks with my late producing partner Sharyn Lane after a day of editing 'Sordid Lives.' We passed the Psychic Book Store and decided to go in and get a reading. We weren't believers, but what the hell? We needed a sign.

The consciousness-expanding drugs - the hallucinogens, such as cannabis, mescaline, LSD, Psylocybin - I think are useful to a writer up to a certain point. That is, they open psychic areas that would not otherwise be available to the writer. But I feel that once these areas have been opened and the writer has reached them, he is able to get back there in the future without the drug.

People with military experience seem to do very well in these situations. They've been taught that they can control their destiny, which is half the battle. They also have some experience in getting out of bad situations even if just through training. They know they have to make a plan and follow it and execute it.

Give your problem all the thought you possibly can before a solution is reached. But when the matter is settled and over with, worry not at all.

Suddenly all is quiet. The other nine players? They're all moving in slow motion! I'm at normal speed! I know where everyone's going even before they know themselves. The basket is huge, maybe six feet across! How can I miss? It's like throwing a rock into a pond.

It is the very essence of intelligence to coordinate means with a view to a remote end, and to undertake what it does not feel absolutely sure of carrying out.

Everything psychic is pregnant with the future.

Holmes serves as an ideal model of how we can learn to see and think better.

Sleep can completely change your entire outlook on life. One good night's sleep can help you realize that you shouldn't break up with someone, or you are being too hard on your friend, or you actually will win the race or the game or get the job. Sleep helps you win at life.

New organs of perception come into being as a result of necessity. Therefore, O man, increase your necessity, so that you may increase your perception.

As intuition grows, the need to make problems and see complications starts to dwindle.

The effects of mescalin or LSD can be, in some respects, far more satisfying than those of alcohol. To begin with, they last longer; they also leave behind no hangover, and leave the mental faculties clear and unimpaired. They stimulate the faculties and produce the ideal ground for a peak experience.

The calmer thought is not always the right thought, just as the distant view is not always the truest view