Mary Parker Follett Quotes

Mathematicians have a certain type of mind, and climbers have a certain type of mind, because climbing poses these incredibly interesting problems for them.

I used my mind, and then eventually the method I used allowed me to master my craft.

The critical mind is the creative mind.

In mathematics, the art of asking questions is more valuable than solving problems.

If we are to use our minds rightly, we must live in an attitude of constant openness and learning.

you must be careful never to allow doubt to paralyze you. always take the decisions you need to take, even if you're not sure you're doing the right thing. You'll never go wrong if, when you make a decision, you keep in mind an old German proverb: 'The devil is in the detail.' Remember that proverb and you'll always be able to turn a wrong decision into a right one.

He was a 'how' thinker, not an 'if' thinker.

Remember, there is no situation so completely hopeless that something constructive cannot be done about it. When faced with a minus, ask yourself what you can do to make it a plus. A person practicing this attitude will extract undreamed-of outcomes from the most unpromising situations. Realize that there are no hopeless situations; there are only people who take hopeless attitudes.

The most important factor in the training of good mental habits consists in acquiring the attitude of suspended conclusion, and in mastering the various methods of searching for new materials to corroborate or to refute the first suggestions that occur.

The grand result of schooling is a mind with just vision to discern, with free force to do: the grand schoolmaster is Practice.

That is the trouble with many inventors; they lack patience. They lack the willingness to work a thing out slowly and clearly and sharply in their mind, so that they can actually "feel it work." They want to try their first idea right off; and the result is they use up lots of money and lots of good material, only to find eventually that they are working in the wrong direction. We all make mistakes, and it is better to make them before we begin.

The 1st question the effective decision-maker asks is: 'Is this a generic situation or an exception?'

All interpretations made by a scientist are hypotheses, and all hypotheses are tentative. They must forever be tested and they must be revised if found to be unsatisfactory. Hence, a change of mind in a scientist, and particularly in a great scientist, is not only not a sign of weakness but rather evidence for continuing attention to the respective problem and an ability to test the hypothesis again and again.

Once you encourage the thought of compassion in your mind, once it becomes active, then your attitude towards others changes automatically.

Think about every problem, every challenge, we face. The solution to each starts with education.

The capacity to reason is a special sort of capacity because it can lead us to places that we did not expect to go.

There is no scientific antidote, only education. You've got to change the way people think. I am not interested in disarmament talks between nations . . . What I want to do is to disarm the mind. After that, everything else will automatically follow. The ultimate weapon for such mental disarmament is international education.

To appropriately respond to an emergency requires a very clear mind, to cooly analyze what the observations are and how to fix it.

The game of Chess is not merely an idle amusement; several very valuable qualities of the mind are to be acquired and strengthened by it, so as to become habits ready on all occasions, for life is a kind of chess.

There is no such thing as talent, only awareness.

The task is not so much to solve problems as to propose questions.

Approach each new problem not with a view of finding what you hope will be there, but to get the truth.

You collect as much information as you can and then you put it into the mulberry of your mind and hope that you come up with a decent wine. Sometimes you do; sometimes you don't.

To develop thinking as a skill, it should be deliberate, focused, confident, and enjoyable.

It is impossible to live without brains, either one's own or borrowed.