Robert Louis Stevenson Quotes

My life used to be like that game of freeze tag we played as kids. Once tagged, you had to freeze in the position you were in. Whenever something happened, I'd freeze like a statue, too afraid of moving the wrong way, of making the wrong decision. The problem is, if you stand still too long, that's your decision.

If every conceivable precaution is taken at first, one is often too discouraged to proceed at all.

It's easy to start over-thinking things and over-analysing things.

He suffered from paralysis by analysis.

I can't stand the kind of paralysis that some people fall into because they're not happy with the choices they've made.

Having precise ideas often leads to a man doing nothing.

Fear causes hesitation, and hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true.

Sometimes, making the wrong choice is better than making no choice. You have the courage to go forward, that is rare. A person who stands at the fork, unable to pick, will never get anywhere.

Overthinking is often a product of underdoing.

Psychosclerosis: the hardening of the attitude which causes a person to cease dreaming, seeing, thinking, and leading.

Making no decision is a decision. To do nothing. And doing nothing always brings you to nowhere.

The snake which cannot cast its skin has to die. As well the minds which are prevented from changing their opinions; they cease to be mind.

It is idle to dispute with old men. Their opinions, like their cranial sutures, are ossified.

He asked himself those some questions too many times and felt the fears again that kept him where he was

I don't know. I just feel stuck, like I'm afraid to take any steps, in case they're the wrong ones.

Almost any decision is better than no decision at all.

Many a false step is made standing still.

Someone shouts, "Enough!" and I think too much and nothing at all.

Experience is a form of paralysis.

Bunkum and tummyrot! You'll never get anywhere if you go about what-iffing like that. Would Columbus have discovered America if he'd said 'What if I sink on the way over? What if I meet pirates? What if I never come back?' He wouldn't even have started.

Narrowness of mind is often the cause of obstinacy; we do not easily believe beyond what we see.

Smallness of mind is the cause of stubbornness, and we do not credit readily what is beyond our view.

There is nothing more dangerous than a person with only one right answer.

Maybe it was inertia -or worse, fear- that was keeping me in the same place.