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For If I Do Something, I Never Do It Thoughtlessly.
-Diane Ackerman
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For If I Do

Diane Ackerman
...
For If I Do Something, I Never Do It Thoughtlessly.

Understanding the Quote: "for if i do something, i never do it thoughtlessly...."

This quote by Diane Ackerman reflects deeply on the theme of ifs. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Ifs, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how Diane Ackerman interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About Diane Ackerman

Diane Ackerman is celebrated for insightful thoughts on ifs and motivation. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

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Topic
Ifs
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I Believe Consciousness Is Brazenly Physical, A Raucous Mirage The Brain Creates To Help Us Survive.
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When I Go Biking, I Am Mentally Far Far Away From Civilization. The World Is Breaking Someone Else's Heart.
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The More We Exile Ourselves From Nature, The More We Crave Its Miracle Waters.
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An Animal On A Leash Is Not Tamed By The Owner. The Owner Is Extending Himself Through The Leash To That Part Of His Personality Which Is Pure Dog, That Part Of Him Which Just Wants To Eat, Sleep, Bark, Hump Chairs, Wet The Floor In Joy, And Drink Out Of A Toilet Bowl.
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In The Absence Of Touching And Being Touched, People Of All Ages Can Sicken And Grow Touched Starved. Touch Seems To Be As Essential As Sunlight.
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We Evolved As Creatures Knitted Into The Fabric Of Nature, And Without Its Intimate Truths, We Can Find Ourselves Unraveling.
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Look At Your Feet. You Are Standing In The Sky. When We Think Of The Sky, We Tend To Look Up, But The Sky Actually Begins At The Earth. We Walk Through It, Yell Into It, Rake Leaves, Wash The Dog, And Drive Cars In It. We Breathe It Deep Within Us. With Every Breath, We Inhale Millions Of Molecules Of Sky, Heat Them Briefly, And Then Exhale Them Back Into The World.
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Devising A Vocabulary For Gardening Is Like Devising A Vocabulary For Sex. There Are The Correct Latin Names, But Most People Invent Euphemisms. Those Who Refer To Plants By Latin Name Are Considered More Expert, If A Little Pedantic.
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Our Sense Of Safety Depends On Predictability, So Anything Living Outside The Usual Rules We Suspect To Be An Outlaw, A Ghoul.
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Habitats Keep Evolving New Pageants Of Species, And We Shouldn't Interfere.
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Who Would Deduce The Dragonfly From The Larva, The Iris From The Bud, The Lawyer From The Infant? ...we Are All Shape-shifters And Magical Reinventors. Life Is Really A Plural Noun, A Caravan Of Selves.
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Hurricane Season Brings A Humbling Reminder That, Despite Our Technologies, Most Of Nature Remains Unpredictable.
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For If I Do Something, I Never Do It Thoughtlessly.
Ifs
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I Try To Give Myself Passionately, Totally, To Whatever I'm Observing, With As Much Affectionate Curiosity As I Can Muster, As A Means Of Understanding A Little Better What Being Human Is.
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Despite Not Knowing If What He Felt From Moment To Moment Would Pass Or Last Forever, He Entered Fully Into His Shifting States Of Violent Rage, Self-pity, Longing, Heartbreak, Cynicism, Without Losing The Ability To Think About What Was Happening To Him. That Took Courage, I Thought, Living With The Suffering In A Mindful Way, As An Artifact Of Being, Neither Good Nor Bad.
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Flying
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Memories
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Birth
Odd
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Unrest
Logic
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Knees
Wonder
Ricochet
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Kissing
Singing
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Life Is
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Mind
Wrecks
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Dog
Horse
Cat
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Memories
Men
Lost
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Brain
Neurons
We Tend To Think Of Memories As Monuments We Once Forged And May Find Intact Beneath The Weedy Growth Of Years. But, In A Real Sense, Memories Are Tied To And Describe The Present. Formed In An Idiosyncratic Way When They Happened, They're Also True To The Moment Of Recall, Including How You Feel, All You've Experienced, And New Values, Passions, And Vulnerability. One Never Steps Into The Same Stream Of Consciousness Twice.
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Real
Passion
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Thug
Habit
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Animal Rights
Species
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Shopping
Tree
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Bones
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Compassion
Artificial Intelligence Is Growing Up Fast, As Are Robots Whose Facial Expressions Can Elicit Empathy And Make Your Mirror Neurons Quiver.
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Mirrors
Expression
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Animal
Errands
Wonder
When You Consider Something Like Death, After Which (there Being No News Flash To The Contrary) We May Well Go Out Like A Candle Flame, Then It Probably Doesn't Matter If We Try Too Hard, Are Awkward Sometimes, Care For One Another Too Deeply, Are Excessively Curious About Nature, Are Too Open To Experience, Enjoy A Nonstop Expense Of The Senses In An Effort To Know Life Intimately And Lovingly.
Flames
Life And Death
Effort
We Can't Enchant The World, Which Makes Its Own Magic; But We Can Enchant Ourselves By Paying Deep Attention
Magic
Attention
World
I'm Certainly Not Opposed To Digital Technology, Whose Graces I Daily Enjoy And Rely On In So Many Ways. But I Worry About Our Virtual Blinders.
Technology
Worry
Grace
Everyone Admits That Love Is Wonderful And Necessary, Yet No One Agrees On Just What It Is.
Missing You
Sweet
Falling In Love
In Rare Moments Of Deep Play, We Can Lay Aside Our Sense Of Self, Shed Time's Continuum, Ignore Pain, And Sit Quietly In The Absolute Present, Watching The World's Ordinary Miracles. No Mind Or Heart Hobbles. No Analyzing Or Explaining. No Questing For Logic. No Promises. No Goals. No Relationships. No Worry. One Is Completely Open To Whatever Drama May Unfold.
Fun
Pain
Drama
Adventure Is Not Something You Travel To Find. It's Something You Take With You, Or You're Not Going To Find It When You Arrive.
Travel
Adventure
Fear Is Danger To Your Body, But Disgust Is Danger To Your Soul.
Soul
Body
Danger
A Self Is A Frightening Thing To Waste, It's The Lens Through Which One's Whole Life Is Viewed, And Few People Are Willing To Part With It, In Death, Or Even Imaginatively, In Art.
Art
Self
People
For Better Or Worse, Zoos Are How Most People Come To Know Big Or Exotic Animals. Few Will Ever See Wild Penguins Sledding Downhill To Sea On Their Bellies, Giant Pandas Holding Bamboo Lollipops In China Or Tree Porcupines In The Canadian Rockies, Balled Up Like Giant Pine Cones.
Zoos
Animal
Sea
Our Skin Is What Stands Between Us And The World.
Skins
World
Nature Is More Like A Seesaw Than A Crystal, A Never-ending Conga Line Of Bold Moves And Corrections.
Moving
Lines
Crystals
Who You Are Isn't Tied Solely To What You Say, Even Though It May Feel That Way To You Now.
Philosophy
May
Way
I Watched Her Face Switch Among The Radio Stations Of Memory
Memories
Radio
Faces
As Anyone Who Has Received Or Dispensed Psychotherapy Knows, It's A Profession Whose Mainspring Is Love. Nearly Everyone Who Visits A Therapist Has A Love Disorder Of One Sort Or Another, And Each Has A Story To Tell - Of Love Lost Or Denied, Love Twisted Or Betrayed, Love Perverted Or Shackled To Violence. Broken Attachments Litter The Office Floors Like Pick-up Sticks. People Appear With Frayed Seams And Spilling Pockets.
Lost Love
Attachment
People
Ecstasy Is What Everyone Craves - Not Love Or Sex, But A Hot-blooded, Soaring Intensity, In Which Being Alive Is A Joy And A Thrill. That Enravishment Doesn't Give Meaning To Life, And Yet Without It Life Seems Meaningless.
Inspirational
Sex
Giving
On Some Summer Days In New York City, The Air Hangs Thickly Visible, Like The Combined Exhalations Of Eight Million Souls. Steam Rising From Vents Underground Makes You Wonder If There Isn't One Giant Sweat Gland Lodged Beneath The City.
Summer
New York
Eight
Though Most Of Us Don't Hunt, Our Eyes Are Still The Great Monopolists Of Our Senses. To Taste Or Touch Your Enemy Or Your Food, You Have To Be Unnervingly Close To It. To Smell Or Hear It, You Can Risk Being Further Off. But Vision Can Rush Through The Fields And Up The Mountains, Travel Across Time, Country, And Parsecs Of Outer Space, And Collect Bushel Baskets Of Information As It Goes. Animals That Hear High Frequencies Better Than We Do
Country
Eye
Animal
My Mother Always Said I Must Be Part Mongolian Because Of My Lotus-pale Complexion And Squid-ink Black Hair.
Mother
Hair
Squids
For The Longest Time I Didn't Realize I Was Creative - I Just Thought I Was Strange.
Creativity
Creative
Strange
Words Are Such Small Things, Like Confetti In The Brain, And Yet They Are Color And Clarify Everything, They Can Stain The Mind Or Warp The Feelings.
Color
Feelings
Brain
Poetry Is An Act Of Distillation. It Takes Contingency Samples, Is Selective. It Telescopes Time. It Focuses What Most Often Floods Past Us In A Polite Blur.
Past
Poetry
Telescopes
We Would Lie On Coral Sand, Below Sugary Stars, Watching Cassiopeia Mount Her Throne And The Great Bear Wash Its Paws In The South. I Would Say, "i Have A Secret To Tell You." And, Folding Me In Your Arms, Boyish And Sly, You Would Answer: "whisper It Into My Mouth.
Stars
Lying
Secret
Our Relationship With Nature Has Changed Radically, Irreversibly, But By No Means All For The Bad. Our New Epoch Is Laced With Invention. Our Mistakes Are Legion, But Our Talent Is Immeasurable.
Mistake
Mean
Talent
Writer's Block Is A Luxury Most People With Deadlines Don't Have.
Block
Luxury
People
Complexity Excites The Mind, And Order Rewards It. In The Garden, One Finds Both, Including Vanishingly Small Orders Too Complex To Spot, And Orders So Vast The Mind Struggles To Embrace Them.
Struggle
Journey
Garden
All Relationships Change The Brain - But Most Important Are The Intimate Bonds That Foster Or Fail Us, Altering The Delicate Circuits That Shape Memories, Emotions And That Ultimate Souvenir, The Self.
Memories
Self
Brain
Violets Smell Like Burnt Sugar Cubes That Have Been Dipped In Lemon And Velvet.
Garden
Smell
Sugar
Symbolic Of Life, Hair Bolts From Our Head[s]. Like The Earth, It Can Be Harvested, But It Will Rise Again. We Can Change Its Color And Texture When The Mood Strikes Us, But In Time It Will Return To Its Original Form, Just As Nature Will In Time Turn Our Precisely Laid-out Cities Into A Weed-way.
Weed
Hair
Color
We Ogle Plants And Animals Up Close On Television, The Internet And In The Movies. We May Not Worship The Animals We See, But We Still Regard Them As Necessary Physical And Spiritual Companions. Technological Nature Can't Completely Satisfy That Yearning.
Spiritual
Animal
May
Because We Can't Escape Our Ancient Hunger To Live Close To Nature, We Encircle The House With Lawns And Gardens, Install Picture Windows, Adopt Pets And Boston Ferns, And Scent Everything That Touches Our Lives.
Garden
Boston
House
Life Becomes A Lot Simpler For A Creative Person When He Or She Finds The Routine That Works Best. ... Get In The Habit Of Going Through The Routine Every Day, And On Some Of Those Days, You're Going To Be Lucky And Have Done Some Good Work. ... Go To Your Study, Close The Door, Invent Your Confidence.
Doors
Creative
Routine
The Well Of Nature Is Full Today. Time To Go Outside And Take A Drink.
Vices
Today
Drink
If Cynicism Is Inevitable As One Ages, So Is The Yearning For Innocence. To Children Heaven Is Being An Adult, And To Adults Heaven Is Being Children Again.
Children
Heaven
Age
A Poem Records Emotions And Moods That Lie Beyond Normal Language, That Can Only Be Patched Together And Hinted At Metaphorically.
Lying
Together
Records
In The Winter, I Enjoy Cross-country Skiing And Raising Orchids And Amaryllises. If I Could Grow Tropical Flowers As Perennials, I Would, Especially Hibiscus And Mandavilla.
Country
Flower
Winter
Words Are Small Shapes In The Gorgeous Chaos Of The World.
World
Shapes
Chaos
In Our Heart We Know That Life Loves Life. Yet We Feast On Some Of The Other Life-forms With Which We Share Our Planet; We Kill To Live. Taste Is What Carries Us Across That Rocky Moral Terrain, What Makes The Horror Palatable, And The Paradox We Could Not Defend By Reason Melts Into A Jungle Of Sweet Temptations.
Sweet
Heart
Love Life
[on Gardens:] I Think They're Sanctuaries For The Mind And Spirit. ... It's Easy To Feel Wonder-struck In A Garden, Especially If You Cultivate Delight.
Garden
Thinking
Mind
I Think If You Look At Any Facet Of Nature In Enough Detail, You Find It Fascinating. How Could You Not? The Universe Is So Full Of Marvels. Here's An Example -- Rain, The Shape Of Rain. I Was Minding My Own Business, Working On My Book, Looking Out The Window, And It Was Raining And I Was Noticing That The Raindrops Were Falling In That Classic Round-looking Way, And I Thought, 'i Wonder If Raindrops Really Are Round?' So I Started Researching It A Little, And I Discovered That Raindrops Change Shape 300 Times A Second.
Rain
Book
Fall
Things That Live By Night Live Outside The Realm Of 'normal' Time And So Suggest Living Outside The Realm Of Good And Evil, Since We Have Moralistic Feelings About Time. Chauvinistic About Our Human Need To Wake By Day And Sleep By Night, We Come To Associate Night Dwellers With People Up To No Good At A Time When They Have The Jump On The Rest Of Us And Are Defying Nature, Defying Their Circadian Rhythms.
Sleep
Night
People
I Swear I Will Not Dishonor My Soul With Hatred, But Offer Myself Humbly As A Guardian Of Nature, As A Healer Of Misery, As A Messenger Of Wonder, As An Architect Of Peace.
Commitment
Compassion
Hatred
There Was Nothing To Do But Wait. It Is Always Like This For Naturalists, And For Poets--the Long Hours Of Travel And Preparation, And Then The Longer Hours Of Waiting. All For That One Electric, Pulse-revving Vision When The Universe Suddenly Declares Itself.
Long
Waiting
Preparation
As Fleeting Emotions Stalk It, A Face Can Leak Fear Or The Guilt Of A Forming Lie.
Lying
Guilt
Fleeting
Because Iq Tests Favor Memory Skills And Logic, Overlooking Artistic Creativity, Insight, Resiliency, Emotional Reserves, Sensory Gifts, And Life Experience, They Can't Really Predict Success, Let Alone Satisfaction.
Memories
Creativity
Emotional
We Have Vexed And Bothered Every Plant And Every Animal On Every Continent.
Animal
Evolution
Plant
I'm An Earth Ecstatic, And My Creed Is Simple: All Life Is Sacred, Life Loves Life, And We Are Capable Of Improving Our Behavior Toward One Another. As Basic As That Is, For Me It's Also Tonic And Deeply Spiritual, Glorifying The Smallest Life-form And Embracing The Most Distant Stars.
Spiritual
Stars
Love Life
Couples Are Jigsaw Puzzles That Hang Together By Touching In Just Enough Points. They're Never Total Fits Or Misfits. In Time, A Pair Invents Its Own Commonwealth, Complete With Anthems, Rituals, And Lingos-a Cult Of Two With Fallible Gods.
Inspirational
Couple
Jigsaw Puzzles
Who Would Drink From A Cup When They Can Drink From The Source?
Cups
Authenticity
Drink
Look In The Mirror. The Face That Pins You With Its Double Gaze Reveals A Chastening Secret. You Are Looking Into A Predator's Eyes. Most Predators Have Eyes Set Right On The Front Of Their Heads, So They Can Use Binocular Vision To Sight And Track Their Prey.
Eye
Mirrors
Sight
The Heart Is A Museum, Filled With The Exhibits Of A Lifetime's Loves.
Heart
Museums
Lifetime
Tranquillity Hides In Small Spaces, And When Found Needs To Be Treasured, Because You Know It's A Phantom That Will Slip Away Again.
Space
Needs
Phantoms
The Great Affair, The Love Affair With Life, Is To Live As Variously As Possible, To Groom One's Curiosity Like A High-spirited Thoroughbred, Climb Aboard, And Gallop Over The Thick, Sun-struck Hills Every Day. Where There Is No Risk, The Emotional Terrain Is Flat And Unyielding, And, Despite All Its Dimensions, Valleys, Pinnacles, And Detours, Life Will Seem To Have None Of Its Magnificent Geography, Only A Length. It Began In Mystery, And It Will End In Mystery, But What A Savage And Beautiful Country Lies In Between.
Life
Beautiful
Country
It's So Acceptably Easy For A Woman Not To Strive Too Hard, Not To Be Too Adventure-crazed, Not To Take Too Many Risks, Not To Enjoy Sex With Full Candor ... It Isn't Seemly For A Woman To Have That Much Zest.
Sex
Adventure
Zest
I Am A Great Fan Of The Universe, Which I Take Literally: As One. All Of It Interests Me, And It Interests Me In Detail.
Fans
Details
Interest
Writing Is My Form Of Celebration And Prayer.
Prayer
Writing
Celebration
One Can Live At A Low Flame. Most People Do. For Some, Life Is An Exercise In Moderation (best China Saved For Special Occasions), But Given Something Like Death, What Does It Matter If One Looks Foolish Now And Then, Or Tries Too Hard, Or Cares Too Deeply?
Exercise
Flames
People
There Are Well-dressed Foolish Ideas Just As There Are Well-dressed Fools.
Stupid
Ideas
Fool
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