"The centipede was happy - quite!
Until the toad, in fun,
Said, pray, which leg moves after which?
This raised her doubts to such a pitch
She fell distracted in the ditch,
Not knowing how to run."
Until the toad, in fun,
Said, pray, which leg moves after which?
This raised her doubts to such a pitch
She fell distracted in the ditch,
Not knowing how to run."
—Marion Quinlan Davis
"If we have learnt certain movements so that they have sunk below the level of conscious control, then if we try to follow them consciously we very often interfere with them so badly that we stop them."
— Karl Popper, Knowledge and the body-mind problem: in defence of interaction
"If I try to think about how it works, it doesn't work."
—Tiffany Aching, I Shall Wear Midnight
"Many things - such as loving, going to sleep, or behaving unaffectedly - are done worst when we try hardest to do them."
"Well, it's much like the dilemma of the centipede. If he relaxes and lets things happen, he can walk naturally all day long, his hundred legs not missing a step. But, if he thinks too hard about the complexity of what he's doing, those legs might crash into the teahouse and kill everyone. A valuable lesson."
— Kang The Mad on remote-controlling a flying vehicle, Jade Empire
"If you think, you stink."
— Former NFL coach Steve Mariucci
"Don't think you are, know you are."
— Morpheus, The Matrix
"The more they overthink the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drain."
— Montgomery "Scotty" Scott, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock
It was more difficult than I remembered, knowing how to breathe, how to form words using my mouth. I kept finding myself doing things—standing up, scratching my nose, chewing my nails—without realizing that I was doing so. I'd been sending impulses from a panicked brain to an unresponsive body for so long it kept startling me when I realized that not only could I move, half the time I had already done so just by thinking about it. And then there were motions that seemed ridiculously simple that I had forgotten how to do: at one point I tried to run my fingers through my hair and bumped into my own forehead with my hand twice.
— Tom's narration, The Day the Earth Stood Still
