780 Thinking Quotes

A weak mind is like a microscope, which magnifies trifling things but cannot receive great ones.

Ideas, unlike solid structures, do not perish. They remain immortal, immaterial and everywhere, like all Divine things. Ideas are a golden, savage landscape that we wander unaware, without a map. Be careful: in the last analysis, reality may be exactly what we think it is.

Language comes first. It's not that language grows out of consciousness, if you haven't got language, you can't be conscious.

I believe that at the end of the century the use of words and general educated opinion will have altered so much that one will be able to speak of machines thinking without expecting to be contradicted.

If the only significant history of human thought were to be written, it would have to be the history of its successive regrets and its impotences.

The important thing isn't the soundness or otherwise of the argument, but for it to make you think.

Reading, after a certain age, diverts the mind too much from its creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking.

The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking and we thus drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.

Very little of the great cruelty shown by men can really be attributed to cruel instinct. Most of it comes from thoughtlessness or inherited habit. The roots of cruelty, therefore, are not so much strong as widespread. But the time must come when inhumanity protected by custom and thoughtlessness will succumb before humanity championed by thought. Let us work that this time may come.

Hastiness and superficiality are the psychic diseases of the twentieth century, and more than anywhere else this disease is reflected in the press.

I just want to live each moment, but it's kind of hard to do that when you are asked to analyze yourself constantly. But it's also good in that you are forced to think about things that you don't ordinarily think about. I think it's strange.

Maybe that's what Hell is. You go mad. And all your demons come and get you just as fast as you can think them up.

A thought is a screen, not a mirror; that is why you live in a thought envelope, untouched by Reality.

It is just that we should be grateful, not only to those with whose views we may agree, but also to those who have expressed more superficial views; for these also contributed something, by developing before us the powers of thought.

It is not once nor twice but times without number that the same ideas make their appearance in the world.

That in the soul which is called the mind is, before it thinks, not actually any real thing.

If only our great thinkers could learn to talk, and our great talkers could learn to think.

By using your intelligence, you can sometimes make your problems twice as complicated.

You have your thoughts and I have mine. This is the fact and you can't change it even if you kill me.

Indignation is a submission of our thoughts, but not of our desires.

The slave is doomed to worship time and fate and death, because they are greater than anything he finds in himself, and because all his thoughts are of things which they devour.

Thinking too little about things or thinking too much both make us obstinate and fanatical.

Our mind is all we've got. Not that it won't lead us astray sometimes, but we still have to analyze things out within ourselves.

Keep violence in the mind where it belongs.

The possession of anything begins in the mind.

Science is a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge.

By an object, I mean anything that we can think, i.e. anything we can talk about.

The polls undoubtedly help to decide what people think, but their most important long-term influence may be on how people think. The interrogative process is very distinctly weighted against the asking of an intelligent question or the recording of a thoughtful answer.

The fear of God is not the beginning of wisdom. The fear of God is the death of wisdom. Skepticism and doubt lead to study and investigation, and investigation is the beginning of wisdom.

If you lose the power to laugh, you lose the power to think.

There is no such crime as a crime of thought; there are only crimes of action.

I write to discover what I think. After all, the bars aren't open that early.

'I'm scared of him [Jack],' said Piggy, 'and that's why I know him. If you're scared of someone you hate him but you can't stop thinking about him. You kid yourself he's alright really, an' then when you see him again; it's like asthma an' you can't breath. I tell you what. He hates you too, Ralph -' 'Me? Why me?' 'I dunno. You got him over the fire; an' you're chief an' he isn't.' 'But he's Jack Merridew!' 'I been in bed so much I done some thinking. I know about people. I know about me. And him. He can't hurt you: but if you're standing out of the way he'd hurt the next thing. And that's me.' [Simon?] 'Piggy's right, Ralph. There's you and Jack. Go on being chief.'

Consciousness, then, does not appear to itself chopped up in bits...A 'river' or a 'stream' are the metaphors by which it is most naturally described. In talking of it hereafter, let us call it the stream of thought, of consciousness, or of subjective life.

That everything great that has ever happened to humanity since the beginning, has begun with a single thought in someone's mind and if anyone of us is capable of such a great thought then all of us has the same capacity, capability, because we are all the same.

A profound thought is in a constant state of becoming; it adopts the experience of a life and assumes its shape. Likewise, a man's sole creation is strengthened in its successive and multiple aspects: his works. One after another they complement one another, correct or overtake one another, contradict one another, too. If something brings creation to an end, it is not the victorious and illusory cry of the blinded artist: 'I have said everything,' but the death of the creator which closes his experiences and the book of his genius. That effort, that superhuman consciousness are not necessarily apparent to the reader. There is no mystery in human creation. Will performs this miracle. But at least there is no true creation without a secret. To be true, a succession of works can be but a series of approximations of the same thought. But it is possible to conceive of another type of creator proceeding by juxtaposition. Their words may seem to be devoid of inter-relations, to a certain degree, they are contradictory. But viewed all together, they resume their natural groupings.

Awakening of Western thought will not be complete until that thought steps outside itself and comes to an understanding with the search for a world-view as this manifests itself in the thought of mankind as a whole. We have too long been occupied with the developing series of our own philosophical systems, and have taken no notice of the fact that there is a world-philosophy of which our Western philosophy is only a part. If, however, one conceives philosophy as being a struggle to reach a view of the world as a whole, and seeks out the elementary convictions which are to deepen it and give it a sure foundation, one cannot avoid setting our own thought face to face with that of the Hindus, and of the Chinese in the Far East. ... Our Western philosophy, if judged by its own latest pronouncements, is much naiver than we admit to ourselves, and we fail to perceive this only because we have acquired the art of expressing what is simple in a pedantic way.

What I mean by 'thought' is the whole thing - thought, 'felt', the body, the whole society sharing thoughts - it's all one process. It is essential for me not to break that up, because it's all one process; somebody else's thought becomes my thought, and vice versa. Therefore it would be wrong and misleading to break it up into my thought, your thought, my feelings, these feelings, those feelings. I would say that thought makes what is often called in modern language a system. A system means a set of connected things or parts. But the way people commonly use the word nowadays it means something all of whose parts are mutually interdependent - not only for their mutual action, but for their meaning and for their existence. A corporation is organized as a system - it has this department, that department, that department... they don't have any meaning separately; they only can function together. And also the body is a system. Society is a system in some sense. And so on. Similarly, thought is a system. That system not only includes thought and feelings, but it includes the state of the body; it includes the whole of society - as thought is passing back and forth between people in a process by which thought evolved from ancient times. Thought has been constantly evolving and we can't say when that system began. But with the growth of civilization it has developed a great deal. It was probably very simple thought before civilization, and now it has become very complex and ramified and has much more incoherence than before. Now, I say that this system has a fault in it - a 'systematic fault'. It is not a fault here, there or here, but it is a fault that is all throughout the system. Can you picture that? It is everywhere and nowhere. You may say 'I see a problem here, so I will bring my thoughts to bear on this problem'. But 'my' thought is part of the system. It has the same fault as the fault I'm trying to look at, or a similar fault. Thought is constantly creating problems that way and then trying to solve them. But as it tries to solve them it makes it worse because it doesn't notice that it's creating them, and the more it thinks, the more problems it creates.

Man, unlike anything organic or inorganic in the universe, grows beyond his work, walks up the stairs of his concepts, emerges ahead of his accomplishments. Ch. 14

The secret thoughts of a man run over all things, holy, prophane, clean, obscene, grave, and light, without shame, or blame:

If the formula for water is H2O, is the formula for an ice cube H2O squared?

Within the body there are billions of different particles. Similarly, there are many different thoughts and a variety of states of mind. It is wise to take a close look into the world of your mind and to make the distinction between beneficial and harmful states of mind. Once you can recognize the value of good states of mind, you can increase or foster them.

Fundamentalism is terrifying because it is based purely on emotion, rather than intelligence. It prevents followers from thinking as individuals and about the good of the world.

The real enemy is not outside, but inside. ... External enemies are not permanent; if you respect him, the enemy will become your friend. But there is one enemy who is always an enemy, whom you should never compromise, that is the enemy inside your heart. You cannot change all these bad thoughts into your friend, but you have to confront and control them.

How does it happen that a properly endowed natural scientist comes to concern himself with epistemology? Is there not some more valuable work to be done in his specialty? That's what I hear many of my colleagues ask, and I sense it from many more. But I cannot share this sentiment. When I think about the ablest students whom I have encountered in my teaching - that is, those who distinguish themselves by their independence of judgment and not just their quick-wittedness - I can affirm that they had a vigorous interest in epistemology. They happily began discussions about the goals and methods of science, and they showed unequivocally, through tenacious defense of their views, that the subject seemed important to them. Concepts that have proven useful in ordering things easily achieve such authority over us that we forget their earthly origins and accept them as unalterable givens. Thus they might come to be stamped as 'necessities of thought,' 'a priori givens,' etc. The path of scientific progress is often made impassable for a long time by such errors. Therefore it is by no means an idle game if we become practiced in analysing long-held commonplace concepts and showing the circumstances on which their justification and usefulness depend, and how they have grown up, individually, out of the givens of experience. Thus their excessive authority will be broken. They will be removed if they cannot be properly legitimated, corrected if their correlation with given things be far too superfluous, or replaced if a new system can be established that we prefer for whatever reason.

If, then, God is always in that good state in which we sometimes are, this compels our wonder; and if in a better this compels it yet more. And God is in a better state. And life also belongs to God; for the actuality of thought is life, and God is that actuality; and God's self-dependent actuality is life most good and eternal.

I believe in hands that work, brains that think, and hearts that love. Amen, and Amen.

You can lead a boy to college, but you can't make him think.

An expert is a man who has stopped thinking - he knows!

'What is the answer?' [ I was silent ] 'In that case, what is the question?'

When logic and proportion have fallen sloppy dead, And the White Knight is talking backwards and the Red Queen's lost her head, Remember what the dormouse said: Feed your head, feed your head.

And she said... 'Flowers are red young man Green leaves are green There's no need to see flowers any other way Than they way they always have been seen.'

My thought is a tender leaf that sways in every direction and finds pleasure in its swaying. Your thought is an ancient dogma that cannot change you nor can you change it. My thought is new, and it tests me and I test it morn and eve. You have your thought and I have mine.

I had better never see a book than to be warped by its attraction clean out of my own orbit, and made a satellite instead of a system. The one thing in the world, of value, is the active soul.

Recollect your thoughts don't get caught up in the mix/Cause the media is full of dirty tricks

It is supposed that there has been progress in the science of textual criticism, and the most frivolous pretender has learned to talk superciliously about 'the old unscientific days'. The old unscientific days are everlasting; they are here and now; they are renewed perennially by the ear which takes formulas in, and the tongue which gives them out again, and the mind which meanwhile is empty of reflexion and stuffed with self-complacency.

Nature, not content with denying to Mr - the faculty of thought, has endowed him with the faculty of writing.

Text-messaging or The Sun, these are perfect Orwellian ways of limiting the vocabulary and thus limiting the consciousness.

The greatest saving one can make in the order of thought is to accept the unintelligibility of the world -- and to pay attention to man.

A little thought estranges from life, whereas much thought reconciles to life. Unable to refine the real, thought pauses to mimic it.

Many persons have inquired concerning a recent message of mine that 'a new type of thinking is essential if mankind is to survive and move to higher levels.' Often in evolutionary processes a species must adapt to new conditions in order to survive. Today the atomic bomb has altered profoundly the nature of the world as we know it, and the human race consequently finds itself in a new habitat to which it must adapt its thinking. In light of new knowledge:an eventual world state is not just desirable in the name of brotherhood, it is necessary for survival... Today we must abandon competition and secure cooperation. This must be the central fact in all our considerations of international affairs; otherwise we face certain disaster. Past thinking and methods did not prevent world wars. Future thinking must prevent wars.

Problems cannot be solved by the level of awareness that created them.

From my youth onwards, I have felt sure that all thought which thinks itself out to an issue ends in mysticism. In the stillness of the African jungle I have been able to work out this thought and give it expression.

The way to true mysticism leads up through rational thought to deep experience of the world and of our will-to-live. We must all venture once more to be 'thinkers,' so as to reach mysticism, which is the only direct and the only profound world-view. We must all wander in the field of knowledge to the point where knowledge passes over into experience of the world. We must all, through thought, become religious. This rational thought must become the prevailing force among us, for all the valuable ideas that we need develop out of it. In no other fire than that of the mysticism of reverence for life can the broken sword of idealism be forged anew.

When in the spring the withered gray of the pastures gives place to green, this is due to the millions of young shoots which sprout up freshly from the old roots. In like manner the revival of thought which is essential for our time can only come through a transformation of the opinions and ideals of the many brought about by individual and universal reflection about the meaning of life and of the world.

I am a believer in unconscious cerebration. The brain is working all the time, though we do not know it. At night it follows up what we think in the daytime. When I have worked a long time on one thing, I make it a point to bring all the facts regarding it together before I retire; I have often been surprised at the results... We are thinking all the time; it is impossible not to think.

Without any censorship, in the West fashionable trends of thought and ideas are carefully separated from those which are not fashionable; nothing is forbidden, but what is not fashionable will hardly ever find its way into periodicals or books or be heard in colleges. Legally your researchers are free, but they are conditioned by the fashion of the day. There is no open violence such as in the East; however, a selection dictated by fashion and the need to match mass standards frequently prevent independent-minded people from giving their contribution to public life. There is a dangerous tendency to form a herd, shutting off successful development.

Whither in after life retired From brawling storms, From weary wind, With youthful fancy reinspired, We may hold converse with all forms Of the many-sided mind, And those whom passion hath not blinded, Subtle-thoughted, myriad-minded.

The main thesis of this non-Aristotelian system is that as yet we all (with extremely few exceptions) copy animals in our nervous processes, and that practically all human difficulties, mental ills ... have this ... component.

As a rule, when there arises a thinker as great in theology as Kepler in science, the whole mass of his conclusions ripens into a dogma. His disciples labour not to test it, but to establish it; and while, in the Catholic Church, it becomes a dogma to be believed or disbelieved under the penalty of damnation, it becomes in the Protestant Church the basis for one more sect.

'I see . . .' said the vampire thoughtfully, and slowly he walked across the room towards the window. [first line]

Nothing has any power over me other than that which I give it through conscious thoughts.

So in the sinful streets, abstracted and alone, I with my secret self held communing of mine own.

I was educated once, and it took me years to get over it.

The art of concluding from experience and observation consists in evaluating probabilities, in estimating if they are high or numerous enough to constitute proof. This type of calculation is more complicated and more difficult than one might think. It demands a great sagacity generally above the power of common people. The success of charlatans, sorcerors, and alchemists-and all those who abuse public credulity-is founded on errors in this type of calculation.

The problem with ideology is, if you've got an ideology, you've already got your mind made up. You know all the answers and that makes evidence irrelevant and arguments a waste of time. You tend to govern by assertion and attacks.

I cannot imagine a man without thought; he would be a stone or an animal. (339)

Thought constitutes the greatness of man.

Penser fait la grandeur de l'homme.

The aphorism 'as a man thinketh in his heart so is he' contains the secret of life.

Eliminate 'not clear' thinking and function from your root.

Words: 'Words are the tools that verbally enable our thoughts. If a person cannot communicate his ideas effectively to others because of a weakness in language, then how may he understand the concepts of others fully? Moreover, how may one conceive and understand one's own creative thoughts? How can you bring to fruition that which you cannot convert from the abstract?'

Education: 'Education should prepare our minds to use its own powers of reason and conception rather than filling it with the accumulated misconceptions of the past.'

Education: 'In America, educators punish those who actually think for themselves. There is only acceptance for popular opinion.'

Ignorance: 'Most people do not actually know how to think for themselves, and unfortunately that prevents them from even knowing it.'

Ignorance: 'The common person fears to think beyond the common.'

I've never killed anyone. I don't need to kill anyone. I think it. I have it here [points to head].

To say, therefore, that thought cannot happen in an instant, but requires a time, is but another way of saying that every thought must be interpreted in another, or that all thought is in signs.

Movies are much more fascist than books. They tell you what to feel, when to feel it. Popular movies manipulate you. Music tells you when it's a sad part and when it's a happy part. You're obliged to watch them at the speed the filmmaker has created for you. That, I think, is one of the reasons why they're so popular - because you don't have to think very hard. The filmmaker has done all the thinking for you.

His thoughts were blown and scattered like leaves; He thought of the pail . . . Why, then, was it forgotten? Because he would not need it?

Give thought to life and liberty.

We probed into the nature of space and time, and of the universal, both with regard to external nature and with regard to mind. But then, we went on to consider the general disorder and confusion that pervades the consciousness of mankind. It is here that I encountered what I feel to be Krishnamurti's major discovery. What he was seriously proposing is that all this disorder, which is the root cause of such widespread sorrow and misery, and which prevents human beings from properly working together, has its root in the fact that we are ignorant of the general nature of our own processes of thought. Or to put it differently it may be said that we do not see what is actually happening, when we are engaged in the activity of thinking.