quotations about thinking
Not out of right practice comes right thinking, but out of right thinking comes right practice. It matters enormously what you think. If you think falsely, you will act mistakenly; if you think basely, your conduct will suit your thinking.
ANNIE BESANT
Daily Meditations on the Path and Its Qualifications
I figure if you think too much about things, life sometimes just passes you by.
DAVID BALDACCI
Split Second
Thinking makes the man.
W. A. ALCOTT
attributed, Day's Collacon
Every man who expresses what he honestly thinks is true is changing the Spirit of the Times. Thinkers help other people to think, for they formulate what others are thinking. No person writes or thinks alone--thought is in the air, but its expression is necessary to create a tangible Spirit of the Times.
ELBERT HUBBARD
Pig-Pen Pete
There are no dangerous thoughts; thinking itself is dangerous.
HANNAH ARENDT
The Life of the Mind
A man who does not think for himself does not think at all.
OSCAR WILDE
The Soul of Man Under Socialism
Individuality in opinion, or, what is more, in thinking, is simply one with thinking at all; for he who thinks thereby looks at the thing or the fact itself and takes its measure by observation directly, not content with the measures of others.
JAMES VILA BLAKE
Essays
I view everything in life as white or black. I don't see color when it comes to life, lessons, situations, or the world. I think either it's meant to be or not, it's going to happen or it won't, either it's fate or it's not. There is no in between in my thoughts. This is the exact way I look at my life and trying to be perfect within it. It's not easy to explain, but when I fail at something I must sulk on it for days or weeks because it throws off my way of thinking.
CHERI VOIGT
"WRITE TEAM: Black-and-white thinking", My Web Times, May 18, 2017
If thou thinkest twice, before thou speakest once, thou wilt speak twice the better for it.
WILLIAM PENN
Some Fruits of Solitude
In martial arts, as in life, you quickly learn not to think too much. You have to do. While you're thinking, you open spaces where an opponent can successfully strike at you. The more you think, the more vulnerable you become.
JOSEPH CARDILLO
Be Like Water
We are powerfully imprisoned in these Dark Ages simply by the terms in which we have been conditioned to think.
BUCKMINSTER FULLER
Cosmography
All practical men try to bring the world under their hands; all thinkers, under their heads.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe
If one learns from others but does not think, one is still at a loss. If, on the other hand, one thinks but does not learn from others, one is in peril.
CONFUCIUS
The Analects
Curtsy while you're thinking what to say. It saves time.
LEWIS CARROLL
Alice Through the Looking Glass
What do such machines really do? They increase the number of things we can do without thinking. Things we do without thinking -- there's the real danger.
FRANK HERBERT
God Emperor of Dune
Man is distinguished from the brute animals in proportion as thought prevails over sense: but in the healthy processes of the mind, a balance is constantly maintained between the impressions from outward objects and the inward operations of the intellect:--for if there be an overbalance in the contemplative faculty, man thereby becomes the creature of mere meditation, and loses his natural power of action.
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE
"Notes on Hamlet"
The world is a tragedy to those who feel, but a comedy to those who think.
HORACE WALPOLE
The Letters of Horace Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford
If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; but if you really make them think, they'll hate you.
HARLAN ELLISON
Sleepless Nights in the Procrustean Bed
Man has been born for two things--thinking and acting; to think is to live.
CICERO
attributed, Day's Collacon
Thinking may be said to be the living principle of wisdom.
DEGERANDO
attributed, Day's Collacon