quotations about thought
The course of history has often been turned by sentiment, but by thought never. The thinkers are but valuable ornaments. A safe place is assigned to them on the world's mantelpiece, while humanity basks and blinks stupidly on the hearth.
MAX BEERBOHM
The Prince of Minor Writers: The Selected Essays of Max Beerbohm
We must allow ourselves to think, we must dare to think, even though we fail. It is in the nature of things that we always fail, because we suddenly find it impossible to order our thoughts, because the process of thinking requires us to consider every thought there is, every possible thought. Fundamentally we have always failed, like all the others, whoever they were, even the greatest minds. At some point, they suddenly failed and their system collapsed, as is proved by their writings, which we admire because they venture farthest into failure. To think is to fail, I thought.
THOMAS BERNHARD
Extinction
Second thoughts are the adopted children of experience.
ELIZA COOK
"Diamond Dust", Eliza Cook's Journal, Volume 3
Ah, the mighty men who conquer,
And the men whose words we drink,
Are the men who quit the jangle,
Quit the turmoil and the wrangle
Of the world, and turn their faces
To secluded, silent places,
Where in solitude they think.
EDGAR GUEST
"Think"
A profound thought is in a constant state of becoming; it adopts the experience of a life and assumes its shape.
ALBERT CAMUS
The Myth of Sisyphus
It is the compelling power of great thoughts and ideas to engender phrases of equal size.
ARISTOPHANES
The Frogs
And a lot of times, the journey of someone who is struggling with mental health issues or with suicidal thoughts is a long, lonely walk.
TERRESA HUMPHRIES-WADSWORTH
"Walking Across Wyoming", Powell Tribune, May 26, 2017
With curious art the brain, too finely wrought,
Preys on herself, and is destroyed by thought.
CHARLES CHURCHILL
Epistle to William Hogarth
A person is limited only by the thoughts that he chooses.
JAMES ALLEN
As a Man Thinketh
If we were all on trial for our thoughts, we would all be hanged.
MARGARET ATWOOD
Alias Grace
Thoughts there are, not to be translated into any language, and spirits alone can read them.
ARTHUR HELPS
Thoughts in the Cloister and the Crowd
The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation, but you thoughts about it. Be aware of the thoughts you are thinking.
ECKHART TOLLE
A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose
To him whose elastic and vigorous thought keeps pace with the sun, the day is a perpetual morning.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Walden
Alas! we make a ladder of our thoughts, where angels step, but sleep ourselves at the foot; our high resolve look down upon our slumbering acts.
LETITIA ELIZABETH LANDON
The Venetian Bracelet: The Lost Pleiad
Clearness is the ornament of deep thought.
LUC DE CLAPIERS, MARQUIS DE VAUVENARGUES
Reflections and Maxims
Thoughts ... have tarried in my mind and peopled its inner chambers,
The sober children of reason, or desultory train of fancy.
MARTIN FARQUHAR TUPPER
Proverbial Philosophy
For good thoughts (though God accept them) yet, towards men, are little better than good dreams, except they be put in act; and that cannot be, without power and place, as the vantage, and commanding ground.
FRANCIS BACON
"Of Great Place", The Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral
Ideas are the seeds of thought, but they do not produce flowers unless the soil where they are sown is fertile.
LADY BLESSINGTON
attributed, Day's Collacon
Mankind will be enslaved until there is mental grandeur enough to allow each man to have his thought and say. This earth will be a paradise when men can, upon all these questions differ, and yet grasp each other's hands as friends.
ROBERT G. INGERSOLL
Some Mistakes of Moses
Great thoughts come from the heart.
LUC DE CLAPIERS, MARQUIS DE VAUVENARGUES
Reflections and Maxims