THINKING QUOTES
quotations about thinking
Either you think--or else others have to think for you and take power from you, pervert and discipline your natural tastes, civilize and sterilize you.
F. SCOTT FITZGERALD
Tender is the Night
Five percent of the people think; ten percent of the people think they think; and the other eighty-five percent would rather die than think.
THOMAS EDISON
attributed, The Great Book of Best Quotes of All Time
Nay, in every epoch of the world, the great event, parent of all others, is it not the arrival of a Thinker in the world?
THOMAS CARLYLE
Heroes and Hero Worship
To have ideas is to gather flowers. To think is to weave them into garlands.
MADAME SWETCHINE
"Airelles", The Writings of Madame Swetchine
A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.
WILLIAM JAMES
attributed, Wisdom for the Soul
I cannot conceive man without the thinking principle; that would be a stone or a brute.
PASCAL
attributed, Day's Collacon
He who thinks and thinks for himself, will always have a claim to thanks; it is no matter whether it be right or wrong, so as it be explicit. If it is right, it will serve as a guide to direct; if wrong, as a beacon to warn.
JEREMY BENTHAM
The Works of Jeremy Bentham
Never try to discourage thinking for you are sure to succeed.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
"A Liberal Decalogue", New York Times Magazine, December 16, 1951
Critical thinking is not a generic skill that exists independently of knowledge. Even the eight year-old, problem-solving their way through a Super Mario "level" relies heavily on their knowledge of the strengths and weaknesses of the various villains that they encounter.
GREG FOLEY
"Critical thinking and deep knowledge", Irish Times, May 18, 2017
Ultimately, thinking is a very inefficient method of processing data.
FREDERICK LENZ
Surfing the Himalayas
There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Hamlet
Thinking about something is like picking up a stone when taking a walk, either while skipping rocks on the beach, for example, or looking for a way to shatter the glass doors of a museum. When you think about something, it adds a bit of weight to your walk, and as you think about more and more things you are liable to feel heavier and heavier, until you are so burdened you cannot take any further steps, and can only sit and stare at the gentle movements of the ocean waves or security guards, thinking too hard about too many things to do anything else.
LEMONY SNICKET
The End
Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason so few engage in it.
HENRY FORD
attributed, Wisdom for the Soul: Five Millennia of Prescriptions for Spiritual Healing
Willpower is not some mythical force that we either have or don't have. Willpower is our decision to use higher-mind thinking instead of lazing around in the clutches of our primal mind.
A. B. CURTISS
Depression Is a Choice
Man is but a reed, the weakest in nature, but he is a thinking reed.
BLAISE PASCAL
Thoughts
I think, therefore I am.
RENÉ DESCARTES
Principes de la Philosophie
What a man thinks in his spirit in the world, that he does after his departure from the world when he becomes a spirit.
EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
Divine Providence
Is it possible that positive thinking is only an overrated concept? What if everyone's just capitalizing on the idea? We are often told that one can simply choose to be happy, and poof, you are happy. Is it really that simple?
ANONYMOUS
"Can positive thinking make you depressed?", Times of India, May 28, 2017
How ghastly for her, people actually thinking, with their brains, and right next door. Oh, the travesty of it all.
GAIL CARRIGER
Soulless
Among adults, magical thinking is a reversion to a developmental stage of childhood that Swiss child psychologist Jean Piaget called "preoperational." During this period, usually between the ages of two and seven when children are in the process of developing logical thought, they believe that their internal feelings produce observable, external occurrences.
JIM GLYNN
"Magical thinking and Trump phenomenon", The Madera Tribune, May 29, 2017