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Quotes about thinking

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Patience is a necessary ingredient of genius.
Benjamin Disraeli1804–1881Contarini Fleming (1832), Part 4, Chapter 5.
- Genius
To doubt everything or to believe everything are two equally convenient solutions; both dispense with the necessity of reflection.
Henri Poincaré1854–1912Preface, Dover abridged edition (1952), p. xxii
I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail.
Abraham Maslow1908–1970The Psychology of Science: A Reconnaissance (1966), ch. 2, p. 15
That fellow seems to me to possess but one idea, and that is a wrong one.
Samuel Johnson1709–1784Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol II (1770) p. 181
- Clever Jabs
- Ideas
The Way to see by Faith is to shut the Eye of Reason: The Morning Daylight appears plainer when you put out your Candle.
Benjamin Franklin1706–1790“July. VII Month.”, Poor Richard’s Almanack (1758), Philadelphia: B. Frankin and D. Hall
- Faith
The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently.
Friedrich Nietzsche1844–1900The Dawn of Day (1881), § 297
- Youth
There is no such thing on earth as an uninteresting subject; the only thing that can exist is an uninterested person.
G. K. Chesterton1874–1936Heretics (1905)
A man may die, nations may rise and fall, but an idea lives on. Ideas have endurance without death.
John F. Kennedy1917–1963Remarks Recorded for the Opening of a USIA Transmitter at Greenville, North Carolina (8 February 1963) Audio at JFK Library (01:29—01:40) · Text of speech at The American Presidency Project
- Ideas
I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.
John F. Kennedy1917–1963Address at a White House dinner honoring Nobel Prize winners (29 April 1962), quoted in The White House Diary, at the JFK Library
- Genius
- Knowledge
Ambition is the death of thought.
Ludwig Wittgenstein1889–1951Culture and Value (1980), p. 77e
- Motivation & Goals
Clever men are good, but they are not the best.
Thomas Carlyle1795–1881Critical and Miscellaneous Essays (1827–1855), Goethe.
- Character
- Intelligence
The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a heav’n of hell, a hell of heav’n.
John Milton1608–1674Paradise Lost (1667), i.254-255In context
Nothing has such power to broaden the mind as the ability to investigate systematically and truly all that comes under thy observation in life.
Marcus Aurelius121–180III, 11
- Knowledge
The conscious mind allows itself to be trained like a parrot, but the unconscious does not — which is why St. Augustine thanked God for not making him responsible for his dreams.
Carl Jung1875–1961Psychology and Alchemy (1952), par. 51 p.46
- Sleep
It is too difficult to think nobly when one thinks only of earning a living.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau1712–1778II
- Work