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Quotes about thinking

552 quotes from 279 people

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A thinking man’s greatest happiness is to have fathomed what can be fathomed and to revere in silence what cannot be fathomed.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe1749–1832Maxims and Reflections (1833), Maxim 1207, trans. Stopp (p153)
- Happiness
My worthy friend, gray are all theories,
And green alone Life’s golden tree.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe1749–1832Faust (1808), Scene IV, spoken by MephistophelesIn context
- Experience
- Ideas
Man usually believes, if only words he hears,
That also with them goes material for thinking!
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe1749–1832Faust (1808), Scene VI, spoken by MephistophelesIn context
- Talking
The real pioneers in ideas, in art and in literature have remained aliens to their time, misunderstood and repudiated.
Emma Goldman1869–1940Intellectual Proletarians (1914)
- Art
- Ideas
The most unpardonable sin in society is independence of thought.
Emma Goldman1869–1940Anarchism and Other Essays (1910), “Minorities Versus Majorities”
- Freedom
Great theories are expansive; failures mire us in dogmatism and tunnel vision.
Stephen Jay Gould1941–2002Eight Little Piggies (1993), “More Light on Leaves”, p. 165
- Ideas
- Science
Heresy is only another word for freedom of thought.
Graham Greene1904–1991“Freedom of Thought,” speech accepting the Jerusalem Prize (6 April 1981)
- Freedom
Our worst enemies here are not the ignorant and the simple, however cruel; our worst enemies are the intelligent and corrupt.
Graham Greene1904–1991The Human Factor (1978), Pt. III, ch. 3 (1978)
- Enemies
- Intelligence
Your life doesn’t get any better than your mind is: You might have wonderful friends, perfect health, a great career, and everything else you want, and you can still be miserable.
Sam Harrisborn 1967Sam Harris, Taming the Mind (April 12, 2014)
- Happiness
If someone doesn’t value evidence, what evidence are you going to provide to prove that they should value it? If someone doesn’t value logic, what logical argument could you provide to show the importance of logic?
Sam Harrisborn 1967Sam Harris, “Is the Foundation of Morality Natural or Supernatural? – William Lane Craig vs. Sam Harris, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Indiana, United States – April 2011
- Debate
Nobody can be so amusingly arrogant as a young man who has just discovered an old idea and thinks it is his own.
SHSydney J. Harris1917–1986Strictly Personal (1953), “Purely Personal Prejudices”
- Ideas
- Youth
Genius, like humanity, rusts for want of use.
William Hazlitt1778–1830The Plain Speaker (1826)
- Genius
The most thought-provoking thing in our thought-provoking time is that we are still not thinking.
Martin Heidegger1889–1976What is Called Thinking? [Was heisst Denken?] (1951–1952), as translated by Fred D. Wieck and J. Glenn Gray (1968)
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity.
Robert A. Heinlein1907–1988Time Enough for Love (1973)
- Intelligence
You have attributed conditions to villainy that simply result from stupidity.
Robert A. Heinlein1907–1988Logic of Empire (p. 335)
- Intelligence