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Quotes about thinking

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Sherry is dull, naturally dull; but it must have taken him a great deal of pains to become what we now see him. Such an excess of stupidity, sir, is not in Nature.
Samuel Johnson1709–1784Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol I (28 July 1763) p. 128
- Clever Jabs
- Intelligence
Books are the legacies that a great genius leaves to mankind, which are delivered down from generation to generation, as presents to the posterity of those who are yet unborn.
Joseph Addison1672–1719The Spectator (1711–1714), No. 166 (10 September 1711)
- Genius
- Reading
The idea of the sacred is quite simply one of the most conservative notions in any culture, because it seeks to turn other ideas — uncertainty, progress, change — into crimes.
Salman Rushdieborn 1947Herbert Reade Memorial Lecture (6 February 1990)
- Anti-Religion
- Ideas
Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions that differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions.
Albert Einstein1879–1955Essay to Leo Baeck (1953)
Theories usually result from the precipitate reasoning of an impatient mind which would like to be rid of phenomena and replaces them with images, concepts, indeed often with mere words.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe1749–1832Maxims and Reflections (1833), Maxim 428, trans. Stopp
- Science
For me, reason is the natural organ of truth; but imagination is the organ of meaning. Imagination, producing new metaphors or revivifying old, is not the cause of truth, but its condition.
C. S. Lewis1898–1963“Bluspels and Flalansferes: A Semantic Nightmare”, in Rehabilitations and Other Essays (1939)
- Truth & Lies
But the greatest thing by far is to have a command of metaphor. This alone cannot be imparted by another; it is the mark of genius, for to make good metaphors implies an eye for resemblances.
Aristotle384–322 BCPoetics, 1459a.4
- Genius
- Writing
I talk half the time to find out my own thoughts, as a school-boy turns his pockets inside out to see what is in them. One brings to light all sorts of personal property he had forgotten in his inventory.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.1809–1894The Poet at the Breakfast Table (1872), Ch. 1
- Talking
Granted I am a babbler, a harmless vexatious babbler, like all of us. But what is to be done if the direct and sole vocation of every intelligent man is babble, that is, the intentional pouring of water through a sieve?
Fyodor Dostoyevsky1821–1881Notes from Underground (1864), Part 1, Chapter 5 (tr. Constance Garnett, 1918)In context
- Intelligence
- Talking
Whatever an enemy might do to an enemy, or a foe to a foe, the ill-directed mind can do to you even worse.
Whatever a mother, father or other kinsman might do for you, the well-directed mind can do for you even better.
Gautama Buddha501–501 BCPali Canon 42-43 Cittavagga The Mind.
A learned fool is more foolish than an ignorant one.
Molière1622–1673Les Femmes Savantes (1672), Act IV, sc. iii
- Education
- Intelligence
Mediocrity can talk, but it is for genius to observe.
IDIsaac D'Israeli1766–1848Curiosities of Literature (1791–1834)
- Genius
- Talking
I am certain there is too much certainty in the world.
Michael Crichton1942–2008State of Fear (2004)
The direction of the mind is more important than its progress.
Joseph Joubert1754–1824The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, tr. Paul Auster (1983)
The proof of a theory is in its reasoning, not in its sponsorship.
Ludwig von Mises1881–1973Theory of Money and Credit (1912)
- Ideas