Famously Said Random quote

Quotes about thinking

552 quotes from 279 people

Most readBy personPage 34 of 37

The brain may devise laws for the blood, but a hot temper leaps o’er a cold decree
William Shakespeare1564–1616The Merchant of Venice (c. 1597), Act I, Scene II, spoken by PortiaIn context
- Emotion
Let opinion be taken away, and no man will think himself wronged. If no man shall think himself wronged, then is there no more any such thing as wrong.
Marcus Aurelius121–180Meditations (c. 170–180), The Fourth BookIn context
- Justice
If therefore it be a thing external that causes thy grief, know, that it is not that properly that doth cause it, but thine own conceit and opinion concerning the thing: which thou mayest rid thyself of, when thou wilt.
Marcus Aurelius121–180Meditations (c. 170–180), The Eighth BookIn context
- Emotion
- Philosophy
I have often wondered how it should come to pass, that every man loving himself best, should more regard other men’s opinions concerning himself than his own.
Marcus Aurelius121–180Meditations (c. 170–180), The Twelfth BookIn context
- Character
I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude. We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers. A man thinking or working is always alone, let him be where he will.
Henry David Thoreau1817–1862Walden (1854), SolitudeIn context
- Friendship
Such is the nature of men, that howsoever they may acknowledge many others to be more witty, or more eloquent, or more learned; Yet they will hardly believe there be many so wise as themselves: For they see their own wit at hand, and other mens at a distance.
Thomas Hobbes1588–1679Leviathan (1651), Part I: Of Man, Chapter XIIIIn context
- Intelligence
- Wisdom
To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men,⁠—that is genius.
Ralph Waldo Emerson1803–1882Self-Reliance (1841)In context
- Genius
In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts; they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty.
Ralph Waldo Emerson1803–1882Self-Reliance (1841)In context
- Genius
- Ideas
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.
Ralph Waldo Emerson1803–1882Self-Reliance (1841)In context
- Wisdom
In every cry of every Man,
In every Infant’s cry of fear,
In every voice, in every ban,
The mind-forg’d manacles I hear.
William Blake1757–1827London (1794)In context
- Freedom
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude
William Wordsworth1770–1850I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud (1807)In context
- Happiness
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread:
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drank the milk of Paradise.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge1772–1834Kubla Khan (1816), Kubla KhanIn context
- Genius
- Poetry
Much madness is divinest sense
To a discerning eye;
Much sense the starkest madness.
Emily Dickinson1830–1886Much Madness is divinest Sense (1890)In context
- Wisdom
Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
T. S. Eliot1888–1965The Hollow Men (1925)In context
- Ideas
It may be that you are not yourself luminous, but you are a conductor of light. Some people without possessing genius have a remarkable power of stimulating it.
Arthur Conan Doyle1859–1930The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902), Chapter 1In context
- Genius
- Inspiration