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Quotes about thinking

552 quotes from 279 people

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I believe that the mind can be permanently profaned by the habit of attending to trivial things, so that all our thoughts shall be tinged with triviality.
Henry David Thoreau1817–1862Life Without Principle (1863), p. 492
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
In the United States the majority undertakes to supply a multitude of ready-made opinions for the use of individuals, who are thus relieved from the necessity of forming opinions of their own.
Alexis de Tocqueville1805–1859Democracy in America, Volume II (1840), Book One, Chapter II.
- America
The genius of democracies is seen not only in the great number of new words introduced but even more in the new ideas they express.
Alexis de Tocqueville1805–1859Democracy in America, Volume II (1840), Book One, Chapter XVI.
- Democracy
- Ideas
The good news is that you can free yourself from your mind.
Eckhart Tolleborn 1948The Power of Now (1997)
- Freedom
Today the greatest single source of wealth is between your ears.
Brian Tracyborn 1944
- Intelligence
- Money
Let us overthrow the totems, break the taboos. Or better, let us consider them cancelled. Coldly, let us be intelligent.
Pierre Trudeau1919–2000Approaches to Politics (1970)
- Change
- Intelligence
Mathematical reasoning may be regarded rather schematically as the exercise of a combination of two faculties, which we may call intuition and ingenuity.
Alan Turing1912–1954“Systems of Logic Based on Ordinals,” section 11: The purpose of ordinal logics (1938), published in Proceedings of the London Mathematical Society, series 2, vol. 45 (1939)
- Science
I believe that at the end of the century the use of words and general educated opinion will have altered so much that one will be able to speak of machines thinking without expecting to be contradicted.
Alan Turing1912–1954Computing Machinery and Intelligence (1950), p. 442.
- Computers
I must have a prodigious quantity of mind; it takes me as much as a week sometimes to make it up.
Mark Twain1835–1910The Innocents Abroad (1869), Ch. 7
Providence protects children and idiots. I know because I have tested it.
Mark Twain1835–1910
- Children
- Intelligence
A person with a new idea is a crank until the idea succeeds.
Mark Twain1835–1910Following the Equator (1897), Ch. 32.
- Ideas
The radical invents the views. When he has worn them out the conservative adopts them.
Mark Twain1835–1910Mark Twain’s Notebook (1935)
- Ideas
- Politics
A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.
?UnattributedOften credited to William James
Ideas are far more powerful than guns. We don’t let our people have guns. Why should we let them have ideas?
?UnattributedOften credited to Joseph Stalin
- Guns
- Ideas