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Quotes about thinking

552 quotes from 279 people

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Many people would sooner die than think. In fact they do.
Bertrand Russell1872–1970
Talent does what it can; genius does what it must.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton1803–1873
- Genius
There are two distinct classes of what are called thoughts: those that we produce in ourselves by reflection and the act of thinking and those that bolt into the mind of their own accord.
Thomas Paine1737–1809
There is no expedient to which a man will not go to avoid the labor of thinking.
Joshua Reynolds1723–1792Often credited to Thomas Edison
In our civilization, and under our republican form of government, intelligence is so highly honored that it is rewarded by exemption from the cares of office.
Ambrose Bierce1842–1914The Devil’s Dictionary (1911)
- Intelligence
- Politics
What we are today comes from our thoughts of yesterday and our present thoughts build our life tomorrow. Our life is the creation of our mind.
Gautama Buddha501–501 BC
Learning without thought is labor lost.
Confucius551–479 BCAnalects, Chapter II, To study and not think is a waste. To think and not study is dangerous.
- Education
Towering genius disdains a beaten path. It seeks regions hitherto unexplored.
Abraham Lincoln1809–1865The Lyceum Address (1838)
- Genius
Never express yourself more clearly than you are able to think.
Niels Bohr1885–1962
- Talking
When men yield up the privilege of thinking, the last shadow of liberty quits the horizon.
Thomas Paine1737–1809“Reflections on Titles”, Pennsylvania Magazine (May, 1775)
Nearly every man who develops an idea works it up to the point where it looks impossible, and then he gets discouraged. That’s not the place to become discouraged.
Thomas Edison1847–1931
- Ideas
Any man who afflicts the human race with ideas must be prepared to see them misunderstood.
H. L. Mencken1880–1956
- Ideas
A stupid man’s report of what a clever man says is never accurate because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something he can understand.
Bertrand Russell1872–1970A History of Western Philosophy (1945)
- Intelligence
- Talking
Without the aid of trained emotions the intellect is powerless against the animal organism.
C. S. Lewis1898–1963The Abolition of Man (1943), Ch. I: “Men without Chests”
- Intelligence
Originality is the fine art of remembering what you hear but forgetting where you heard it.
Laurence J. Peter1919–1990Peter’s Quotations: Ideas for Our Time (1977), p. 362
- Ideas