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Quotes about thinking

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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.
An intellectual is a man who says a simple thing in a difficult way; an artist is a man who says a difficult thing in a simple way.
Charles Bukowski1920–1994Notes of a Dirty Old Man (1969)
- Art
- Intelligence
Talent does what it can; genius does what it must.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton1803–1873
- Genius
The march of the human mind is slow.
Edmund Burke1729–1797Second Speech on Conciliation with America (1775)
At first people refuse to believe that a strange new thing can be done, then they begin to hope it can be done, then they see it can be done⁠—then it is done and all the world wonders why it was not done centuries ago.
Frances Hodgson Burnett1849–1924The Secret Garden (1911), Chapter XXVIIIn context
- Change
- Ideas
One of the new things people began to find out in the last century was that thoughts⁠—just mere thoughts⁠—are as powerful as electric batteries⁠—as good for one as sunlight is, or as bad for one as poison. To let a sad thought or a bad one get into your mind is as dangerous as letting a scarlet fever germ get into your body.
Frances Hodgson Burnett1849–1924The Secret Garden (1911), Chapter XXVIIIn context
- Health
Where you tend a rose, my lad,
A thistle cannot grow.
Frances Hodgson Burnett1849–1924The Secret Garden (1911), Chapter XXVIIIn context
- Nature
Reason is Life’s sole arbiter, the magic Laby’rinth’s single clue:
Worlds lie above, beyond its ken; what crosses it can ne’er be true.
Richard Francis Burton1821–1890The Kasîdah of Hâjî Abdû El-Yezdî (1870)
What’s drinking?
A mere pause from thinking!
Lord Byron1788–1824The Deformed Transformed, Act III, sc. i (1824).
- Comedy
An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself.
Albert Camus1913–1960Notebooks (1942–1951)
- Intelligence
We get into the habit of living before acquiring the habit of thinking.
Albert Camus1913–1960An Absurd Reasoning
- Life & Death
Clever men are good, but they are not the best.
Thomas Carlyle1795–1881Critical and Miscellaneous Essays (1827–1855), Goethe.
- Character
- Intelligence
The man of Humor sees common life, even mean life, under the new light of sportfulness and love; whatever has existence has a charm for him. Humor has justly been regarded as the finest perfection of poetic genius.
Thomas Carlyle1795–1881“Schiller”, first published in Fraser’s Magazine (1831).
- Genius
- Humor
Originality is a thing we constantly clamour for, and constantly quarrel with.
Thomas Carlyle1795–1881Critical and Miscellaneous Essays (1827–1855), Richter.
- Ideas
Somehow it seems to fill my head with ideas⁠—only I don’t exactly know what they are!
Lewis Carroll1832–1898Through the Looking-Glass (1871), Chapter IIn context
- Ideas
- Poetry