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Quotes about thinking

552 quotes from 279 people

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“Contrariwise,” continued Tweedledee, “if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn’t, it ain’t. That’s logic.”
Lewis Carroll1832–1898Through the Looking-Glass (1871), Chapter IVIn context
- Comedy
It’s a poor sort of memory that only works backwards
Lewis Carroll1832–1898Through the Looking-Glass (1871), Chapter VIn context
- Time
Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.
Lewis Carroll1832–1898Through the Looking-Glass (1871), Chapter VIn context
- Faith
We avenge intellect when we dupe a fool, and it is a victory not to be despised for a fool is covered with steel and it is often very hard to find his vulnerable part.
Giacomo Casanova1725–1798Memoirs of J. Casanova de Seingalt (1894)
- Intelligence
Reason is a particle of the Creator’s divinity. When we use it with a spirit of humility and justice we are certain to please the Giver of that precious gift.
Giacomo Casanova1725–1798Memoirs of J. Casanova de Seingalt (1894)
- God
Your intelligence often bears the same relation to your heart as the library of a château does to its owner.
Nicolas Chamfort1740–1794Maximes et Pensées, #84
- Intelligence
Our knowledge has made us cynical; our cleverness, hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little.
Charlie Chaplin1889–1977The Great Dictator (1940), the barber’s closing speech
- Knowledge
I believe that faith is a precursor of all our ideas.
Charlie Chaplin1889–1977My Autobiography (1964), p. 291
- Faith
- Ideas
There is no such thing on earth as an uninteresting subject; the only thing that can exist is an uninterested person.
G. K. Chesterton1874–1936Heretics (1905)
I don’t think necessity is the mother of invention — invention, in my opinion, arises directly from idleness, possibly also from laziness. To save oneself trouble.
Agatha Christie1890–1976An Autobiography (1977), Part III: Growing Up, §II
- Ideas
- Work
The impossible cannot have happened, therefore the impossible must be possible in spite of appearances.
Agatha Christie1890–1976Murder on the Orient Express (1934), Hercule Poirot
The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes.
Winston Churchill1874–1965
- Intelligence
The empires of the future are the empires of the mind.
Winston Churchill1874–1965Speech at Harvard University, September 6, 1943 (full text, audio).
- Ideas
- Knowledge
A little mouse of thought appears in the room, and even the mightiest potentates are thrown into panic.
Winston Churchill1874–1965“The Defence of Freedom and Peace (The Lights are Going Out)”, radio broadcast to the United States and to London (16 October 1938).
- Ideas
- Power
Beware of thinkers whose minds function only when they are fueled by a quotation.
ECEmil Cioran1911–1995Anathemas and Admirations (1987)
- Quotations