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Quotes about thinking

552 quotes from 279 people

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The world moves, and ideas that were good once are not always good.
Dwight D. Eisenhower1890–1969Press Conference, Washington, D.C.
- Ideas
If you are going to win any battle, you have to do one thing. You have to make the mind run the body. Never let the body tell the mind what to do… the body is never tired if the mind is not tired.
George S. Patton1885–1945
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
Neither man or nation can exist without a sublime idea.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky1821–1881
- Ideas
Out of every hundred new ideas ninety-nine or more will probably be inferior to the traditional responses which they propose to replace. No one man, however brilliant or well-informed, can come in one lifetime to such fullness of understanding as to safely judge and dismiss the customs or institutions of his society, for those are the wisdom of generations after centuries of experiment in the laboratory of history.
Will Durant1885–1981And Ariel Durant, The Lessons of History (1968)
- Ideas
If everyone is thinking alike, someone isn’t thinking.
George S. Patton1885–1945
A powerful idea communicates some of its strength to him who challenges it.
Marcel Proust1871–1922
- Ideas
The public is wonderfully tolerant. It forgives everything except genius.
Oscar Wilde1854–1900
- Forgiveness
- Genius
The intellect is not a serious thing, and never has been. It is an instrument on which one plays, that is all.
Oscar Wilde1854–1900
- Intelligence
Strength of mind is exercise, not rest.
Alexander Pope1688–1744An Essay on Man (1733), Epistle II, Line 101In context
Genius is often only the power of making continuous efforts.
Elbert Hubbard1856–1915
- Genius
The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.
Bertrand Russell1872–1970“The Triumph of Stupidity” (10 May 1933), in Mortals and Others
- Intelligence
Logic, n. The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding.
Ambrose Bierce1842–1914The Devil’s Dictionary (1911)
The logic now in use serves rather to fix and give stability to the errors which have their foundation in commonly received notions than to help the search for truth. So it does more harm than good.
Francis Bacon1561–1626Novum Organum (1620), Book I, Aphorism 7
- Truth & Lies