quotations about thought
O for a life of Sensations rather than of Thoughts!
JOHN KEATS
letter to Benjamin Bailey, November 22, 1817
Ah, the mighty men who conquer,
And the men whose words we drink,
Are the men who quit the jangle,
Quit the turmoil and the wrangle
Of the world, and turn their faces
To secluded, silent places,
Where in solitude they think.
EDGAR GUEST
"Think"
Though old the thought and oft expressed,
'Tis his at last who says it best.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
For an Autograph
A word devoid of thought is a dead thing, and a thought unembodied in words remains a shadow.
LEV S. VYGOTSKY
Thought and Language
When thoughts cannot find vent and utterance in action, the mind ceases to think. It will not continue to produce its mighty births of power and beauty, to see them fall dead-born into the world, or to be strangled in embryo.
HORACE MANN
Thoughts
Thoughts there are, not to be translated into any language, and spirits alone can read them.
ARTHUR HELPS
Thoughts in the Cloister and the Crowd
Thought is pure energy. Every thought you have, have ever had, and ever will have is creative. The energy of your thought never ever dies. Ever. It leaves your being and heads out into the universe, extending forever. A thought is forever.
NEALE DONALD WALSCH
Conversations with God
Second thoughts are the adopted children of experience.
ELIZA COOK
"Diamond Dust", Eliza Cook's Journal, Volume 3
My thoughts are my company; I can bring them together, select them, detain them, dismiss them.
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
Imaginary Conversations
Unlike a fountain that circulates the same water in an enclosed, perpetually recycling system, a human being circulates thoughts in an unlimited reservoir of self.
VERA NAZARIAN
The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration
The wise man hath his thoughts in his head; the fool, on his tongue.
IVAN PANIN
Thoughts
A person is limited only by the thoughts that he chooses.
JAMES ALLEN
As a Man Thinketh
Thought and action should be one.
GEBHARD LEBRECHT VON BLUCHER
attributed, Day's Collacon
Trying to write an inspiring memoir while repressing such thoroughly uninspiring thoughts is a path to madness.
RON CHARLES
"'Woman No. 17' a juice box of suburban satire", Denver Post, May 26, 2017
To think's audacity. God only has that right and privilege. Thinking is, or ought to be, a coolness and a calmness; and our poor hearts throb, and our poor brains beat too much for that.
HERMAN MELVILLE
Moby Dick
Thoughts ... have tarried in my mind and peopled its inner chambers,
The sober children of reason, or desultory train of fancy.
MARTIN FARQUHAR TUPPER
Proverbial Philosophy
For good thoughts (though God accept them) yet, towards men, are little better than good dreams, except they be put in act; and that cannot be, without power and place, as the vantage, and commanding ground.
FRANCIS BACON
"Of Great Place", The Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral
If we were all on trial for our thoughts, we would all be hanged.
MARGARET ATWOOD
Alias Grace
Thoughts are no more than electrical surges in the brain.
ALAN LIGHTMAN
Einstein's Dreams
Nothing in this world requires such long seasoning and ripening as new thoughts.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit