James Richardson: Quotes about thinking

James Richardson is American poet. Explore interesting quotes on thinking.
James Richardson: 178 quotes6 likes

“To me the great divide is between the talkative and the quiet. Do they just say everything that’s on their minds, even before it’s on their minds? Sometimes I think I could just turn up my head like a walkman so what’s going on there could be heard by others. But there would still be a difference. For inside the head they are talking to people like them, and I am talking to someone like me: he is quiet and doesn’t much like being talked at; he can’t conceal how easily he gets bored.”

James Richardson

#127
Vectors: Aphorisms and Ten Second Essays (2001)

“Books serve us simply by opening a window on all we wanted to say and feel and think about. We may not even notice that they have not said it themselves till we go back to them years later and do not find what we loved in them. You cannot keep the view by taking the window with you.”

James Richardson

#92
Vectors: Aphorisms and Ten Second Essays (2001)

“Think of all the smart people made stupid by flaws of character. The finest watch isn’t fine long when used as a hammer.”

James Richardson

#108
Vectors: Aphorisms and Ten Second Essays (2001)

“The drives were nature’s first provision: thinking was added later, to get us around the world’s obstacles to them.”

James Richardson

#126
Vectors: Aphorisms and Ten Second Essays (2001)

“Suppose you had to remember to beat your heart, contract in exact sequence the muscles you use for every step. … Conservatism comes out of the body, the sense of many things being done for us that any attempt to re-think, or even make conscious, would fatally disrupt.”

James Richardson

#48
Vectors: Aphorisms and Ten Second Essays (2001)

“To think yourself incapable of crime is one failure of the imagination. To think yourself capable of all crimes is another.”

James Richardson

#122
Vectors: Aphorisms and Ten Second Essays (2001)

“Say too soon what you think and you will say what everyone else thinks.”

James Richardson

#405
Vectors: Aphorisms and Ten Second Essays (2001)

“What’s thinking? You live in a grandly appointed house, but spend all your time rummaging around in the attic for any little trinket you hadn’t known was there.”

James Richardson

#454
Vectors: Aphorisms and Ten Second Essays (2001)