“The trouble with most people is that they think with their hopes or fears or wishes rather than with their minds.”

—  Will Durant

Last update June 12, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The trouble with most people is that they think with their hopes or fears or wishes rather than with their minds." by Will Durant?
Will Durant photo
Will Durant85
American historian, philosopher and writer 1885–1981

Related quotes

Max Brooks photo

“I think that most people would rather face the light of a real enemy than the darkness of their imagined fears.”

Max Brooks book World War Z

Source: World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War

“I'm scared of you two in the same place. That's like putting in an order for trouble, rather than just wishing for it.”

Lora Leigh (1965) American writer

Source: Wicked Pleasure

Norman Vincent Peale photo

“The trouble with most of us is that we'd rather be ruined by praise than saved by criticism.”

Norman Vincent Peale book The Power of Positive Thinking

Variant: The trouble with most of us is that we would rather be ruined by praise than saved by criticism
Source: The Power of Positive Thinking

Jay Samit photo

“The trouble with most entrepreneurs is that they would rather be ruined by praise than saved by criticism.”

Jay Samit (1961) American businessman

Source: Disrupt You! (2015), p.115

“At the back of their personal troubles, hopes and fears, this less immediate trepidation grew, this intangible suggestion of change, that most unforgivable of all heresies.”

Mervyn Peake book Titus Groan

Source: Titus Groan (1946), Chapter 59 “Presage” (p. 320)

Dwight D. Eisenhower photo

“We –finally—look upon change, the every-unfolding future, with confidence rather than doubt, hope rather than fear. We, as a people, were born of revolution. And we have lived by change—always a frontier people, exploring—if not new wilderness—then new science and new knowledge.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) American general and politician, 34th president of the United States (in office from 1953 to 1961)

1950s, Address at the Philadelphia Convention Hall (1956)

Walt Disney photo

“I would rather entertain and hope that people learned something than educate people and hope they were entertained. ”

Walt Disney (1901–1966) American film producer and businessman

Franz Kafka photo

“I never wish to be easily defined. I’d rather float over other people’s minds as something strictly fluid and non-perceivable; more like a transparent, paradoxically iridescent creature rather than an actual person.”

Franz Kafka (1883–1924) author

Francis Bacon photo

“As for the passions and studies of the mind: avoid envy; anxious fears; anger fretting inwards; subtle and knotty inquisitions; joys and exhilarations in excess; sadness not communicated. Entertain hopes; mirth rather than joy; variety of delights, rather than surfeit of them; wonder and admiration, and therefore novelties; studies that fill the mind with splendid and illustrious objects, as histories, fables, and contemplations of nature.”

Francis Bacon book Essays

Of Regimen of Health
Essays (1625)

“I wish to explore what mad people meant to say, what was on their minds. Their testimonies are eloquent of their hopes”

Roy Porter (1946–2002) British historian

Toy Porter book (1987) A Social History of Madness: Stories of the Insane. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson.

Related topics