Quotes about thinking page 12
Bruce Lee (1940–1973) Hong Kong-American actor, martial artist, philosopher and filmmaker
Source: Striking Thoughts (2000), p. 43
Diane Arbus (1923–1971) American photographer and author
George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist
Attributed to Orwell by John H. Bunzel, president of San Jose State University, as reported in Phyllis Schlafly, The Power of the Positive Woman (1977), p. 151; but not found in Orwell's works or in reports contemporaneous with his life. Possibly a paraphrase of Orwell's description of the rationale behind Newspeak in 1984.
Disputed
“I like to wake up each morning and not know what I think, that I may reinvent myself in some way.”
Stephen Fry (1957) English comedian, actor, writer, presenter, and activist
Alfred Adler (1870–1937) Medical Doctor, Psychologist, Psychiatrist, Psychotherapist, Personality Theorist
“And here I was thinking you were a bit slow, what with so much asking and not knowing anything.”
Carlos Ruiz Zafón book The Shadow of the Wind
Source: The Shadow of the Wind
“We who think we are about to die will laugh at anything.”
Terry Pratchett book Night Watch
Source: Night Watch
David Lynch (1946) American filmmaker, television director, visual artist, musician and occasional actor
McKenna interview (1992)
Context: I love child things because there's so much mystery when you're a child. When you're a child, something as simple as a tree doesn't make sense. You see it in the distance and it looks small, but as you go closer, it seems to grow — you haven't got a handle on the rules when you're a child. We think we understand the rules when we become adults but what we really experienced is a narrowing of the imagination.
“The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any.”
Alice Walker (1944) American author and activist
As quoted in The Best Liberal Quotes Ever : Why the Left is Right (2004) by William P. Martin, p. 173.
Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States
As quoted in "Lincoln's Imagination" by Noah Brooks, in Scribner's Monthly (August 1879), p. 586 http://books.google.com/books?id=jOoGAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA586 <br class="br">Posthumous attributions <br class="br">Variant: Character is like a tree and reputation like a shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.
Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist
Bertrand Russell's Best: Silhouettes in Satire (1958), "On Religion".<!--originally taken from What is an Agnostic? (1953).-->
1950s
Context: I observe that a very large portion of the human race does not believe in God and suffers no visible punishment in consequence. And if there were a God, I think it very unlikely that he would have such an uneasy vanity as to be offended by those who doubt his existence.
“It is a wonderful seasoning of all enjoyments to think of those we love.”
C'est un merveilleux assaisonnement aux plaisirs qu'on goûte que la présence des gens qu'on aime.
Act V, sc. iv
Le Misanthrope (1666)
“I think perhaps education doesn’t do us much good unless it is mixed with sweat.”
Barack Obama book Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance
Source: Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance
“he who thinks great thoughts often makes great errors”
Martin Heidegger (1889–1976) German philosopher
“If, when you wake up in the morning, you can think of nothing but writing… then you are a writer.”
Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926) Austrian poet and writer
“I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.”
Joyce Kilmer Trees and Other Poems
"Trees" - This poem was first published in Poetry: A Magazine of Verse Vol. 2 (August 1913). The first two lines were first written down on the 2nd of February 1913.
Trees and Other Poems (1914)
Source: Trees & Other Poems
Context: I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth's sweet flowing breast;
A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;
A tree that may in Summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;
Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.
“I think we deserve people who really, really love us.”
Alicia Keys (1981) American singer-songwriter, pianist, and actress
David Lynch (1946) American filmmaker, television director, visual artist, musician and occasional actor
As quoted in My Love Affair with David Lynch and Peachy Like Nietzsche: Dark Clown Porn Snuff for Terrorists and Gorefiends (2005) by Jason Rogers, p. 7
Context: I don't think that people accept the fact that life doesn't make sense. I think it makes people terribly uncomfortable. It seems like religion and myth were invented against that, trying to make sense out of it.
“You can't think decently if you're not willing to hurt yourself”
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) Austrian-British philosopher
“People who don't think shouldn't talk.”
Lewis Carroll (1832–1898) English writer, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer
Fernando Pessoa (1888–1935) Portuguese poet, writer, literary critic, translator, publisher and philosopher
“A man is literally what he thinks, his character being the complete sum of all his thoughts.”
James Allen book As a Man Thinketh
As A Man Thinketh (1902)
Source: As a Man Thinketh
“Never try to discourage thinking, for you are sure to succeed.”
Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist
“You have to believe it and you hate it. I don't have to and I think it's beautiful.”
Katherine Paterson book Bridge to Terabithia
Source: Bridge to Terabithia
Joel Osteen (1963) American televangelist and author
Source: Your Best Life Now: 7 Steps to Living at Your Full Potential
Elisabeth Elliot (1926–2015) American missionary
“I think it's fair rude to make him a tree and not know what kind he is.”
Tamora Pierce book Wolf-Speaker
Source: Wolf-Speaker
Edward Gorey (1925–2000) American writer, artist, and illustrator
Source: Ascending Peculiarity: Edward Gorey on Edward Gorey
Malcolm X (1925–1965) American human rights activist
Quoted by Maya Angelou (quote reproduced in James L. Conyers, Andrew P. Smallwood, Malcolm X: A Historical Reader, Carolina Academic Press, 2008, p. 181 and Elaine Slivinski Lisandrelli, Maya Angelou: More than a poet, Enslow Publishers, 1996, p. 90)
Attributed
“I wish people were all trees and I think I could enjoy them then.”
Georgia O'Keeffe (1887–1986) American artist
H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author
Fiction, The Call of Cthulhu (1926)
Context: The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.
“Think wrongly, if you please, but in all cases think for yourself.”
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729–1781) writer, philosopher, publicist, and art critic
“You fed it.' The badger sighed. 'Sometimes I think you'll feed.”
Tamora Pierce The Realms of the Gods
Source: The Realms of the Gods
“I think that I was quite a grown-up child, and I have been a pretty childish adult.”
Arundhati Roy (1961) Indian novelist, essayist
“Sometimes I think heaven must be one continuous unexhausted reading.”
Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English writer
Source: Selected Letters
“Sometimes I sits and thinks. Other times I sits and drinks, but mostly I just sits.”
Neal Cassady (1926–1968) American cultural figure of 1950s and 1960s
Source: First Third & Other Writings - Revised & Expanded Edition Together With A New Prologue
“There are some few people I respect and admire, but I don't think much of the species.”
Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist
“Anyone who thinks must think of the next war as they would of suicide.”
Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States
Source: Eleanor and Franklin
“Don't think about making women fit the world -- think about making the world fit women.”
Gloria Steinem (1934) American feminist and journalist
“How can I tell what I think till I see what I say?”
E.M. Forster book Aspects of the Novel
Source: Aspects of the Novel (1927), Chapter Five: The Plot
“Because a thing seems difficult for you, do not think it impossible for anyone to accomplish.”
Marcus Aurelius (121–180) Emperor of Ancient Rome
Source: The Meditations of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus