Quotes about thinking

page 13

“Winners and losers aren't born, they are the products of how they think”

“But why do I notice everything? She thought. Why must I think? She did not want to think. She wanted to force her mind to become a blank and lie back, and accept quietly, tolerantly, whatever came.”

“A true symbol appears only when there is a need to express what thought cannot think or what is only divined or felt.”

“Nothing he said could change what I think of you. I've had my mind made up about you for a long time… and it's all good.”

“I think the girl who is able to earn her own living and pay her own way should be as happy as anybody on earth. The sense of independence and security is very sweet.”

“To THINK BIG and to use our talents doesn't mean we won't have difficulties along the way. We will—we all do. How we view those problems determines how we end up. If we choose to see the obstacles in our path as barriers, we stop trying. “We can't win,” we moan. “They won't let us win.”However, if we choose to see the obstacles as hurdles, we can leap over them. Successful people don't have fewer problems. They have determined that nothing will stop them from going forward.Whatever direction we choose, if we can realize that every hurdle we jump strengthens and prepares us for the next one, we're already on the way to success.”

“The greatest feminists have also been the greatest lovers. I'm thinking not only of Mary Wollstonecraft and her daughter Mary Shelley, but of Anais Nin, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and of course Sappho. You cannot divide creative juices from human juices. And as long as juicy women are equated with bad women, we will err on the side of being bad.”

“I don’t know what I’m looking for.”
“What not?”
“Because … because … I think it might be because if I knew I wouldn’t be able to look for them.”

“I think it's IMPOSSIBLE for anyone famous to come from here, because everyone around here is insane.”

“In a very real sense we have two minds, one that thinks and one that feels. These two fundamentally different ways of knowing interact to construct our mental life.”

“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 the infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far.”

“He gestured at me. “That’s Belly.”
“Belly?” she repeated.
“Yup. She’s my girlfriend.”
I think I choked out loud.”

“Sergeant Colon of the Ankh-Morpork City Guard was on duty. He was guarding the Brass Bridge, the main link between Ankh and Morpork. From theft.

When it came to crime prevention, Sergeant Colon found it safest to think big.”

“I think it's odd that grown-ups quarrel so easily and so often and about such petty matters. Up to now I always thought bickering was just something children did and that they outgrew it.”

“I think perhaps we want a more conscious life.”

“Worry less about what other people think about you, and more about what you think about them.”

“When men yield up the exclusive privilege of thinking, the last shadow of liberty quits the horizon.”

“Some might think that the creativity, imagination, and flights of fancy that give my life meaning are insanity.”

“I don’t know what to do,” he said. “No harm in that. I’ve never known what to do,” said Rincewind with hollow cheerfulness. “Been completely at a loss my whole life.” He hesitated. “I think it’s called being human, or something.”

“I think that somehow, we learn who we really are and then live with that decision.”

“I act and react, and suddenly I wonder, ‘Where is the girl that I was last year? Two years ago? What would she think of me now?”

“When we our betters see bearing our woes,
We scarcely think our miseries our foes.”

“Most people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so.”

“Was I ignorant, then, when I was seventeen? I think not. I knew everything. A quarter-century's experience of life since then has added nothing to what I knew. The one difference is that at seventeen I had no 'realism'.”

“Magic is the art of thinking, not strength or language.”

“Apes had it worked out. No ape would philosophize, "The mountain is, and is not." They would think, "The banana is. I will eat the banana. There is no banana. I want another banana.”

“This isn't a particularly novel observation, but the world is full of people who think they can manipulate the lives of others merely by getting a law passed.”

“As he thinks, so he is; as he continues to think, so he remains.”

“He thinks, I remembered you, Thomas More, but you didn't remember me. You never even saw me coming.”

“Think like a wise man but communicate in the language of the people.”

“Sometimes I really think people ought to have to pass a proper exam before they're allowed to be parents. Not just the practical, I mean.”

“Life is a tragedy to those who feel and a comedy to those who think.”

“Love is like a precious plant. You can't just accept it and leave it in the cupboard or just think it's going to get on by itself. You've got to keep on watering it. You've got to really look after it and nurture it.”

“A noble and God-like character is not a thing of favor or chance, but is the natural result of continued effort in right thinking, the effect of long-cherished association with God-like thoughts.”

“It would be advisable to think of progress in the crudest, most basic terms: that no one should go hungry anymore, that there should be no more torture, no more Auschwitz. Only then will the idea of progress be free from lies.”

“When a woman thinks her husband is a fool, her marriage is over. They may part in one year or ten; they may live together until death. But if she thinks he is a fool, she will not love him again.”

“You would think that a rock star being married to a super-model would be one of the greatest things in the world. It is.”

“I love what I think, and I'm never tempted to believe it.”

“Have strength in yourself always. think and remember not just what you should do, but also what you want to do. (Ageha, Basara, Vol. 13)”

“The mirror reflects perfectly; it makes no mistakes because it doesn't think. To think is to make mistakes.”

“Your countenance perfectly informs me that you were in company last night with the person, whom you think the most agreeable in the world, the person who interests you at this present time, more than all the rest of the world put together.”

“It is much more important to be oneself than anything else. Do not dream of influencing other people… Think of things in themselves.”

“In the end, I think the relationships that survive in this world are the ones where two people can finish each other's sentences. Forget drama and torrid sex and the clash of opposites. Give me banter any day of the week.”

“Nurture your mind with great thoughts, for you will never go any higher than you think.”

“They can because they think they can.”

“It's strange because sometimes, I read a book, and I think I am the people in the book.”

“Sometimes we think people are like lottery tickets, that they're there to make our most absurd dreams come true.”

“Good breeding consists in concealing how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of the other person.”

“It is one of the great ironies of corporate control that the corporate state needs the abilities of intellectuals to maintain power, yet outside of this role it refuses to permit intellectuals to think or function independently.”

“It's not much. You begin by thinking there is something extraordinary about it. But you'll find out, when you've been out in the world a while longer, unhappiness is the commonest thing there is.”

“Do you think there’s anything to eat in this forest?”
“Yes,” said the wizard bitterly, “us.”

“I couldn't bear to think about it; and yet, somehow, I couldn't think about nothing else.”

“A man who does not think for himself does not think at all.”

“Think occasionally of the suffering of which you spare yourself the sight.”

“I had been lying to myself, thinking I was free, thinking I had let him go. It didn't matter what he said or did, I'd never let him go." - Belly Conklin”

“I think," he said, "I think, if you want thousands, you have to fight for one.”

“All you really need to know for the moment is that the universe is a lot more complicated than you might think, even if you start from a position of thinking it's pretty damn complicated in the first place.”

“In its early stages, insomnia is almost an oasis in which those who have to think or suffer darkly take refuge.”

“Well, in the first place girls never marry the men they flirt with. Girls don't think it right.”

“And what of Nature itself, you say – that callous and cruel engine, red in tooth and fang? Well, it is not so much of an engine as you think. As for "red in tooth and fang," whenever I hear the phrase or its intellectual echoes I know that some passer-by has been getting life from books.”

“Could it think, the heart would stop beating.”

“We think we understand a song's lyrics but what makes us believe in them, or not, is the music”

“If you care about what others think of you, then you will always be their slave.”

“When I get ready to talk to people, I spend two thirds of the time thinking what they want to hear and one third thinking about what I want to say.”

“They think written words are even more powerful,’ whispered the toad. ‘They think all writing is magic. Words worry them. See their swords? They glow blue in the presence of lawyers.”

“What do you think about me is not my business the important thing is what I think about myself…”

“Ah,” said a voice from the doorway, “having your annual ‘everyone thinks Will is a lunatic’ meeting, are you?
“It’s biannual,” said Jem. “And no, this is not that meeting.”

“If you think a thing is impossible, you'll only make it impossible.”

“How strange it is that people of honest feelings and sensibilty, who would not take advantage of a man born without arms or legs or eyes—how such people think nothing of abusing a man with low intelligence.”

“I don't know what I think until I write it down.”

“Men choose Hamlet because every man sees himself as a disinherited monarch. Women choose Alice [in Wonderland] because every woman sees herself as the only reasonable creature among crazy people who think they are disinherited monarchs.”

“If you are insecure, guess what? The rest of the world is too. Do not overestimate the competition and underestimate yourself. You are better than you think.”

“Not to be absolutely certain is, I think, one of the essential things in rationality.”

“God guard me from those thoughts men think
In the mind alone.”

“Here's a quick rule of thumb: Don't annoy science fiction writers. These are people who destroy entire planets before lunch. Think of what they'll do to you.”

“When you're drowning you don't think, You just scream.”

“Part of me suspects that I'm a loser and the other part of me thinks I'm God Almighty.”

“Were you thinking about eating me?” Will inquired.
“No!”
“No one would blame you,” said Jem. “He’s very annoying.”

“To my thinking, a great librarian must have a clear head, a strong hand, and, above all, a great heart. And when I look into the future, I am inclined to think that most of the men who achieve this greatness will be women.”

“I think all of us are always five years old in the presence and absence of our parents.”

“They have not the heart for this battle. So think of your families, think of your homes, and remember it is they you are fighting for.”

“Halfway down the aisle, Jamie suddenly seemed to tire, and they stopped while she caught her breath… It was, I remembered thinking, the most difficult walk anyone ever had to make. In every way, a walk to remember.”

“I think like a genius, I write like a distinguished author, I speak like a child.”

“Stories don't care who takes part in them. All that matters if that the story gets told, that the story repeats. Or, if you prefer to think of it like this: stories are a parasitical life form, warping lives in the service only of the story itself.”

“Deep down we've never been who we think we once were, and we only remember what never happened.”

“If her past were your past, her pain your pain, her level of consciousness your level of consciousness, you would think and act exactly as she does. With this realization comes forgiveness, compassion, peace.”

“Love is rarely flawless,” Carter pointed out. “Humans delude themselves by thinking it has to be. It is the imperfection that makes love perfect.”

“We think we don't deserve love, we think if we let it in we'll become too soft. But a wise man named Levine said it right. He said." Love is the only rational act.”

“Maurice watched them argue again. Humans, eh? Think they're lords of creation. Not like us cats. We know we are. Ever see a cat feed a human? Case proven.”

“You're thinking about something, and it makes you forget to talk.”

“I began to think vodka was my drink at last. It didn’t taste like anything, but it went straight down into my stomach like a sword swallowers’ sword and made me feel powerful and godlike.”

“See first, think later, then test. But always see first. Otherwise you will only see what you were expecting. Most scientists forget that.”

“There's a safety in thinking in a diner. You can have your coffee or your milkshake, and you can go off into strange dark areas, and always come back to the safety of the diner.”

“I want to do something splendid…
Something heroic or wonderful that won’t be forgotten after I’m dead…
I think I shall write books.”

“Sensation tell us a thing is.
Thinking tell us what it is this thing is.
Feeling tells us what this thing is to us.”

“What did thinking ever do for me, to what great place did thinking ever bring me? I think and think and think. I've thought myself out of happiness one million times, but never once into it.”

“I think life too complex a thing to be settled by these hard and fast rules.”

“I don't think… then you shouldn't talk, said the Hatter.”

“The real purpose of books is to trap the mind into doing its own thinking.”