Quotes about thinking
page 68

Adam Steltzner photo

“If you come up with a big new idea in our world and everyone says "Hey, that's great, definitely go ahead with that," then you know it's not a big new idea at all. Anything really new brings out all the reasons why it can't possibly work, and why it's crazy to even think about it.”

Adam Steltzner (1963) American aerospace engineer

Marc Kaufman. Mars Up Close: Inside the Curiosity Mission https://books.google.com/books/about/Mars_Up_Close.html?id=o6XaCwAAQBAJ&hl=en. National Geographic page 15. ISBN 978-1-4262-1278-9.

Mahathir bin Mohamad photo

“We need an opposition to remind us if we are making mistakes. When you are not opposed you think everything you do is right.”

Mahathir bin Mohamad (1925) Prime Minister of Malaysia

Source: December 2005. http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2005/12/11/nation/12838957&sec=nation

Anne Sexton photo
Robert Frost photo
Simon Cowell photo
John McCain photo
Michael Bloomberg photo

“If they don't act, we will. Shame on them but we cannot sit around and watch our environment deteriorate and put this world in jeopardy. We are willing to stand up, we think it is one of the seminal issues of our time.”

Michael Bloomberg (1942) American businessman and politician, former mayor of New York City

http://www.seedmagazine.com/news/2007/05/in_snub_to_bush_us_mayors_sign.php
Environment

George William Foote photo
Donald J. Trump photo
Frank Klepacki photo
Chris Cornell photo
Horace Mann photo

“Do not think of knocking out another person's brains because he differs in opinion from you. It would be as rational to knock yourself on the head because you differ from yourself ten years ago.”

Horace Mann (1796–1859) American politician

James Burgh, in The Dignity of Human Nature, Or, A Brief Account of the Certain and Established Means for Attaining the True End of Our Existence (1754); this is very widely misattributed to Mann, appearing at least as early as the publication of Thoughts Selected from the Writings of Horace Mann (1867) edited by Mary Mann.
Misattributed

Ron Paul photo

“Question: You wanna gut that safety net…
Ron Paul: But the safety net doesn't work.
Question: Tell me why it doesn't work.
Ron Paul: It does work for some people, but overall it ultimately fails, because you spend more money than you have, and then you borrow to the hilt. Now we have to borrow $800 billion a year just to keep the safety net going. It's going to collapse when the dollar collapses, you can't even fight the war without this borrowing. And when the dollar collapses, you can't take care of the elderly of today. They're losing ground. Their cost of living is going up about 10%, even though the government denies it, we give them a 2% cost of living increase.
Question: So do you think the gold standard would fix that?
Ron Paul: The gold standard would keep you from printing money and destroying the middle class. Every country where you have runaway inflation, there's no middle class. Mexico, there's no middle class, you have a huge poor class, and a lot of wealthy people. Today we have a growing poor class, and we have more billionaires than ever before. So we're moving into third world status…
Question: Who is the safety net that you're speaking of, who does benefit from all those programs and all those agencies?
Ron Paul: Everybody on a short term benefits for a time. If you build a tenement house by the government, for about 15 or 20 years somebody might live there, but you don't measure who paid for it: somebody lost their job down the road, somebody had inflation, somebody else suffered. But then the tenement house falls down after about 20 years because it's not privately owned, so everybody eventually suffers. But the immediate victims aren't identifiable, because you don't know who lost the job, and who had the inflation, the victims are invisible. The few people who benefit, who get some help from government, everyone sees, "oh! look what we did!", but they never say instead of what, what did we lose. And unless you ask that question, we'll go into bankruptcy, we're in the early stages of it, the dollar is going down, our standard of living is going down, and we're hurting the very people that so many people wanna help, especially the liberals…”

Ron Paul (1935) American politician and physician

Interview by Mac McKoy on KWQW, December 17, 2007 http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=x3lxo9WIR6w
2000s, 2006-2009

Pierre Trudeau photo
Max Boot photo
Robert M. Pirsig photo
Norodom Sihanouk photo
Ben Carson photo

“There is no fulfillment in things whatsoever. And I think one of the reasons that depression reigns supreme amongst the rich and famous is some of them thought that maybe those things would bring them happiness. But what, in fact, does is having a cause, having a passion. And that's really what gives life's true meaning.”

Ben Carson (1951) 17th and current United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; American neurosurgeon

"Famed Surgeon Ben Carson on Overcoming Adversity" http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4633158, National Public Radio (May 6, 2005)

Richard Dawkins photo
Alanis Morissette photo

“How to lie to yourself and thereby to everyone else,
How to keep smiling when you're thinking of killing yourself.”

Alanis Morissette (1974) Canadian-American singer-songwriter

Eight Easy Steps"
So-Called Chaos (2004)

Tom McCarthy (writer) photo
Robert A. Heinlein photo
John Banville photo

“I suppose many people in Ireland would regard me as being more a European writer than an Irish writer. I don't think this is so.”

John Banville (1945) Irish writer

John Banville: claiming Kafka as an Irish writer (2011)

Billie Piper photo

“People were dealing with CGI for the first time, so I think we were really unsure as to whether it would be a huge success or a big flop. … I thought the scripts were so good. It had a kind of domestic element which I'm not sure it ever had before. I think we were feeling quite confident about that. … In terms of whether it had a place in the world when it aired, I think everyone was quite unsure. I didn't know until it aired and people really seemed to like it.”

Billie Piper (1982) English singer, dancer and actress

On her role in the 21st century revival of Doctor Who, as quoted in "'I've heard that before!': Chris Evans cracks ex-wife jokes with Billie Piper as she appears on his show with new husband Laurence Fox" in The Daily Mail Reporter (22 November 2013) http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2511885/Chris-Evans-cracks-ex-wife-jokes-Billie-Piper-appears-new-husband-Laurence-Fox.html

Bob Dylan photo

“And I'll tell it and speak it and think it and breathe it.”

Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist

Song lyrics, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan (1963), A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall

Colin Blackburn, Baron Blackburn photo
Poul Anderson photo
Hermann Hesse photo
Donald J. Trump photo

“Well I just want to say that we are, you know, very honored by the victory that we had, 306 electoral college votes, we were not supposed to crack 220, you [turning to the Israeli PM] know that right? There was no way to 221, but then they said there's no way to 270 [Netanyahu tries to respond, but Trump continues, so then mouths "I thought he was talking to me"] and there's tremendous enthusiasm out there. I will say that, um, we are going to have peace, in this country, we are going to stop crime, in this country, we are going to do everything within our power to stop long-simmering racism, and every other thing that's going on, because a lot of bad things have been taking place over a long period of time. I think one of the reasons I won the election is we have a very, very divided nation, very divided, and hopefully I'll be able to do something about that, and I, you know, it's something that was very important to me. As far as people, Jewish people, so many friends, a daughter who happens to be here right now, a son-in-law, and three beautiful grandchildren, I think that you're going to see a lot different United States of America over the next three, four, or eight years, er, I think a lot of good things are happening, and you're going to see a lot of love, you're going to see a lot of love.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

Trump responding to a reporter's question about rising anti-Semitic incidents and a perception of xenophobia in his administration, during a joint press conference with Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmfseeZt5fA (15 February 2017)
2010s, 2017, February

Max Eastman photo

“I still think the worst enemy of human hope is not brute facts, but men of brains who will not face them.”

Max Eastman (1883–1969) American activist

Source: Reflections on the Failure of Socialism (1955), p. 57

Michelle Obama photo

“Every time I meet a child I think, who knows what’s going on in her life, whether she was just bullied or whether she had a bad day at school or whether she lost a parent — that interaction that we have with that individual, that child for that moment, could change their life … so we can’t waste this spotlight. It is temporary and life is short, and change is needed. And women are smarter than men.”

Michelle Obama (1964) lawyer, writer, wife of Barack Obama and former First Lady of the United States

Speaking at a women's forum at the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit in Washington, alongside former first lady Laura Bush, as quoted in "Michelle Obama: ‘Women are smarter than men’" in The Washington Times (6 August 2014) http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/aug/6/michelle-obama-women-are-smarter-than-men/
2010s

Woody Allen photo

“Harry: No, I don't think you're paranoid. I think you're the opposite of paranoid. I think you walk around with the insane delusion that people like you.”

Woody Allen (1935) American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, author, playwright, and musician

Deconstructing Harry (1997)

Michael Chabon photo
Donald J. Trump photo

“I think once you start eating people you should stop claiming to be a vegetarian, even if you only eat bad people.”

James Nicoll (1961) Canadian fiction reviewer

[bc663m$ira$1@panix1.panix.com, 2003]
2000s

Quintin Hogg, Baron Hailsham of St Marylebone photo
Roger Waters photo
Richard Cobden photo

“I cannot give a stronger proof of the perils which I think surrounds us, than to say that I shall feel it my duty to stop the wheels of Government if I can, in a way which can only be justified by an extraordinary crisis…I do not mean to threaten outbreaks—that the starving masses will come and pull down your mansions; but I say that you are drifting on to confusion without rudder or compass. It is my firm belief that within six months we shall have populous districts in the north in a state of social dissolution. You may talk of repressing the people by the military, but what military force would be equal to such an emergency? …I do not believe that the people will break out unless they are absolutely deprived of food; if you are not prepared with a remedy, they will be justified in taking food for themselves and their families…Is it not important for Members for manufacturing districts on both sides to consider what they are about? We are going down to our several residences to face this miserable state of things, and selfishness, and a mere instinctive love of life ought to make us cautious. Others may visit the continent, or take shelter in rural districts, but the peril will ere long reach them even there. Will you, then, do what we require, or will you compel us to do it ourselves? This is the question you must answer.”

Richard Cobden (1804–1865) English manufacturer and Radical and Liberal statesman

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1842/jul/08/distress-of-the-country in the House of Commons (8 July 1842) against the Corn Laws.
1840s

Jane Espenson photo
Henry Moore photo
Paul Romer photo

“One problem today is that people think protecting the environment will be so costly and so hard that they want to ignore the problem and pretend it doesn’t exist. Humans are capable of amazing accomplishments if we set our minds to it.”

Paul Romer (1955) American economist

At a news conference after the 2018 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics announcement, as quoted in "2018 Nobel in Economics Is Awarded to William Nordhaus and Paul Romer" https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/08/business/economic-science-nobel-prize.html The New York Times. October 8, 2018.

John Howard photo

“I don't think it is wrong, racist, immoral or anything, for a country to say 'we will decide what the cultural identity and the cultural destiny of this country will be and nobody else.”

John Howard (1939) 25th Prime Minister of Australia

Quoted in "Howard reasserts right to decide cultural identity," The Age, 20 September 1988.

Winston S. Churchill photo
Gustav Stresemann photo

“We agree to recognise Lithuanian independence on condition that the desire of the Lithuanians for a military convention and a customs, monetary and postal union with Germany, communicated to us some time ago by a Lithuanian delegation, still remains. For to be candid, the idea of full independence for these peripheral countries seems to me to be purely theoretical and impracticable…The whole development of world politics shows that we have not only great and powerful individual countries like Germany on the one hand and Britain and France on the other, but associations of States fighting against each other…I do not believe in Wilson's universal League of Nations, I think that after the peace it will burst like a soap bubble. Great and powerful complexes of nations with hundreds of millions of inhabitants, armies of millions of men and exports amounting to thousands of millions, will be confronting each other. In the circumstances such small fractional nationalities will not be able to exist in complete independence, without seeking to lean on one side or the other. Just as there is no independent Belgium in the sense that it gravitates towards one side or the other, so it is not possible to conceive of a completely independent Lithuania, Balticum or Poland without that provisio.”

Gustav Stresemann (1878–1929) German politician, statesman, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate

1910s, Speech in the Reichstag, 18 March 1918

Scott McClellan photo

“I think I previously indicated that he attended three Hanukkah receptions at the White House. It is actually only two Hanukkah receptions that he attended. […] I don't get into discussing staff-level meetings.”

Scott McClellan (1968) Former White House press secretary

Source: Press briefing http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2006/01/20060117-3.html, January 17, 2006

Mary Parker Follett photo
Marvin Gaye photo
David Lee Roth photo
Donald J. Trump photo

“The Bernie ones were — they had a lot more spirit. I think we're going to get a lot of Bernie voters, if you want to know the truth. Because they do understand that trade is killing us. Trade.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

2010s, 2016, August, Speech at rally in Wilmington, North Carolina (August 9, 2016)

Iain Banks photo
Bear Bryant photo

“I don't guess anybody would think much of what Joe did nowadays, including myself. But he was supposed to be a leader, so he had to live by the rules. It was the hardest thing I ever had to do, and it was to the greatest athlete I ever coached.”

Bear Bryant (1913–1983) American college football coach

Speaking about Joe Namath, the star quarterback, being benched for an infraction before the 1963 final regular-season game against Miami and the Sugar Bowl.
Source: Football's Supercoach, B.J., Phillips, Sep. 29, 1980, Time, 6, 2008-12-11 http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,952802-6,00.html,

Thomas Fuller (writer) photo

“1887. Think thyself happy if thou hast one true Friend; never think of finding another.”

Thomas Fuller (writer) (1654–1734) British physician, preacher, and intellectual

Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727)

Winston S. Churchill photo
Janez Drnovšek photo
Hillary Clinton photo
John Buchan photo
Jonathan Ive photo

“I think a beautiful product that doesn't work very well is ugly.”

Jonathan Ive (1967) English designer and VP of Design at Apple

Vanity Fair: "Jonathan Ives Shares Three Lessons He Learned From Steve Jobs" https://www.vanityfair.com/news/tech/2014/10/jony-ive-lessons-from-steve-jobs (9 October 2014)

Donald J. Trump photo
Paul Ryan photo
Norodom Ranariddh photo
Edward Payson photo
John Maynard Keynes photo
Larry Wall photo

“So I'm thinking about??, or!!, or //, or \\, or whatever. But I think I like?? the best so far. Or the least worst.”

Larry Wall (1954) American computer programmer and author, creator of Perl

[199809150037.RAA17580@wall.org, 1998]
Usenet postings, 1998

Matt Dillon photo
Richard Nixon photo

“A debut movie is something that you envision for many, many years. If you really want to make a movie, you constantly think about this first movie, so when you make it, you want to have everything in it.”

Christoffer Boe (1974) Danish filmmaker

Quoted in Fade to Black: Christoffer Boe http://digitalcontentproducer.com/mag/video_fade_black_31/, interview with Darroch Greer, Millimeter (September 1, 2004)

Jack Vidgen photo

“There was this whole thing of ‘Jack's voice breaking’ about three or four months ago, and I think I sort of laughed at the whole thing, 'cause they sort of made out like I couldn't sing anymore, and my whole life was over, which it wasn't.”

Jack Vidgen (1997) Australian singer

Today Tonight, Jack Vidgen's rising star http://au.news.yahoo.com/today-tonight/celebrity/article/-/13385033/jack-vidgens-rising-star/, 10 April, 2012.

“I don’t think we as a party should let China and Russia stop international action to save lives in Syria … Three times they have vetoed action in Syria, and each time the crisis has escalated and escalated.”

Jo Cox (1974–2016) UK politician

Speaking on BBC Daily Politics show — UK 'should enforce Syria no-fly zone even if Russia vetoes UN resolution' https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/oct/12/uk-should-be-prepared-enforce-syria-no-fly-zone-russian-veto-un-isis-assad (12 October 2015)

Theo Walcott photo

“He is potentially brilliant, and he is going to be exciting, but potential is nothing unless you can produce it. I would think he's way, way, way, miles away from international World Cup football.”

Theo Walcott (1989) English association football player

Bobby Robson, former manager of England, 2006 ( Source http://www.cnn.com/2006/SPORT/football/05/08/england.gamble/index.html)
About

James Howard Kunstler photo
Albert Hofmann photo
Anthony Kennedy photo
Mona Charen photo
Elvis Costello photo

“Lie down baby now don't say a word
There there baby your vision is blurred
Your head is so sore from all of that thinking
I don't want to hurt you now
But I think you're shrinking.”

Elvis Costello (1954) English singer-songwriter

Song lyrics, All This Useless Beauty (1996)
Source: The Other End (of the Telescope)

Stanley Baldwin photo
George W. Bush photo
Charles Bukowski photo
Billy Corgan photo

“I think the original, 'They're the next Jane's Addiction' things that people said about us in the beginning have been pretty much wiped out.”

Billy Corgan (1967) American musician, songwriter, producer, and author

Smashing Pumpkins (1996)

Franklin D. Roosevelt photo

“I sometimes think we consider too much the good luck of the early bird and not enough the bad luck of the early worm.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945) 32nd President of the United States

Roosevelt to Henry M. Heymann (2 December 1919), as quoted in Roosevelt and Howe (1962), by Alfred B. Rollins, Jr., p. 153
1910s

James Callaghan photo
Natasha Lyonne photo

“As a rule people don’t think other people on drugs are funny. They think they are tragic. They have a point, but I still had the funny.”

Natasha Lyonne (1979) actress

As quoted in "Spoonful of Sugar : Natasha Lyonne’s Sweet Comeback" by Shira Levine, in Heeb Magazine (20 January 2009)

Jim Yong Kim photo
Jon Stewart photo
F. Scott Fitzgerald photo

“You're a historian. Tell me if there are any bath-tubs in history. I think they've been frightfully neglected.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940) American novelist and screenwriter

"Porcelain and Pink"
Quoted, Tales of the Jazz Age (1922)

Sophia Loren photo

“Sex appeal is fifty percent what you've got and fifty percent what people think you've got.”

Sophia Loren (1934) Italian actress

As quoted in Halliwell’s Filmgoer’s Companion (1984) Leslie Halliwell
Variant: Sex appeal is fifty percent what you've got and fifty percent what people think you've got.

Thomas Flanagan (political scientist) photo

“Well I think Assange should be assassinated actually. I think Obama should put out a contract and maybe use a drone or something. There's no good coming of this…”

Thomas Flanagan (political scientist) (1944) author, academic, and political activist

Power and Politics with Evan Solomon, CBC Newsworld, November 30, 2010, 6:10pm.

David Morrison photo
Carl Sagan photo
Nigel Cumberland photo

“Thinking and doing the opposite of what the majority is doing isn’t about being different for the sake of being different. There are lots of times when the well-trodden path is the right one to take. Your challenge is to know when it will be in your interest to do the opposite.”

Nigel Cumberland (1967) British author and leadership coach

Your Job-Hunt Ltd – Advice from an Award-Winning Asian Headhunter (2003), Successful Recruitment in a Week (2012) https://books.google.ae/books?idp24GkAsgjGEC&printsecfrontcover&dqnigel+cumberland&hlen&saX&ved0ahUKEwjF75Xw0IHNAhULLcAKHazACBMQ6AEIGjAA#vonepage&qnigel%20cumberland&ffalse, 100 Things Successful People Do: Little Exercises for Successful Living (2016) https://books.google.ae/books?idnu0lCwAAQBAJ&dqnigel+cumberland&hlen&saX&ved0ahUKEwjF75Xw0IHNAhULLcAKHazACBMQ6AEIMjAE

Lana Turner photo
Gene Simmons photo

“You shall not covet thy neighbor's wife? Well, how about if she goddamn covets me? What do you think about that?”

Gene Simmons (1949) Israeli-born American rock bass guitarist, singer-songwriter, record producer, entrepreneur, and actor

What I've Learned (July 2002)

Aron Ra photo