Quotes about mind
page 20

“Had you but seen it, I promise you, your high-minded principles would have melted like candle wax. Never would you have wished such beauty away.”

Jennifer Donnelly book Revolution

Source: Revolution

Beauty

“Good-humor is a philosophic state of mind; it seems to say to Nature that we take her no more seriously than she takes us. I maintain that one should always talk of philosophy with a smile.”

William James book The Varieties of Religious Experience

Source: The Varieties of Religious Experience

Smile, Nature

“Haze all clouding up in my mind in the daze of the why it could've never been.”

Tori Amos (1963) American singer

“There is wisdom in turning as often as possible from the familiar to the unfamiliar: it keeps the mind nimble, it kills prejudice, and it fosters humor.”

George Santayana (1863–1952) 20th-century Spanish-American philosopher associated with Pragmatism

Wisdom

“Heaven is a state of mind, not a location.”

Wayne W. Dyer (1940–2015) American writer

“Having eyes, but not seeing beauty; having ears, but not hearing music; having minds, but not perceiving truth; having hearts that are never moved and therefore never set on fire. These are the things to fear, said the headmaster.”

Tetsuko Kuroyanagi (1933) Japanese actress

Source: Totto-chan: The Little Girl at the Window

Truth, Fear, Beauty, Music

“Sometimes you make up your mind about something without knowing why, and your decision persists by the power of inertia. Every year it gets harder to change.”

Milan Kundera book The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Source: The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Decision, Change

“Of all the causes which conspire to blind
Man's erring judgement, and misguide the mind,
What the weak head with strongest bias rules,
Is PRIDE, the never-failing vice of fools.”

Alexander Pope (1688–1744) eighteenth century English poet

Fools

“But then every man is ludicrous if you look at him from outside, without taking into account what’s going on in his heart and mind.”

Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) English writer

Source: After Many a Summer Dies the Swan

Heart

“As Logan walked towards her, he smiled as if reading her mind and opened his arms.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Lucky One

Source: The Lucky One

Smile, Reading

“I read, and, in reading, lifted the Curtains of the Impossible that blind the mind, and looked out into the unknown.”

William Hope Hodgson (1877–1918) British writer

Reading

“Adults forget the depths of languor into which the adolescent mind decends with ease. They are prone to undervalue the mental growth that occurs during daydreaming and aimless wandering”

Edward O. Wilson (1929) American biologist

Forgetting

“In my mind, the men and women of NASA are history's modern pioneers. They attempt the impossible, accept failure, and then back to the drawing board while the rest of us stand back and criticize.”

Dan Brown book Deception Point

Source: Deception Point

Women, Men, History, Failure

“Calmness of mind does not mean you should stop your activity. Real calmness should be found in activity itself. We say, "It is easy to have calmness in inactivity, it is hard to have calmness in activity, but calmness in activity is true calmness.”

Shunryu Suzuki (1904–1971) Japanese Buddhist missionary

Source: Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind: Informal Talks on Zen Meditation and Practice

“The Creator made women to please the eye and trouble the mind.”

Robert Jordan (1948–2007) American writer

Two Rivers saying
(15 October 1993)
Source: The Wheel of Time: Boxed Set

Women

“For you and for me the highest moment, the keenest joy, is not when our minds dominate but when we lose our minds…”

Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica

February, 1932
Diary entries (1914 - 1974)
Source: Fire: From A Journal of Love - The Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin

Joy

“The most potent weapon of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.
So as a prelude whites must be made to realise that they are only human, not superior. Same with Blacks. They must be made to realise that they are also human, not inferior.”

Steve Biko (1946–1977) anti-apartheid activist in South Africa

Statement quoted in the Boston Globe (25 October 1977)
Context: Even today, we are still accused of racism. This is a mistake. We know that all interracial groups in South Africa are relationships in which whites are superior, blacks inferior. So as a prelude whites must be made to realize that they are only human, not superior. Same with blacks. They must be made to realize that they are also human, not inferior.

“It is myself I have never met whose face is pasted on the underside of my mind”

Sarah Kane book 4.48 Psychosis

Variant: It is myself I have never met, whose face is pasted on the underside of my mind.
Source: 4.48 Psychosis

Past

“Seeing that a Pilot steers the ship in which we sail, who will never allow us to perish even in the midst of shipwrecks, there is no reason why our minds should be overwhelmed with fear and overcome with weariness.”

John Calvin (1509–1564) French Protestant reformer

Fear

“A hymn is the praise of God with song; a song is the exultation of the mind dwelling on eternal things, bursting forth in the voice.”

Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) Italian Dominican scholastic philosopher of the Roman Catholic Church

Commentary on the Psalms http://dhspriory.org/thomas/english/PsalmsAquinas/ThoPs0.htm , Introduction

God

“Psychedelics helped me to escape.. albeit momentarily.. from the prison of my mind. It over-rode the habit patterns of thought and I was able to taste innocence again. Looking at sensations freshly without the conceptual overly was very profound.”

Ram Dass (1931–2019) American contemporary spiritual teacher and the author of the 1971 book Be Here Now

Help

“My survival was up to me. I had nothing and I had no one. What I did have, I told myself, was my mind, my imagination, my memory, my feelings, my spirit. These were important and powerful things.”

John Marsden (1950) author

Source: A Killing Frost

Feeling, Imagination, Memory

“To a dull mind all of nature is leaden. To the illumined mind the whole world burns and sparkles with light.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

Variant: To the illuminated mind the whole world burns and sparkles with light.

World, Nature, Light

“It was one of the occasions when Lymond asleep wrecked the peace of mind of more people than Lymond awake.”

Dorothy Dunnett (1923–2001) British writer

Source: Queens' Play

People, Peace

“If a man is to live, he must be all alive, body, soul, mind, heart, spirit.”

Thomas Merton (1915–1968) Priest and author

Source: Thoughts in Solitude

Soul, Heart

“Remember it all, every insult, every tear. Tattoo it on the inside of your mind. In life, knowledge of poisons is essential. I've told you, nobody becomes an artist unless they have to.”

Janet Fitch (1955) American writer

Life, Knowledge, Tear, Tattoo

“Keep this in mind: there are no coincidences.”

James Patterson book The Dangerous Days of Daniel X

Source: The Dangerous Days of Daniel X

“Eventually you will see that the real cause of problem is not life itself. It's the commotion the mind makes about life that really causes the problems.”

Michael Singer (1945) American landscape architect

Source: The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself

Life, Problem

“Where the mind goes the man follows.”

Joyce Meyer (1943) American author and speaker

“In Maycomb, if one went for a walk with no definite purpose in mind, it was correct to believe one's mind incapable of definite purpose.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

“I don't mind if smiles come at my expense, I'm a small price to pay.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Smile

“You're so heavenly minded, you're no earthly good.”

Johnny Cash (1932–2003) American singer-songwriter

“Human beings, as I know better than most, can get used to anything. Over time, even the unthinkable gradually wears a little niche for itself in your mind and becomes just something that happened.”

Tana French In the Woods

Source: In the Woods

Time

“I don't wait for moods. You accomplish nothing if you do that. Your mind must know it has got to get down to work.”

Pearl S. Buck (1892–1973) American writer

Mood, Waiting

“The state of man's mind, or the elementary phase of mind which he so far possesses, conforms precisely to the state of the world as he so far views it”

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831) German philosopher

World

“And there it was again. Another religion turned against itself. Another edifice constructed by the human mind, decimated by human nature.”

Arundhati Roy book The God of Small Things

Source: The God of Small Things

Religion, Nature

“So many objects, so many memories. Each was being labelled and packed away in bags just as it was in her mind. To be stored in an area that would sometime be called upon to teach and help in future life.”

Cecelia Ahern (1981) Irish novelist

Source: P.S. I Love You

Life, Memory, Future, Help

“Sam doesn't hesitate for a minute.
'You say, "Mr and Mrs Tavish, you're making me feel inferior. Do you really think I'm inferior or is it just in my mind?”

Sophie Kinsella book I've Got Your Number

Source: I've Got Your Number

Feeling, Thinking

“She had rooms in her mind that she would not look into.”

Wallace Stegner book Angle of Repose

Source: Angle of Repose

“I don't mind you thinking I'm stupid, but don't talk to me like I'm stupid”

Harlan Ellison (1934–2018) American writer

Stupidity, Thinking

“… an optimistic mind-set finds dozens of possible solutions for every problem that the pessimist regards as incurable.”

Robert Anton Wilson (1932–2007) American author and polymath

Source: Cosmic Trigger: Die letzten Geheimnisse der Illuminaten oder An den Grenzen des erweiterten Bewusstseins

Problem

“A human being in perfection ought always to preserve a calm and peaceful mind and never to allow passion or a transitory desire to disturb his tranquility.”

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797–1851) English novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist, biographer, and travel writer

Source: Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

Peace, Passion, Perfection

“It's strange indeed how memories can lie dormant in a man's mind for so many years. Yet those memories can be awakened and brought forth fresh and new, just by something you've seen, or something you've heard, or the sight of an old familiar face.”

Wilson Rawls book Where the Red Fern Grows

Source: Where the Red Fern Grows

Lie, Memory

“If your appearance is all people see, they have no respect for your mind.”

Trudi Canavan book The Magician's Apprentice

Source: The Magician's Apprentice

People, Appearance

“Percy’d heard stories about amputees who had phantom pains where their missing legs
and arms used to be. That’s how his mind
felt—like his missing memories were aching.”

Rick Riordan book The Son of Neptune

Source: The Son of Neptune

Pain, Memory

“Age is just a number, not a state of mind or a reason for any type of particular behaviour.”

Cecelia Ahern book Love, Rosie

Source: Love, Rosie

Age

“The human mind is a delusion generator, not a window to trurh.”

Scott Adams (1957) cartoonist, writer

Source: God's Debris: A Thought Experiment

“I have a lot on my mind and not a lot to do so it's going to come out, all of it, and then, then, it may begin to make a sort of sense”

Bryan Lee O'Malley book Lost at Sea

Source: Lost at Sea

Sense

“Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you.” “Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit. “Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.” —MARGERY WILLIAMS”

Jenny Han book P.S. I Still Love You

Source: P.S. I Still Love You

Truth, Horse, Hurt

“He well knew his mind's natural tendency to be endlessly on a thousand subjects at once, to flit from this to that and to the next thing to no particular purpose--indeed, he called it his "butterfly mind.”

Eric Metaxas (1963) American journalist

Source: Amazing Grace: William Wilberforce and the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery

Nature

“In the high country of the mind one has to become adjusted to the thinner air of uncertainty…”

Robert M. Pirsig (1928–2017) American writer and philosopher

Country

“It was like having a box of chocolates shut in the bedroom drawer. Until the box was empty it occupied the mind too much.”

Graham Greene book The Heart of the Matter

Source: The Heart of the Matter

Box

“Remembering is a great invention of the mind.”

Rodman Philbrick book Freak the Mighty

Source: Freak the Mighty

“Conservatism, however, is too often a welcome excuse for lazy minds, loath to adapt themselves to fast changing conditions.”

Sigmund Freud book The Interpretation of Dreams

Source: The Interpretation of Dreams

Change

“Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change. The sun might shine, or the clouds might lour: but nothing could appear to me as it had done the day before.”

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797–1851) English novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist, biographer, and travel writer

Pain, Appearance, Change, Sun

“Read at every wait; read at all hours; read within leisure; read in times of labor; read as one goes in; read as one goest out. The task of the educated mind is simply put: read to lead.”

Marcus Tullius Cicero (-106–-43 BC) Roman philosopher and statesman

Education, Time, Waiting, Reading

“Some people think they have discernment when actually they are just suspicious..

Suspicion comes out of the unrenewed mind; discernment comes out of the renewed spirit.”

Joyce Meyer (1943) American author and speaker

Source: Battlefield of the Mind: Winning the Battle in Your Mind

People, Thinking

“I read and walked for miles at night along the beach, writing bad blank verse and searching endlessly for someone wonderful who would step out of the darkness and change my life. It never crossed my mind that that person could be me.”

Anna Quindlen (1952) journalist, Novelist

Source: Living Out Loud

Life, Search, Change, Reading

“Kindness and a caring mind are two separate qualities. Kindness is manners. It is superficial custom, an acquired practice. Not so the mind. The mind is deeper, stronger, and, I believe, it is far more inconstant.”

Haruki Murakami book Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

Source: Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World (1985), Chapter 16: The Coming of Winter

“to have faith is precisely to lose one's mind so as to win God.”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

Source: The Sickness Unto Death: A Christian Psychological Exposition for Upbuilding and Awakening

God, Faith

“If it ever occurs to people to value the honour of the mind equally with the honour of the body, we shall get a social revolution of a quite unparalleled sort.”

Dorothy L. Sayers book Gaudy Night

Source: Gaudy Night

People

“Much to his annoyance, a thought popped into his mind. It was very clear and very distinct, and he had now come to recognize these thoughts for what they were. His instinct was to resist them.”

Douglas Adams (1952–2001) English writer and humorist

“You know what? Don’t even worry about it,” I said. “Cory Wheeler already asked me. I can tell him I changed my mind.”
“Who the hell is Corky Wheeler?”

Jenny Han (1980) American writer

Source: It's Not Summer Without You

Hell, Change

“Tea. I find that both settles the stomach and concentrates the mind. Wonderful drink, tea.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Bones

Source: City of Bones

Drink, Tea

“Those touchy mediocrities who sit trembling lest someone's work prove greater than their own - they have no inkling of the loneliness that comes when you reach the top. The loneliness for an equal - for a mind to respect and an achievement to admire.”

Ayn Rand book Atlas Shrugged

Source: Atlas Shrugged

Loneliness

“The truth is, a great mind must be androgynous.”

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) English poet, literary critic and philosopher

1 September 1832
Table Talk (1821–1834)

Truth

“Remember well, and bear in mind, a constant friend is hard to find.”

Laura Ingalls Wilder (1867–1957) American children's writer, diarist, and journalist

“What I saw wasn't a ghost. It was simply--myself. I can never forget how terrified I was that night, and whenever I remember it, this thought always springs to mind: that the most frightening thing in the world is our own self. What do you think?”

Haruki Murakami (1949) Japanese author, novelist

Source: Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman: 24 Stories

World, Spring, Thinking, Night

“I love to lose myself in other men's minds.”

Charles Lamb Last Essays of Elia

Detached Thoughts on Books and Reading.
Last Essays of Elia (1833)

Love, Men

“I walked over and looked closer at the statue of the goddess. She was wearing a headdress with a skull and a cobra and a crescent moon. Maybe this is what peace of mind was all about: having a poisonous snake on your head and smiling anyway.”

Wally Lamb book I Know This Much Is True

Source: I Know This Much Is True

Peace, Smile

“The boldness of his mind was sheathed in a scabbard of politeness.”

Dumas Malone (1892–1986) American historian and writer

Source: Jefferson the Virginian

“John Galt is Prometheus who changed his mind. After centuries of being torn by vultures in payment for having brought to men the fire of the gods, he broke his chains—and he withdrew his fire—until the day when men withdraw their vultures.”

Ayn Rand book Atlas Shrugged

Source: Atlas Shrugged

Men, God, Change

“Where music thundered let the mind be still,
Where the will triumphed let there be no will,
What light revealed, now let the dark fulfill.”

May Sarton (1912–1995) American poet, novelist, and memoirist

Music, Light

“The details are the life of it, I insist, say everything on your mind, don’t hold back, don’t analyze or anything as you go along, say it out.”

Jack Kerouac book The Subterraneans

Source: The Subterraneans

Life

“I refuse to believe that Hendrix had the last possessed hand,
that Joplin had the last drunken throat,
that Morrison had the last enlightened mind.”

Patti Smith (1946) American singer-songwriter, poet and visual artist

“Your former friend Luke " Poseidon corrected. "He once promised things like that. He was Hermes's pride and joy. Just bear that in mind Percy. Even the bravest can fall.”

Rick Riordan book The Titan's Curse

Source: The Titan's Curse

Joy

“I've heard that the soul often recognizes truth when it hears it, even if the mind does not.”

Richelle Mead (1976) American writer

Source: Storm Born

Truth, Soul

“Like all really strong-minded women, on whom everybody flops, she adored being bossed about. It was so restful.”

Stella Gibbons book Cold Comfort Farm

Source: Cold Comfort Farm

Women, Strong

“The fact is, that what de Sade was trying to bring to the surface of the conscious mind was precisely the thing that revolted that mind… From the very first he set before the consciousness things which it could not tolerate.”

Georges Bataille (1897–1962) French intellectual and literary figure

“I'm a woman. I have a right to change my mind.”

Sidney Sheldon Master of the Game

Source: Master of the Game

Change

“Excuse me if I
Have some place in my mind
Where I go time to time.”

Tom Petty (1950–2017) American musician

It's Good To Be King
Lyrics, Wildflowers (1994)

Time

“Psychologically, I will not have to seek far if I decide to kill myself, because in my mind and heart I am more ready for this than for the unplanned daily tribulations that mark off the mornings and afternoons.”

Andrew Solomon book The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression

Source: The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression

Heart

“May I suggest that you all read? And often. Believe me, it's nice to have something to talk about other than the weather and the Queen's health. Your mind is not a cage. It's a garden. And it requires cultivating.”

Libba Bray A Great and Terrible Beauty

Source: A Great and Terrible Beauty

Health, Reading, Weather

“The worst crime committed by totalitarian mind-sets is that they force their citizens, including their victims, to become complicit in their crimes. Dancing with your jailer, participating in your own execution, that is an act of utmost brutality.”

Azar Nafisi book Reading Lolita in Tehran

Source: Reading Lolita in Tehran

Dance

“A timid mind is apt to mistake every scratch for a mortal wound.”

George Gordon Byron (1788–1824) English poet and a leading figure in the Romantic movement

“The best sex takes place in the mind first”

Jenna Jameson book How to Make Love Like a Porn Star: A Cautionary Tale

Source: How to Make Love Like a Porn Star: A Cautionary Tale

Sex

“Whereas the beautiful is limited, the sublime is limitless, so that the mind in the presence of the sublime, attempting to imagine what it cannot, has pain in the failure but pleasure in contemplating the immensity of the attempt”

Immanuel Kant book Critique of Pure Reason

Source: Critique of Pure Reason

Pain, Pleasure, Beauty, Imagination

“He also didn't mind Piper's using him for a pillow. She had a cute way of breathing when she slept - inhaling through the nose, exhaling with a little puff through the mouth. He was also disappointed when she woke up.”

Rick Riordan book The Lost Hero

Source: The Lost Hero

Disappointment, Way

“All it means is that, while our minds may have trouble communicating, our bodies don't have any problem at all."

"I don't think it's that simple."

"Sure it is."

"The earth moved," she said softly. "That has to be more than bodies communicating.”

Susan Elizabeth Phillips (1948) American writer

Source: Kiss an Angel

Communication, Problem, Thinking

“I found it quite easy to carry on a casual conversation it was as if my real feelings were down fathoms deep in my mind and what we said was just a feathery surface spray.”

Dodie Smith book I Capture the Castle

Source: I Capture the Castle

Feeling

“Peace is the result of retraining your mind to process life as it is, rather than as you think it should be.”

Wayne W. Dyer (1940–2015) American writer

Source: There's a Spiritual Solution to Every Problem

Life, Peace, Thinking, Depressing

“I never seek to defeat the man I am fighting, " he explained. "I seek to defeat his confidence. A mind troubled by doubt cannot focus on the course to victory. Two men are equals - true equals - only when they both have equal confidence.”

Arthur Golden book Memoirs of a Geisha

Source: Memoirs of a Geisha

Men, Confidence, Victory, Fight

“Yoga is the cessation of the movements of the mind. Then there is abiding in the Seer's own form.”

Patañjali (-200–-150 BC) ancient Indian scholar(s) of grammar and linguistics, of yoga, of medical treatises

Patanjali, in “Yoga and You” [citation needed]
Source: The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali

“No mind is thoroughly well-organized that is deficient in a sense of humor.”

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) English poet, literary critic and philosopher

Sense

“I've never minded it," he went on. "Being lost, that is. I had always thought one could not truly be lost if one knew one's own heart. But I fear I may be lost without knowing yours.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Prince

Source: Clockwork Prince

Fear, Heart

“He was like a song I'd heard once in fragments but had been singing in my mind ever since.”

Arthur Golden book Memoirs of a Geisha

Source: Memoirs of a Geisha

Singing

“But that's men all over… Poor dears, they can't help it. They haven't got logical minds.”

Dorothy L. Sayers book Busman's Honeymoon

Source: Busman's Honeymoon

Men, Help

“There is a difference between WISHING for a thing and being READY to receive it. No one is ready for a thing, until he believes he can acquire it. The state of mind must be BELIEF, not mere hope or wish. Open-mindedness is essential for belief.”

Napoleon Hill (1883–1970) American author

Source: Think and Grow Rich: The Landmark Bestseller - Now Revised and Updated for the 21st Century

Hope

“To see truth as truth, we don't need a lot of study. It's not complicated. What we need is pure observation. An open mind and fresh eyes will serve us well.”

Ilchi Lee (1950) South Korean businessman

Source: Change: Realizing Your Greatest Potential

Truth, Study

“We ordinary people might lack your great speed or your X-Ray vision, Superman, but never underestimate the power of the human mind. We carry the most dangerous weapon on Earth inside these thick skulls of ours.”

Mark Millar book Superman: Red Son

Source: Superman: Red Son

People, Speed

Quotes about mind page 20

Quotes about mind
page 20