Quotes about mind
page 26

Source: Fall of Giants

“Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds. The mediocre mind is incapable of understanding the man who refuses to bow blindly to conventional prejudices and chooses instead to express his opinions courageously and honestly.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Letter to Morris Raphael Cohen, professor emeritus of philosophy at the College of the City of New York, defending the appointment of Bertrand Russell to a teaching position (19 March 1940).
1940s
Variant: Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence and fulfills the duty to express the results of his thoughts in clear form.

Courage, Understanding

“Hello, I'm Shellie's new boyfriend and I'm out of my mind.
If you so much as talk to her or even think her name, I'll cut you in ways that'll make you useless to a woman.”

Frank Miller book The Big Fat Kill

Source: The Big Fat Kill

Way, Thinking

“Some minds are like soup in a poor restaurant—better left unstirred.”

P.G. Wodehouse (1881–1975) English author

“Christmas, children, is not a date. It is a state of mind.”

Mary Ellen Chase (1887–1973) Educator, scholar, novelist

Children, Christmas, Christmas

“Downworld?" Tessa echoed, puzzled. "Is that a place in London?"

"Never mind that," said Will. "I'm boasting of my investigative skills, and I would prefer to do it without interruption.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Angel

Source: Clockwork Angel

“Dad said I would always be "high minded and low waged" from reading too much Ralph Waldo Emerson. Maybe he was right.”

Jim Harrison (1937–2016) American novelist, poet, essayist

Source: The English Major

Reading

“Sometimes, if you want to change a man's mind, you have to change the mind of the man next to him first.”

Megan Whalen Turner The King of Attolia

Source: The King of Attolia

Change

“The pain was so deep and so raw. There were days I would have died just to forget. The problem was, I couldn't figure out how to get her out of my mind. How do you kill that kind of pain?”

Ted Dekker book Kiss

Source: Kiss

Pain, Problem, Forgetting

“The thing I want to know is, if you tell your brain not to do stuff… and it keeps doing it anyway, does that mean your mind has a mind of its own? And if it does, then who's in charge here, anyway?”

Jane Yolen book Armageddon Summer

Source: Armageddon Summer

“Now, on this road trip, my mind seemed to uncrinkle, to breathe, to present to itself a cure for a disease it had not, until now, known it had.”

Elizabeth Berg (1948) American novelist

Source: The Year of Pleasures

Disease

“Begin with the end in mind. Start with the end outcome and work backwards to make your dream possible.”

Wayne W. Dyer (1940–2015) American writer

Dreams

“Trying to write is very much like trying to put a Chinese puzzle together. We have a pattern in mind which we wish to work out in words; but the words will not fit the spaces, or, if they do, they will not match the design.”

Helen Keller book The Story of My Life

Source: The Story of My Life

“Gruff,” I said, “I find myself largely clueless about why mortal women do what they do. It will take a wiser man than me to understand what’s in a fae woman’s mind.”

Jim Butcher book Small Favor

Source: Small Favor

Women, Understanding

“Silence has many advantages. When you do not speak, other people presume you to be deaf or feeble-minded and promptly make a show of their own limitations.”

Barbara Kingsolver The Poisonwood Bible

Source: The Poisonwood Bible

People, Silence

“When the world is itself draped in the mantle of night, the mirror of the mind is like the sky in which thoughts twinkle like stars.”

Khushwant Singh (1915–2014) Indian novelist and journalist

Source: Delhi

World, Star, Night

“High calls low and low calls high. I tell you, if you were in such dire straits as I was, you too would elevate your thoughts. The lower you are, the higher your mind will want to soar.”

Yann Martel book Life of Pi

Source: Life of Pi

“Maxilan, darling." Locke raised one eyebrow and smiled. "I knew you were driven, but I had no idea you could smoulder. Come, take me now! Jean won't mind; he'll avert his eyes like a gentleman.”

Scott Lynch book Red Seas Under Red Skies

Source: Red Seas Under Red Skies

Smile, Idea

“In the minds of great managers, consistent poor performance is not primarily a matter of weakness, stupidity, disobedience, or disrespect. It is a matter of miscasting.”

Marcus Buckingham (1966) British writer

Stupidity

“Muscles aching to work, minds aching to create - this is man.”

John Steinbeck book The Grapes of Wrath

Source: The Grapes of Wrath

“The time to make up your mind about people, is never.”

Philip Barry The Philadelphia Story

Source: The Philadelphia Story

People, Time

“The only thing you have for measuring what's real is your mind… so what happens when your mind becomes a pathological liar?”

Neal Shusterman (1962) American novelist

Source: Challenger Deep

“Mind the dead man, my dear.”

Rachel Caine (1962) American writer

Source: Carpe Corpus

Dead

“Rafe didn't just flirt-he charmed girls right up to the point where they fell for him, then he changed his mind. I called him a player with attention deficit disorder.”

Kelley Armstrong The Gathering

Source: The Gathering

Girl, Change

“Most men are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.”

Will Rogers (1879–1935) American humorist and entertainer

Men, Happiness

“A modern philosopher who has never once suspected himself of being a charlatan must be such a shallow mind that his work is probably not worth reading.”

Leszek Kolakowski (1927–2009) Philosopher, historian of ideas

Source: Metaphysical Horror (1988)

Reading

“The way to find out about our place in the universe is by examining the universe and by examining ourselves - without preconceptions, with as unbiased a mind as we can muster.”

Carl Sagan (1934–1996) American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author and science educator

Way, Universe

“The saddest part of a broken heart
Isn't the ending so much as the start
The tragedy starts from the very first spark
Losing your mind for the sake of your heart”

Raymond E. Feist (1945) Novelist

Heart, Parting

“When you're scared you can either give in to the panic and let your mind fall apart, or you can take charge of your mind and think brave.”

John Marsden (1950) author

Source: The Dead of Night

Thinking

“You must learn to end the wars in your world by ending them in your minds.”

Barbara Marciniak (1928–2012)

Source: Family of Light: Pleiadian Tales and Lessons in Living

War, World, Learning

“This earthly life is a battle,' said Ma. 'If it isn't one thing to contend with, it's another. It always has been so, and it always will be. The sooner you make up your mind to that, the better off you are, and more thankful for your pleasures.”

Laura Ingalls Wilder book Little Town on the Prairie

Source: Little Town on the Prairie

Life, Pleasure

“The mind was dreaming. The world was its dream.”

Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator, and a key figure in Spanish language literature

World, Dreams

“If I am the pawn of the gods, it is because they know me so well, not because they make my mind up for me.”

Megan Whalen Turner The Queen of Attolia

Source: The Queen of Attolia

God

“The wisest mind has something yet to learn.”

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

Learning, Wise

“The first thing you have to know about writing is that it is something you must do everyday. There are two reasons for this rule: Getting the work done and connecting with your unconscious mind.”

Walter Mosley (1952) American writer

“This I believe: That the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world. And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected.”

John Steinbeck book East of Eden

Variant: And this I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world. And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected.
Source: East of Eden (1952)
Context: And this I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world. And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected. And this I must fight against: any religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual. This is what I am and what I am about.
Context: Our species is the only creative species, and it has only one creative instrument, the individual mind and spirit of a man. Nothing was ever created by two men. There are no good collaborations, whether in art, in music, in poetry, in mathematics, in philosophy. Once the miracle of creation has taken place, the group can build and extend it, but the group never invents anything. The preciousness lies in the lonely mind of a man.
And now the forces marshaled around the concept of the group have declared a war of extermination on that preciousness, the mind of man. By disparagement, by starvation, by repressions, forced direction, and the stunning blows of conditioning, the free, roving mind is being pursued, roped, blunted, drugged. It is a sad suicidal course our species seems to have taken.
And this I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world. And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected. And this I must fight against: any religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual. This is what I am and what I am about. I can understand why a system built on a pattern must try to destroy the free mind, for it is the one thing which can by inspection destroy such a system. Surely I can understand this, and I hate it and I will fight against it to preserve the one thing that separates us from the uncreative beasts. If the glory can be killed, we are lost.

World, Freedom, Fight

“Death did not play favorites—He loved all equally.
What you cannot escape, you must fight; what you cannot fight, you must endure.
The god's voice—not quite words, just a thread of meaning laid in my receptive mind”

Lilith Saintcrow (1976) American writer

Source: Dead Man Rising

Love, Death, God, Fight

“One of the hardest tasks as a human being is knowing when to keep an open mind, and when not to.”

Deb Caletti (1963) American writer

Source: Stay

“Pride and hope and desire like crushed herbs in his heart sent up vapours of maddening incense before the eyes of his mind.”

James Joyce book A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Source: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Hope, Heart

“Words betrayed her: beautiful butterflies in her mind; dead moths when she opened her mouth for their release into the world.”

Glen Duncan book I, Lucifer

Source: I, Lucifer

World, Beauty, Dead

“If it's still in your mind, it is still in your heart.”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

Variant: If it's still in your mind, it is worth taking the risk

Heart

“Oh, he's not like that," said Favonius.

Jason flinched. "You can read my mind?"

"I don't need to." Favonius tossed his bronze hoop in the air. "has the wrong impression of Cupid… until they meet him.”

Rick Riordan book The House of Hades

Source: The House of Hades

Reading

“I knew you were crazy, but I didn't realize that you were out of your goddamned mind!!”

Cassandra Clare The City of Lost Souls

Source: City of Lost Souls

“Forget the noose. Forget the Iron Maiden. Forget the electric chair or the guillotine. The mind was mankind's most painful torture chamber, the blessed liberty to cogitate offering either doom or salvation, depending on one's disposition.”

Tiffanie DeBartolo (1970) American writer

Source: How to Kill a Rock Star

Pain, Dependency, Forgetting

“No man of any intelligence would pretend to know a female mind.”

Julia Quinn (1970) American novelist

Source: When He Was Wicked

Intelligence

“Anybody can be charming if they don't mind faking it, saying all the stupid, obvious, nauseating things that a conscience keeps most people from saying. Happily, I don't have a conscience. I say them.”

Jeff Lindsay book Darkly Dreaming Dexter

Source: Darkly Dreaming Dexter

People, Stupidity

“the mind of man is capable of anything--because everything is in it, all the past as well as the future”

Joseph Conrad book Heart of Darkness

Source: Heart of Darkness

Past, Future

“What you have to do with your mind, when your body is miserable, is to make it think of something else.”

Frances Hodgson Burnett A Little Princess

Source: A Little Princess

Thinking

“What matters deafness of the ear, when the mind hears? The one true deafness, the incurable deafness, is that of the mind.”

Victor Hugo (1802–1885) French poet, novelist, and dramatist

“But Catherine did not know her own advantages - did not know that a good-looking girl, with an affectionate heart and a very ignorant mind, cannot fail of attracting a clever young man, unless circumstances are particularly untoward.”

Jane Austen book Northanger Abbey

Source: Northanger Abbey

Girl, Heart

“If so many men, so many minds, certainly so many hearts, so many kinds of love.”

Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) Russian writer

Love, Men, Heart

“Great minds have purpose, others have wishes. Little minds are tamed and subdued by misfortunes; but great minds rise above them.”

Washington Irving book The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent.

"Philip of Pokanoket : An Indian Memoir".
A more extensive statement not found as such in this work is attributed to Irving in Elbert Hubbard's Scrap Book (1923) edited by Roycroft Shop:
The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon (1819–1820)
Variant: Little minds are tamed and subdued by misfortune; but great minds rise above it.

“I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix
angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of the night.”

Allen Ginsberg book Howl

Howl (1956)

Madness, Night

“the mind is its own beautiful prisoner.
Mind looked long at the sticky moon
opening in dusk her new wings

then decently hanged himself, one afternoon.

The last thing he saw was you
naked amid unnaked things…”

E.E. Cummings (1894–1962) American poet

Beauty

“… If you work hard enough and assert yourself, and use your mind and imagination, you can shape the world to your desires. (151)”

Malcolm Gladwell (1963) journalist and science writer

Source: Outliers: The Story of Success

World, Imagination

“Apocalypse is a frame of mind." [Nicodemus] said then. "A belief. A surrender to inevitability. It is a despair for the future. It is the death of hope.”

Jim Butcher book Death Masks

Source: Death Masks

Death, Hope, Future, Despair

“The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled.”

Plutarch (46–127) ancient Greek historian and philosopher

“Don't you ever mind," she asked suddenly, "not being rich enough to buy all the books you want?”

Edith Wharton book The House of Mirth

Source: The House of Mirth

Books

“You may think that what you’d like to recapture from your youth is your looks, your physical fitness, your simple pleasures, but what you really need is the fluidity of mind you once possessed.”

Robert Greene The 33 Strategies of War

Source: The 33 Strategies of War

Pleasure, Youth, Thinking

“Genius is the ability to put into effect what is on your mind.”

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

“Mind over matter, will make the Pooh unfatter.”

A.A. Milne (1882–1956) British author

“Would you mind getting off that fly paper and giving the flies a chance?"
"Ahhh, you can't trick me! Flies don't read papers!”

Groucho Marx (1890–1977) American comedian

Chance, Reading, Flying

“What we're seeing "out there" is the projection of where we're at--the projection of the clingings of our minds.”

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

“There is nothing to winning, really. That is, if you happen to be blessed with a keen eye, an agile mind, and no scruples whatsoever.”

Alfred Hitchcock (1899–1980) British filmmaker

“The people seemed nearly ostentatious about minding their own business.”

Robert Jordan The Great Hunt

Source: The Great Hunt

People, Business

“Profound hearts, wise minds, take life as God makes it; it is a long trial, and unintelligible preparation for the unknown destiny.”

Victor Hugo book Les Misérables

Source: Les Misérables

Life, God, Heart

“If you keep your destiny in mind, every moment in life becomes an opportunity for moving closer to it.”

Arthur Golden book Memoirs of a Geisha

Source: Memoirs of a Geisha

Life

“Traits don't change, states of mind do.”

Elizabeth Strout book Olive Kitteridge

Source: Olive Kitteridge

Change

“And I flunked anger management the moment I put the counselor through a stone wall. You might want to keep that in mind.
[Thorn]”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Bad Moon Rising

Anger

“Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the oftener and the more steadily we reflect on them: the starry heavens above and the moral law within.”

Immanuel Kant book Critique of Practical Reason

Variant: Two things fill the mind with ever-increasing wonder and awe, the more often and the more intensely the mind of thought is drawn to them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.
Source: Critique of Practical Reason (1788)
Context: Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the oftener and the more steadily we reflect on them: the starry heavens above and the moral law within. I have not to search for them and conjecture them as though they were veiled in darkness or were in the transcendent region beyond my horizon; I see them before me and connect them directly with the consciousness of my existence. The former begins from the place I occupy in the external world of sense, and enlarges my connection therein to an unbounded extent with worlds upon worlds and systems of systems, and moreover into limitless times of their periodic motion, its beginning and continuance. The second begins from my invisible self, my personality, and exhibits me in a world which has true infinity, but which is traceable only by the understanding, and with which I discern that I am not in a merely contingent but in a universal and necessary connection, as I am also thereby with all those visible worlds. The former view of a countless multitude of worlds annihilates as it were my importance as an animal creature, which after it has been for a short time provided with vital power, one knows not how, must again give back the matter of which it was formed to the planet it inhabits (a mere speck in the universe). The second, on the contrary, infinitely elevates my worth as an intelligence by my personality, in which the moral law reveals to me a life independent of animality and even of the whole sensible world, at least so far as may be inferred from the destination assigned to my existence by this law, a destination not restricted to conditions and limits of this life, but reaching into the infinite.

Translated by Thomas Kingsmill Abbott

Law