Quotes about mind
page 30

“She wondered if literature might lose some of its interest when she reached an age or state of mind where her life was set on such a sure course that the things she read might stop seeming so powerfully like alternate directions for her being.”

Charles Frazier book Cold Mountain

Source: Cold Mountain

Life, Age, Literature, Reading

“Where to look if you've lost your mind?”

Bernard Malamud book The Fixer

Source: The Fixer

“Everything I have to say has already crossed your mind."
"Then possibly my answer has crossed yours.”

Arthur Conan Doyle book The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes

Source: The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes

“The absence of alternatives clears the mind marvelously.”

Henry Kissinger (1923–2023) United States Secretary of State

As quoted in "Special Section: They Are Fated to Succeed" in TIME magazine (2 January 1978) http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,915860,00.html <br class="br">1970s

“A man's plumbing is like his mind: simple, very few surprises. You ladies, on the other hand… well, God put a lot of thought in making you.”

Khaled Hosseini (1965) novelist

God

“A very important thing is not to make up your mind that you are any one thing.”

Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) American art collector and experimental writer of novels, poetry and plays

“Okay. But I'm just going to be out there - having a tea party with her cats or whatever it is she has in mind. You need me? You yell. You want to leave? We go. I'll get you out of here, no matter what.”

Richelle Mead book The Golden Lily

Source: The Golden Lily

Cats, Tea

“Magic: it was what happened when the mind met the world, and the mind won for a change.”

Lev Grossman The Magician King

Source: The Magician King

World, Change

“The order that our mind imagines is like a net, or like a ladder, built to attain something. But afterward you must throw the ladder away, because you discover that, even if it was useful, it was meaningless.”

Umberto Eco book The Name of the Rose

Source: The Name of the Rose

Imagination

“Macon: “It’s true. And if that doesn’t work, use the Jedi Mind Trick. But only if you really have to.”
Halley: “The what?”
Macon: “The Jedi Mind Trick.” He looked at me. “Didn’t you ever see Star Wars?”

Sarah Dessen (1970) American writer

Source: Someone Like You

War, Star

“There is a famous saying: "If the mind is not contrived, it is spontaneously blissful, just as water, when not agitated, is by nature transparent and clear".”

Sogyal Rinpoche (1947–2019) Tibetan Dzogchen lama of the Nyingma tradition

Nature, Water

“Stare at me in this faceless way, go mad with desire, and rip my clothes off. It's terrific. In my sex fantasy, nobody ever loves me for my mind. The fantasy of rape — of which mine is in a kind of prepubescent sub-category — is common enough among women and (in mirror image) among men.”

Nora Ephron (1941–2012) Film director, author screenwriter

Nora Ephron: Crazy Salad: Some Things About Women, Knopf Publishing, New York, 1975

Love, Women, Men, Sex

“If you focus on the risks, they'll multiply in your mind and eventually paralyze you. You want to focus on the task, instead, on doing what needs to be done.”

Barry Eisler (1963) American writer

“India shaped my mind, anchored my identity, influenced my beliefs, and made me who I am. … India matters to me and I would like to matter to India.”

Shashi Tharoor (1956) Indian politician, diplomat, author

The Hindu, "The Shashi Tharoor column: A departure, fictionally", Sunday, September 16, 2001 Available Online http://www.hinduonnet.com/2001/09/16/stories/13160675.htm <br class="br">2000s

“She held up her calloused, grimy fingers. Leo couldn't help thinking there was nothing hotter than a girl who didn't mind getting her hands dirty. But of course, that was just a general comment. Didn't apply to Calypso. Obviously.”

Rick Riordan book The House of Hades

Source: The House of Hades

Girl, Thinking, Help

“Jolie laide = "pretty ugly"
Draws you to it… bored into heart and mind.”

Justina Chen (1968) American writer

Source: North of Beautiful

Heart, Drawing

“Crime is terribly revealing. Try and vary your methods as you will, your tastes, your habits, your attitude of mind, and your soul is revealed by your actions.”

Agatha Christie And Then There Were None

The ABC Murders (1936)
Source: And Then There Were None

Soul

“Rosencrantz: Shouldn't we be doing something--constructive?
Guildenstern: What did you have in mind?… A short, blunt human pyramid…?”

Tom Stoppard book Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

Source: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

“This is one thing they forget to mention in most child-rearing books, that at times you will just lose your mind. Period.”

Anne Lamott (1954) Novelist, essayist, memoirist, activist

Source: Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith

Books, Time, Forgetting

“It's not enough to bash in heads. You've got to bash in minds.”

Joss Whedon (1964) American director, writer, and producer for television and film

“A mind enclosed in language is in prison.”

Simone Weil (1909–1943) French philosopher, Christian mystic, and social activist

“Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind.”

Frank Herbert book Dune

Source: Dune

“As the alcohol overcomes my mind, I hear the glass bottle shatter on the floor. This seems appropriate since I have obviously lost my grip on everything.”

Suzanne Collins book Catching Fire

Source: Catching Fire

Alcohol

“What are the lessons to be learned from this journey of the mind? That humans are emotionally fragile, perennially gullible, hopelessly ignorant masters of an insignificantly small speck in the cosmos.
Have a nice day.”

Neil deGrasse Tyson (1958) American astrophysicist and science communicator

Source: Death by Black Hole - And Other Cosmic Quandaries

Learning

“I know because I read… Your mind is not a cage. It's a garden. And it requires cultivating.”

Libba Bray (1964) American teen writer

Reading

“The way I approached a question, my habit of mind, the way I looked at things, what I took for granted - all this was myself and it did not seem to me that I could alter it.”

Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) French writer, intellectual, existentialist philosopher, political activist, feminist, and social theorist

Source: The Woman Destroyed

Way, Question

“Whatever we call it - mind, character, soul - we like to think we possess something that is greater than the sum of our neurons and that animates us.”

Susanna Kaysen (1948) American writer

Soul, Thinking, Animals

“We are going to emancipate ourselves from mental slavery, for though others may free the body, none but ourselves can free the mind. Mind is our only ruler; sovereign.”

Marcus Garvey (1887–1940) Jamaica-born British political activist, Pan-Africanist, orator, and entrepreneur

“I don’t know what the explosion did, but it damaged something deep and irreparable. Never mind. If I get home, I’ll be so stinking rich, I’ll be able to pay someone to do my hearing.”

Suzanne Collins The Hunger Games

Source: The Hunger Games

Home

“If we have not quiet in our minds, outward comfort will do no more for us…”

John Bunyan (1628–1688) English Christian writer and preacher

“We are continuously challenged to discover new works of culture—and, in the process, we don’t allow any one of them to assume a weight in our minds.”

Alain de Botton (1969) Swiss writer

“Surely there is something in the unruffled calm of nature that overawes our little anxieties and doubts; the sight of the deep-blue sky and the clustering stars above seems to impart a quiet to the mind.”

Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758) Christian preacher, philosopher, and theologian

Star, Nature

“In words are seen the state of mind and character and disposition of the speaker.”

Plutarch (46–127) ancient Greek historian and philosopher

“When our inner child is not nurtured and nourished, our minds gradually close to new ideas, unprofitable commitments and the surprises of the Spirit.”

Brennan Manning (1934–2013) writer, American Roman Catholic priest and United States Marine

Idea

“You're burned into my mind forever. There is nothing, nothing in this world that will ever change that.”

Richelle Mead Blood Promise

Source: Blood Promise

World, Change

“She decided that her wisest course would be to put him out of her mind. After reaching this conclusion she lay thinking about him until at last she fell asleep.”

Georgette Heyer book The Nonesuch

Source: The Nonesuch

Thinking

“A man leads with his mind while a woman leads with her heart.”

Myles Munroe (1954–2014) Bahamian Evangelical Christian minister

Source: The Purpose and Power of Love & Marriage

Heart

“The whole art of teaching is only the art of awakening the natural curiosity of young minds for the purpose of satisfying it afterwards.”

Anatole France book The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard

L'art d'enseigner n'est que l'art d'éveiller la curiosité des jeunes âmes pour la satisfaire ensuite.
Pt. II, ch. 4
The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard (1881)

Art, Nature, Teachers' Day

“You have to rise above the squabbling and chaos, and keep believing. You have to always keep your goals in mind.” -Hera, goddess of marriage”

Rick Riordan (1964) American writer

Marriage

“We need faith and the mind of the Lord Jesus to recognize something of lasting value in even our most ordinary tasks.”

Philip Yancey (1949) American writer

Faith

“If you don't mind me saying, Mr. Hale. She's a keeper." He pointed in Kat's direction.”

Ally Carter (1974) American writer

Source: Perfect Scoundrels

“But when Anthony kissed her, she felt as
if she were losing her mind. And when he
kissed her twice, she wasn't even sure if she wanted it back!”

Julia Quinn (1970) American novelist

Source: The Viscount Who Loved Me

Kiss

“A scene should be selected by the writer for haunted-ness-of-mind interest.
If you're not haunted by something, as by a dream, a vision, or a memory, which are involuntary, you're not interested or even involved.”

Jack Kerouac book Book of Sketches

Source: Book of Sketches

Dreams, Memory

“I was filled with dread at the thought my mind had skipped town and left me behind to pay the rent." --Dexter”

Jeff Lindsay book Darkly Dreaming Dexter

Source: Darkly Dreaming Dexter

“One of the poets, whose name I cannot recall, has a passage, which I am unable at the moment to remember, in one of his works, which for the time being has slipped my mind, which hits off admirably this age-old situation.”

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

Age, Time

“The free exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world.”

John Steinbeck book East of Eden

Source: East of Eden

World

“In my mind my obituary is done. It is done and it is right. It tells the truth and as awful as it can be, the truth is what matters. It is what I should be remembered by, if I'm remembered at all. Remember the truth. that is all that matters”

James Frey book A Million Little Pieces

Source: A Million Little Pieces

Truth

“The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, worry about the future, or anticipate troubles, but to live in the present moment wisely and earnestly.”

Paramahansa Yogananda (1893–1952) Yogi, a guru of Kriya Yoga and founder of Self-Realization Fellowship

Health, Secret, Past, Future

“Now, see," Wes said, nodding at my plate, "this is going to blow your mind."
I looked at him. "It's a waffle, not the second coming.”

Sarah Dessen book The Truth About Forever

Source: The Truth About Forever

“… I felt fear enter the halls of my mind, but I didn't give it the keys to every room.”

Dean Koontz book Life Expectancy

Source: Life Expectancy

Fear

“Whereas story is processed in the mind in a straightforward manner, poetry bypasses rational thought and goes straight to the limbic system and lights it up like a brushfire. It's the crack cocaine of the literary world.”

Jasper Fforde book First Among Sequels

Source: First Among Sequels

World, Light

“We will often do anything to pretend that nothing is on our minds.”

John Irving book Trying to Save Piggy Sneed

Source: Trying to Save Piggy Sneed

“I briefly entertained the notion that I was insane and didn't know it. Then I considered the possibility that I had always been insane, acknowledged it as more likely than the former, then pushed both thoughts from my mind.”.”

Patrick Rothfuss book The Wise Man's Fear

Source: The Wise Man's Fear

“Faced with the choice between changing one's mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof.”

John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006) American economist and diplomat

Economics, Peace and Laughter (1971), p. 50

Business, Change

“There never can be a man so lost as one who is lost in the vast and intricate corridors of his own lonely mind, where none may reach and none may save.”

Isaac Asimov book Pebble in the Sky

Source: Pebble in the Sky

“Let the flesh instruct the mind.”

Anne Rice book Interview with the Vampire

Source: Interview with the Vampire

“For Every worry under the sun there is a remedy or there is none; if there is a remedy hurry and find it. If there is none never mind it.”

LeGrand Richards (1886–1983) American Mormon leader

Sun

“The body is literally manufactured and sustained by mind.”

Paramahansa Yogananda book Autobiography of a Yogi

Source: Autobiography of a Yogi

“I would much prefer their minds to be engaged in the deadly arts than clouded with dreams of marriage and fortune, as your own so clearly is!”

Seth Grahame-Smith book Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

Source: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

Marriage, Dreams, Art

“Love goes away when your mind goes away and then you're someone else.”

Kathy Acker book Blood and Guts in High School

Source: Blood and Guts in High School (1978)

Love

“Advice is like snow; the softer it falls, the longer it dwells upon, and the deeper it sinks into the mind.”

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

Beauty

“Such physical matters were nice, yet, to him, intelligence and passion born of living, the ability to move and be moved by subtleties of the mind and spirit, were what really counted.”

Robert James Waller The Bridges of Madison County

Source: The Bridges of Madison County

Intelligence, Passion

“The trouble with real life is that you don't know whether you're the hero or just some nice chap who gets bumped off in chapter five to show what a rotter the villain is without anyone minding too much.”

Sarah Caudwell book The Sirens Sang of Murder

Source: The Sirens Sang of Murder

Life

“There are only shades of gray. Black and white are nothing more than lofty ideals in our minds, the standards by which we try to judge things, and map out our place in the world in relevance to them.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Bloodfever

World

“There are lots of ways of being miserable, but there’s only one way of being comfortable, and that is to stop running round after happiness. If you make up your mind not to be happy there’s no reason why you shouldn’t have a fairly good time.”

Edith Wharton (1862–1937) American novelist, short story writer, designer

Source: Ethan Frome and Other Short Fiction

Happiness, Way, Time

“My tendency to make up stories and lie compulsively for the sake of my own amusement takes up a good portion of my day and provides me with a peace of mind not easily attainable in this economic climate.”

Chelsea Handler book Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang

Source: Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang

Lie, Peace

“Genius is a curse. That's how I look at it. Some think that the brilliant comprehend the universe in a way the rest of us can't. They see the world how it truly is—and that reality is so horrible the lose their minds. Clarity leads to insanity.”

Harlan Coben book Caught

Source: Caught

World, Way, Thinking, Reality

“True freedom is impossible without a mind made free by discipline.”

Mortimer J. Adler (1902–2001) American philosopher and educator

Source: How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading

Freedom, Motivational, Success, Inspirational

“A mind is like a puzzle; you must unlock it to read its hidden secrets.”

Melissa de la Cruz book Masquerade

Source: Masquerade

Secret, Reading

“I’m on the benevolent side of antisocial. I don’t mind people, but I’d prefer not to have a lot of them around.”

Jessica Bird (1969) U.S. novelist

Source: An Irresistible Bachelor (An Unforgettable Lady, #2)

People

“It didn't matter whether he was nearby or far away. His image would drift up into your mind just when you least expected it, shocking you, making your chest pound. Making your heart ache.”

Banana Yoshimoto book Asleep

Source: Asleep

Heart

“every seven miles, in America, there is at least one McDonald's. Not a hospital, mind you, or a police station, but a McDonald's, every seven miles. I mean, that's sort of scary, if you think about it.”

Meg Cabot (1967) Novelist

Source: Code Name Cassandra

Thinking

“It is good to be busy. Being busy takes our mind off being in love at the wrong time, in the wrong place and with the wrong guy.”

Melissa de la Cruz (1971) American writer

Source: Girl Stays in the Picture

Love, Guy, Business, Time

“The mind, placed before any kind of difficulty, can find an ideal outlet in the absurd. Accommodation to the absurd readmits adults to the mysterious realm inhabited by children.”

André Breton (1896–1966) French writer

Children

“The mind does most of its best thinking when we aren't there. The answers are there in the morning.”

Alain de Botton (1969) Swiss writer

Thinking

“My heart tells me this is the best and greatest feeling I have ever had. But my mind knows the difference between wanting what you can’t have and wanting what you shouldn’t want. And I shouldn’t want you.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Glass

Source: City of Glass

Feeling, Heart

“Hold on. So in my mind, this jacked-up, sideways ridiculousness is the normal state?”

Tite Kubo (1977) Japanese manga artist

Source: Bleach, Volume 01

“Love is so exquisitely elusive. It cannot be bought, cannot be badgered, cannot be hijacked. It is available only in one rare form: as the natural response of a healthy mind and healthy heart.”

Eknath Easwaran book Original Goodness

[Original goodness: On the beatitudes of the sermon on the mount, Easwaran, Eknath, w:Eknath Easwaran, 1996, Nilgiri Press, Tomales, CA, 0915132923, http://books.google.com/books?id=EVMJXI4pJFMC&pg=PT155&lpg=PT155&dq=%22Love+is+so+exquisitely+elusive.+It+cannot+be+bought,+cannot+be+badgered,+cannot+be+hijacked.+It+is+available+only+in+one+rare+form:+as+the+natural+response+of+a+healthy+mind+and+healthy+heart.+%22+eknath+easwaran&source=bl&ots=p9woVsJ6yV&sig=tbv5qJjAiu6YNqt8luZX4RM0rFg&hl=en&sa=X&ei=tdSdT7f9IOi9iwLF5NhU&ved=0CEkQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q&f=false] (p. 155) (book originally published 1989: p. 131)

Love, Nature, Heart

“The difference between a normal person and an insane one is precisely that the normal person has all the diseases of the mind, while the madman has only one!”

Robert Musil book The Man Without Qualities

Source: The Man Without Qualities

Disease, Personality

“The human mind is not a terribly logical or consistent place.”

Jim Butcher Turn Coat

Source: Turn Coat

“Being pretty-minded is simply the natural state for most people. Theyto be vapid and lazy and vain… and selfish. It only takes a twist to lock in that part of their personalities.”

Scott Westerfeld book Pretties

Source: Pretties

People, Nature, Parting, Personality

“What I really hated, of course, was my mind. There must have been an off switch somewhere, but I was damned if I could find it.”

David Sedaris Naked

Source: Naked

Hate

“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.”

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

Source: Self-Reliance

“The best mind-altering drug is truth.”

Lily Tomlin (1939) American actress, comedian, writer, and producer

Contributions of Jane Wagner

Truth

“I only knew what was in my mind, and I wished to express it clearly”

Ulysses S. Grant (1822–1885) 18th President of the United States

“to know how to read is to light a lamp in the mind, to release the soul from prison, to open a gate to the universe." from Pavilion of Women page 292”

Pearl S. Buck (1892–1973) American writer

Women, Soul, Light, Universe

“All the action adventure girls have red hair," he said. "Whenever it is an independent girl, not a sidekick person, when she has her own mind or does as good as the guys, she has red hair.”

Marion Roach (1956) American writer

Source: Roots of Desire: The Myth, Meaning and Sexual Power of Red Hair

Guy, Girl, Personality

“It pays to keep an open mind, but not so open your brains fall out.”

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

Funny

“Things can be seen better in the darkness," he said, as if he had just seen into her mind. "But the longer you spend in the dark, the harder it becomes to return to the world aboveground where the light is”

Haruki Murakami book 1Q84

Source: 1Q84

World, Light

“Words have to find a man's mind before they can touch his heart, and some men's minds are woefully small targets.”

Patrick Rothfuss book The Name of the Wind

Source: Chapter 14, “The Name of the Wind” (p. 113)
Context: Remember this son, if you forget everything else. A poet is a musician who can’t sing. Words have to find a man’s mind before they can touch his heart. And, some men’s minds are woeful small targets. Music touches their hearts directly, no matter how small or stubborn the mind of the man who listens.

Men, Heart

“I am the kind of person who, if my feelings are unrequited, can completely detach from someone emotionally if I simply put my mind to it.”

Mindy Kaling book Why Not Me?

Source: Why Not Me?

Feeling, Personality

“The stony-minded orthodox were right in fearing the first movement of new knowledge and free thought. It has gone on, and will go on, irresistibly, until some day we shall have no respect for an alleged "truth" which cannot stand the full blaze of knowledge, the full force of active thought.”

Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860–1935) American feminist, writer, commercial artist, lecturer and social reformer

The Living of Charlotte Perkins Gilman, (1935).

Truth, Fear, Knowledge

“As we're fighting through the issues of the day, let's just keep in mind that we rise above the challenges of the day and understand that it's not just us and our constituents and the country, the United States, that's counting on us to be successful. People all around the world believe in freedom are counting on us as well, and we will deliver for them. That's why I am so honored to be back here in the House serving with you. God bless each and every one of you, and God bless the United States of America.”

Steve Scalise (1965) American politician

Speech to Congress https://www.c-span.org/video/?434564-1/us-house-passes-faa-funding-extension-264155 (September 28 2017)

God, People, World, Understanding

“A million and a half of people spread over the Atlantic seaboard might be thought no great number; but it was a new thing in the world. …which had in fact been carefully noted by Benjamin Franklin in a pamphlet on The Increase of Mankind, Peopling of Countries, etc.—that within three-quarters of a century the population of the continental colonies had doubled every twenty-five years, whereas the population of Old England during a hundred years past had not doubled once and now stood at only some six and a half millions. …With these facts in mind, one might indeed say that a people with so much vitality and expansive power was abundantly able to pay taxes; but perhaps it was also a fair inference, if any one was disposed to press the matter, that unless it was so minded, such a people was already, or assuredly soon would be, equally able not to pay them.”

Carl L. Becker (1873–1945) American historian

The Eve of the Revolution (1918)

People, World, Past, Country

“You're breaking your mind
By killing the time that kills you
But you can't blame the time
When its only in your mind”

Jack Johnson (musician) (1975) American musician

Sexy Plexi.
Song lyrics, Brushfire Fairytales (2001)

Time

“It is not the terrible occurrences that no one is spared, — a husband’s death, the moral ruin of a beloved child, long, torturing illness, or the shattering of a fondly nourished hope, — it is none of these that undermine the woman’s health and strength, but the little daily recurring, body and soul devouring care s. How many millions of good housewives have cooked and scrubbed their love of life away! How many have sacrificed their rosy checks and their dimples in domestic service, until they became wrinkled, withered, broken mummies. The everlasting question: ‘what shall I cook today,’ the ever recurring necessity of sweeping and dusting and scrubbing and dish-washing, is the steadily falling drop that slowly but surely wears out her body and mind. The cooking stove is the place where accounts are sadly balanced between income and expense, and where the most oppressing observations are made concerning the increased cost of living and the growing difficulty in making both ends meet. Upon the flaming altar where the pots are boiling, youth and freedom from care, beauty and light-heartedness are being sacrificed. In the old cook whose eyes are dim and whose back is bent with toil, no one would recognize the blushing bride of yore, beautiful, merry and modestly coquettish in the finery of her bridal garb.”

Dagobert von Gerhardt (1831–1910) German writer

To the ancients the hearth was sacred; beside the hearth they erected their lares and household-gods. Let us also hold the hearth sacred, where the conscientious German housewife slowly sacrifices her life, to keep the home comfortable, the table well supplied, and the family healthy."
"von Gerhardt, using the pen-name Gerhard von Amyntor in", A Commentary to the Book of Life. Quote taken from August Bebel, Woman and Socialism, Chapter X. Marriage as a Means of Support.

Love, Life, Death, God