Quotes about mind (10000 quotes, page 54)

“And any civil libertarian who was exposed to what’s going on here today — if Hillary Clinton were the subject — would be taking exactly the opposite position. There is so much hypocrisy, partisan hypocrisy out there. I don’t mind if conservatives take the view we ought to trust government or former prosecutors take the view we ought to trust government. My gripe is against civil libertarians and criminal defense lawyers, people who are always on the side of challenging the government. The ACLU has suddenly lost its way and they've forgotten what they’ve been preaching for 50 years because it is Donald Trump they’re after.”

Alan M. Dershowitz (1938) American lawyer, author

Interview over the case of Michael Cohen, MSNBC, May 3, 2018, hosted by Steve Kornacki. Christian Datoc, “Dershowitz Explodes: ‘I Don’t Want To Live In A Police State,” The Daily Caller, May 3, 2018 http://dailycaller.com/2018/05/03/dershowitz-i-dont-want-to-live-in-police-state/

People , Way

“So whether information represents one man's sentimental archive, the accumulating knowledge base of the human-machine civilization, or the mind files stored in our brains, what can we conclude about the ultimate longevity of software? The answer is simply this: Information lasts only so long as someone cares about it. The conclusion that I've come […] is that there is no set of hardware and software standards existing today, nor any likely to come along, that will provide any reasonable level of confidence that the stored information will still be accessible […] decades from now.”

Ray Kurzweil (1948) Author, scientist, inventor, and futurist

Source: The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology (2005), p. 329

Confidence , Knowledge

“The power of thought,—the magic of the mind!”

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

Canto I, stanza 8.
The Corsair (1814)

“An organized mind leads effortlessly to good decision-making.”

Daniel Levitin book The Organized Mind

The Organized Mind (2014)

Decision

“This Idea of Spinoza's we must allow to be in the main true and well-grounded; absolute substance is the truth, but it is not the whole truth; in order to be this, it must also be thought of as in itself active and living, and by that very means it must determine itself as mind. But substance with Spinoza is only the universal and consequently the abstract determination of mind; it may undoubtedly be said that this thought is the foundation of all true views — not, however, as their absolutely fixed and permanent basis, but as the abstract unity which mind is in itself. It is therefore worthy of note that thought must begin by placing itself at the standpoint of Spinozism; to be a follower of Spinoza is the essential commencement of all Philosophy. For as we saw above … when man begins to philosophize, the soul must commence by bathing in this ether of the One Substance, in which all that man has held as true has disappeared; this negation of all that is particular, to which every philosopher must have come, is the liberation of the mind and its absolute foundation.”

Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) Dutch philosopher

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, comparing Spinoza's philosophy to that of the Eleatics, in Lectures on the History of Philosophy (1896), Vol. 3, Ch. I : The Metaphysics of the Understanding, § 2 : Spinoza, p. 257

Truth , Soul , Idea , Universe

“To some the powers of bloody war belong,
To some, sweet music, and the charm of song;
To few, and wondrous few, has Jove assigned
A wise, extensive, all-considering mind.”

Homér Iliad

XIII. 730–733 (tr. Alexander Pope).
Iliad (c. 750 BC)

War , Music

“When you follow the straight and narrow, I tell you truth, it's the greatest high there is… When you have a mind that takes you in a thousand directions every minute. Where do you think Shakespeare got all of his characters from? … Sanity – is to bridle all those horses and hitch them to one wagon, and then you lead those horses; you don't let them pull you in every direction. And that's why you shouldn't use marijuana… Marijuana was the most destructive element in my life… Marijuana is the most dangerous of all drugs. Having said that, maybe there are some medical conditions where one of the active principles… marinol or others, could be used to alleviate pain – good, get the medication… And the reason society is pushing you into getting high is to make certain that you don't know what the politicians are doing to you… The way the Chinese were doped on opium, you're being doped on marijuana. Marijuana may be a sedative for people who have been blessed with, or shall I say cursed with? – a one-string mind… "Oh wow, look at that – now I can play with two strings."”

Michael Savage book The Savage Nation

But for people who've been given a violin for a brain, marijuana screws up your ability to play anything.
The Savage Nation
The Savage Nation (1995- ), 2013-09-24
Radio, 01:24
2013

Life , Pain , People , Truth

“With that she went and fetched the box in which she kept her many drugs, healing or deadly, and putting it on her knees she wept. Tears ran unchecked in torrents down her cheeks and drenched her lap as she bemoaned her own sad destiny. She was determined now to take a poison from the box and swallow it; and in a moment she was fumbling with the fastening of the lid in her unhappy eagerness to reach the fatal drug. But suddenly she was overcome by the hateful thought of death, and for a long time she stayed her hand in silent horror. Visions of life and all its fascinating cares rose up before her. She thought of the pleasures that the living can enjoy. She thought of her happy playmates, as a young girl will. And now, setting its true value on all this, it seemed to her a sweeter thing to see the sun than it had ever been before. So, prompted by Hera, she changed her mind and put the box away.”

Apollonius of Rhodes book Argonautica

Source: Argonautica (3rd century BC), Book III. Jason and Medea, Lines 802–818

Life , Death , Hate , Pleasure

“Suppose the reasoning centers of the brain can get their hands on the mechanisms that plop shapes into the array and that read their locations out of it. Those reasoning demons can exploit the geometry of the array as a surrogate for keeping certain logical constraints in mind. Wealth, like location on a line, is transitive: if A is richer than B, and B is richer than C, then A is richer than C. By using location in an image to symbolize wealth, the thinker takes advantage of the transitivity of location built into the array, and does not have to enter it into a chain of deductive steps. The problem becomes a matter of plop down and look up. It is a fine example of how the form of a mental representation determines what is easy or hard to think.”

Steven Pinker book How the Mind Works

Source: How the Mind Works (1997), p. 291

Problem , Thinking , Reading , Wealth

“The failing of contemporary criticism is double: Hand in hand with the suppression of aesthetic autonomy, one finds also a growing reluctance to recognize the complex and dynamic temporality of literature. By dynamic temporality I mean that immanent sense of time within the literary work, its ability to reach backward, as part of a tradition, and forward, as a vehicle of innovation and anticipation. This sort of temporality is quite different from a single-minded and frequently reductionist focus on historical context.”

Russell Berman (1950) American academic

Source: Fiction Sets You Free: Literature, Liberty and Western Culture (2007), p. 5.

Literature , Sense , Time , Parting

“We all wish for world peace, but world peace will never be achieved unless we first establish peace within our own minds.”

Kelsang Gyatso (1931) Tibetan writer and lama

Transform Your Life: A Blissful Journey (2001)

World , Peace

“Most of our political leaders are not engineers or scientists and do not listen to engineers or scientists. Today a letter from Einstein would get lost in the White House mail room, and the Manhattan Project would not even get started; it certainly could never be completed in three years. I am not aware of a single political leader in the U. S., either Democrat or Republican, who would cut health-care spending in order to free up money for biotechnology research — or, more generally, who would make serious cuts to the welfare state in order to free up serious money for major engineering projects. … Men reached the moon in July 1969, and Woodstock began three weeks later. With the benefit of hindsight, we can see that this was when the hippies took over the country, and when the true cultural war over Progress was lost. Today's aged hippies no longer understand that there is a difference between the election of a black president and the creation of cheap solar energy; in their minds, the movement towards greater civil rights parallels general progress everywhere. Because of these ideological conflations and commitments, the 1960s Progressive Left cannot ask whether things actually might be getting worse.”

Peter Thiel (1967) American entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and hedge fund manager

In an editorial http://www.nationalreview.com/article/278758/end-future-peter-thiel published by National Review (2011)

Men , Money , War , Health

“Chairman White, and the other Trustees that are present today, faculty and staff and alumni, distinguished guests, cadets, and friends of Hargrave: It's been a great run. It really has. I look out over the congregation gathered here today, and I see faculty, staff, cadets, parents, members of the Parent Council that we work closely with, other colleagues in the same business- and it makes me reflect on on fifteen years here, what all we've accomplished. I can also state that we wouldn't have accomplished much without the leadership of the Board of Trustees. And I'd like to thank all of the Board that's here- the Chairman, past Chairmen, and other members of the Board- that've A, put their trust in my leadership, put up with me at times, and set the guidance and the tone to keep the school on a straight path. Not an easy task. And the Board has done a magnificent job. I would also be remiss if I didn't recognize- I wish I could recognize every member of our faculty and staff, which is the heart and soul of an independent school. Our faculty is the best- best in the nation- very dedication people, that work constant hours with the cadets here, proven by our great success we've had over the past, what… hundred and- we graduated 102nd class last May. It's been really an honor for me to be part of Hargrave's history. But we're not done. We've completed 102 years, and now we've hired Brigadier General Broome, who's the right person to take the helm at Hargrave. And I am convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that General Broome is ready, willing, and dedicated to take Hargrave to the next level. It's a great school- I would tell you, in my mind, it's the best school in the country, because of the cadets and the folks we have here. I've been spending a lot of time with General Broome and his wife, and they are really gonna be a great fit for Hargrave, and I think Hargrave's gonna have a super next one hundred years. I wish we could all be here a hundred years from now to open our time capsule, but unfortunately, I don't think anybody in this room is gonna see what's in the time capsule… Anyhow, thank you for coming, it's been an honor to be part of this, and I will sincerely miss it. I'm not the type to watch things from the sidelines, but, in this case, I will. Thank you very much.”

Wheeler L. Baker (1938) President of Hargrave Military Academy

Baker's speech at the change-of-command ceremony in Hargrave's chapel on June 24, 2011.

People , School , Soul , History

“I believe nothing. I have shut myself away from the rocks and wisdoms of ages, and from the so-called great teachers of all time, and perhaps because of that isolation I am given to bizarre hospitalities. I shut the front door upon Christ and Einstein, and at the back door hold out a welcoming hand to little frogs and periwinkles. I believe nothing of my own that I have ever written. I cannot accept that the products of minds are subject-matter for beliefs. But I accept, with reservations that give me freedom to ridicule the statement at any other time, that showers of an edible substance that has not been traced to an origin upon this earth, have fallen from the sky, in Asia Minor.”

Charles Fort book Lo!

Pt 1, Ch. 3 http://www.resologist.net/lo103.htm; part of this has sometimes been misquoted as: "I cannot accept that the products of the mind are subject-matter for belief."
Lo! (1931)

Wisdom , Age , Freedom , Teachers

“What he had been talking about all the time as Quality was here the Tao, the great central generating force of all religions, Oriental and Occidental, past and present, all knowledge, everything.
Then his mind's eye looked up and caught his own image and realized where he was and what he was seeing and…I don't know what really happened…but the slippage that Phædrus had felt earlier, the internal parting of his mind, suddenly gathered momentum, as do the rocks at the top of a mountain. Before he could stop it, the sudden accumulated mass of awareness began to grow and grow into an avalanche of thought and awareness out of control; with each additional growth of the downward tearing mass loosening hundreds of times its volume, and then that mass uprooting hundreds of times its volume more, and then hundreds of times that; on and on, wider and broader, until there was nothing left to stand.
No more anything.
It all gave way from under him.”

Robert M. Pirsig book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Source: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974), Ch. 20

Religion , Way , Mountain , Knowledge

“We must give our children the equal opportunity to develop their minds and bodies to the fullest. We will continue, even expand, the conditional cash transfers (or CCT's) to the poorest families so that their children will have the means to get to school and the nutrition to support a healthy brain - and body. We must cut down drastically that 34% drop-out rate in primary grades.”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

2009, Speech: The Socio-Economic Peace Program of Senator Francis Escudero

Children , School , Family , Support

“Our life is our own to-day, to-morrow you will be dust, a shade, and a tale that is told. Live mindful of death; the hour flies.”
Nostrum est<br/>quod vivis, cinis et manes et fabula fies.<br/>vive memor leti, fugit hora.

Persius (34–62) ancient latin poet

Nostrum est
quod vivis, cinis et manes et fabula fies.
vive memor leti, fugit hora.
Satire V, line 151.
The Satires

Life , Death

“They say women are more constant than men : it is the constancy of circumstance; the enterprise, the exertion required of men continually force them out of themselves, and that which was at first necessity soon becomes habit — whereas the constant round of employments in which a woman is engaged requires no fatigue of mind or body; the needle is, generally speaking, both her occupation and amusement, and this kind of work leaves the ideas full play; hence the imagination is left at liberty to dwell upon one subject, and hence habit, which is an advantage on the one side, becomes to her an additional rivet.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

Other Gift Books

Women , Men , Imagination , Idea

“To my mind, the great strength of your Society lies in its recognition of the necessity of discipline. We live in an impatient age. We demand results, and demand them at once. We find a long and laborious process very irksome, and are constantly seeking for a short cut. But there is no easy method of securing discipline. It is axiomatic that there is no royal road to learning. The effort for discipline must be intensive, and to a considerable degree it must be lifelong. But it is absolutely necessary, if there is to be any self-direction or any self-control. The worst evil that could be inflicted upon the youth of the land would be to leave them without restraint and completely at the mercy of their own uncontrolled inclinations. Under such conditions education would be impossible, and all orderly development intellectually or morally would be hopeless. I do not need to picture the result. We know too well what weakness and depravity follow when the ordinary processes of discipline are neglected.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, Authority and Religious Liberty (1924)

Youth , Age , Education , Effort

“As to our real knowledge, he [Lange] has now shown (1) that a bare thing-in-itself, a thing out of all relation to minds, does not exist; (2) that, even as notion, it is a self-contradiction, something whose sphere is solely within consciousness putting itself as if it were beyond it; (3) that, in spite of this, we continue, and must continue, to accept this illusion, which compels us to limit our knowledge to experience and to renounce all claims to its being absolute.”

George Holmes Howison (1834–1916) American philosopher

Source: The Limits of Evolution, and Other Essays, Illustrating the Metaphysical Theory of Personal Ideaalism (1905), Later German Philosophy, p.168

Knowledge

“First off, I'm actually perfectly well off. I live in a good-sized house, with a nice yard, with deer occasionally showing up and eating the roses (my wife likes the roses more, I like the deer more, so we don't really mind). I've got three kids, and I know I can pay for their education. What more do I need? The thing is, being a good programmer actually pays pretty well; being acknowledged as being world-class pays even better. I simply didn't need to start a commercial company. And it's just about the least interesting thing I can even imagine. I absolutely hate paperwork. I couldn't take care of employees if I tried. A company that I started would never have succeeded – it's simply not what I'm interested in! So instead, I have a very good life, doing something that I think is really interesting, and something that I think actually matters for people, not just me. And that makes me feel good.”

Linus Torvalds (1969) Finnish-American software engineer and hacker

-- 8/15/07 -- http://www.itbusiness.ca/it/client/en/TechGovernment/News.asp?id=44682&PageMem=2 --
Attributed

Life , Hate , People , World

““But a second afterthought would follow, and I should ask: What must be the nature of this life dissevered from Nature,—bodiless, void of all sense-perception? What would be left in it except the pure elements of reason, the pure elements of perception, the pure formularies of science, and pure imagination? But what are these, altogether, but the common equipment, not of my mind or of some other individual mind, but of the universal human nature? And what is that universal nature but just the nature of the eternal Cosmic Consciousness? Yes, my personality has vanished; and death, in dissolving the tie to Nature under the alluring prospect of an existence for me wholly self-referred and self-sustaining, has resolved me back into the infinite Vague of the Cosmic Mind, as this might, perchance, be fancied to be in itself, apart from Nature and creation,””

George Holmes Howison (1834–1916) American philosopher

Source: The City of God and the True God as its Head (In Royce’s “The Conception of God: a Philosophical Discussion Concerning the Nature of the Divine Idea as a Demonstrable Reality”), p.118-9

Life , Death , Imagination , Nature

“I try and keep an ear out and keep an open mind and enjoy something where I don't know what the hell is going on inside of it. That's what I really get out of it. Because to me it's new. That's what I get out of it. That joyful feeling of you don't know what's going to happen next.”

Joe Strummer (1952–2002) British musician, singer, actor and songwriter

7 Questions with Joe Strummer (15 August 2001)

Feeling , Hell

“There's a starman waiting in the sky
He'd like to come and meet us,
But he thinks he'd blow our minds.”

David Bowie (1947–2016) British musician, actor, record producer and arranger

Starman
Song lyrics, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (1972)

Thinking , Waiting

“I have often compared, in my own mind, the people of England with the people of ancient Egypt, and the Foreign Office of this country with the temples of the Egyptians. We are told by those who pass up and down the Nile that on its banks are grand temples with stately statues and massive and lofty columns, statues each one of which would have appeared almost to have exhausted a quarry in its production. You have, further, vast chambers and gloomy passages; and some innermost recess, some holy of holies, in which, when you arrive at it, you find some loathsome reptile which a nation reverenced and revered, and bowed itself down to worship. In our Foreign Office we have no massive columns; we have no statues; but we have a mystery as profound; and in the innermost recesses of it we find some miserable intrigue, in defence of which your fleets are traversing every ocean, your armies are perishing in every clime, and the precious blood of our country's children is squandered as though it had no price. I hope that an improved representation will change all this; that the great portion of our expenditure which is incurred in carrying out the secret and irresponsible doings of our Foreign Office will be placed directly under the free control of a Parliament elected by the great body of the people of the United Kingdom.”

John Bright (1811–1889) British Radical and Liberal statesman

Speech in Glasgow (December 1858), quoted in G. M. Trevelyan, The Life of John Bright (London: Constable, 1913), pp. 277-278.
1850s

Children , People , Secret , Hope

“There are times when the emotions are so clamorous and the rational working of the mind so perfunctory that there is no telling where the actual leaves off and the images of fantasy begin.”

Mervyn Peake (1911–1968) English writer, artist, poet and illustrator

Source: Gormenghast (1950), Chapter 35 (p. 577)

Time

“I ignore polling as a method of government. I think that shows a certain weakness of mind - an inability to chart a course whichever way the wind blows, whichever way the media encourages the people to go, you follow. If you can't force or are unwilling to force your people to follow you, with or without threats, you are not a leader.”

Lee Kuan Yew (1923–2015) First Prime Minister of Singapore

SM Lee Kuan Yew, Success Stories, 2002
2000s

People , Way , Thinking

“Now after the time of their preparatory trial is over, they are parted into four classes; and so far are the juniors inferior to the seniors, that if the seniors should be touched by the juniors, they must wash themselves, as if they had intermixed themselves with the company of a foreigner. They are long-lived also, insomuch that many of them live above a hundred years, by means of the simplicity of their diet; nay, as I think, by means of the regular course of life they observe also. They contemn the miseries of life, and are above pain, by the generosity of their mind. And as for death, if it will be for their glory, they esteem it better than living always; and indeed our war with the Romans gave abundant evidence what great souls they had in their trials, wherein, although they were tortured and distorted, burnt and torn to pieces, and went through all kinds of instruments of torment, that they might be forced either to blaspheme their legislator, or to eat what was forbidden them, yet could they not be made to do either of them, no, nor once to flatter their tormentors, or to shed a tear; but they smiled in their very pains, and laughed those to scorn who inflicted the torments upon them, and resigned up their souls with great alacrity, as expecting to receive them again.”

Josephus on the Essenes

Jewish War

Life , Death , Pain , War

“When I went to college, I went to study Veterinary Medicine, which I still study. But I had to take classes with the Animal Science people in the college of Agriculture. … One class I had to take they made the students from part of the class go into a chicken coop and pick out a live chicken and slaughter it themselves. Then we were supposed to take it home and eat it. And I refused to do it. So I ended up getting a C at the class, even though I had As in everything else. … I also had to take a class where I would take care of animals, pigs and cows, and I got to know them. I actually had a cow that I took care of, raised from when she was a baby and I had her till she was about 800 pounds. She would run up to me, she knew me well, just like a dog. She was exactly like a dog. It was sort of the same with the pigs, the babies knew me. And after I had to go in and see what happened to them, it totally broke my heart and it made me sick to my stomach. … There's no way, you know, if you're human and you have a normal brain and mind and feelings, that you can see what I saw and still eat them and allow them to be slaughtered and be ok with it.”

Lauren Anderson (model) (1980) American model

"Playmate Declares War", video interview with PETA (24 August 2007) https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2tstr.

People , Dogs , Way , Feeling

“It is better to set one's mind to bearing the misfortunes that are happening than to think of those that may happen.”

François de La Rochefoucauld book Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims

Il vaut mieux employer notre esprit à supporter les infortunes qui nous arrivent qu'à prévoir celles qui nous peuvent arriver.
Maxim 174.
Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims (1665–1678)

Thinking

“The fundamental tenet of Steiner's teaching is that if we take the trouble to recognize the independent existence of the inner worlds of thought, and keep the mind turned in that direction, we shall soon become increasingly conscious of their reality. We are not, as Sartre believed, stranded in the universe of matter like a whale on a beach. That inner world is our natural home. Moreover, once we grasp this truth, we can also recognize that we ourselves possess an "essential ego," a "true self," a fundamental identity that goes far beyond our usual feeble sense of being "me."”

Colin Wilson (1931–2013) author

Source: Rudolf Steiner: The Man and His Vision (1985), p. 26

Truth , World , Home , Nature

“It is odd that the last twenty-five years which have witnessed the greatest progress ever made in physical science—the greatest victories ever achieved by mind over matter—should have produced hardly a volume that will be remembered in 1900.”

Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay (1800–1859) British historian and Whig politician

Diary entry (9 March 1850)

Science , Victory

“If you let it, your mind will celebrate new stimuli by automatically making dozens of unexpected connections for you. If you pay attention to them, you may discover the answer you've been looking for.”

Tim Hurson (1946) Creativity theorist, author and speaker

Think Better: An Innovator's Guide to Productive Thinking

“I’ve been walking my mind to an easy time,
My back turned towards the sun.
Lord knows the cold wind blows it’ll turn your head around.
Well, there’s hours of time on the telephone line,
To talk about things to come.
Sweet dreams and flying machines in pieces on the ground.”

James Taylor (1948) American singer-songwriter and guitarist

"Fire and Rain"
Song lyrics, Sweet Baby James (1970)

Dreams , Time , Sun , Flying

“Great things alone can make a great mind, and petty things will make a petty mind unless a man rejects them as completely alien.”

Carl von Clausewitz book On War

On War (1832), Book 2

“I don't understand Ethel.
I don't, I don't really.
She's one of my very best friends,
Just about the best, nearly.
She's an awfully nice girl, Ethel is,
Dainty and refined,
I mean she'd never do or say
Anything unkind.
But get her inside a stadium
And she seems to go out of her mind.”

Joyce Grenfell (1910–1979) British comedian, singer, actress

Poem Ethel

Girl , Understanding

“Jimmy Carter is not only a terrorist sympathizer and an Israel hater—he’s also awesomely, mind-bogglingly stupid…”

Charles Foster Johnson (1953) American musician

April 21, 2008 http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/29686_Carter-_Hamas_Wants_Peace&only

Stupidity

“Undoubtedly the best language for the expression of this ‘unfathomable’ quality was music. The infinity of musical spheres of expression, independent of rationality, is often perceived as ‘unfathomable’ by listeners too. The formal principles of order seem to lie hidden deeper in this art than in others. In the twentieth century the great creative minds, when faced with Romantic artistic urges running riot which they believe must be overcome, or feel they have succeeded in overcoming, have stressed the importance of existing rules; they have followed traditional forms, or else, in their search for new ways to connect, have found and set up new formula-tions and principles. The young Schumann’s creative path led in the opposite direction, from classical forms, however deeply revered, to the freedom of subjective self-expression.”

Burkard Schliessmann classical pianist

Talkings about Chopin and Schumann

Lie , Art , Music , Way

“"I knew him, ere the roots of bitterness
"Had grown to putrid cancer in his soul.
"Then Revelation's light gleamed o'er his mind
"In strange fantastic dreams of future bliss,
"He saw the dawn, and this was quite enough”

John Lyon (poet) (1803–1889) Scottish Latter Day Saint poet and hymn writer

The Harp of Zion (1853)

Dreams , Soul , Light , Future

“When beauty fires the blood, how love exalts the mind!”

John Dryden book Fables, Ancient and Modern

Source: Fables, Ancient and Modern (1700), Cymon and Iphigenia, Line 41.

Love , Beauty

“Faith is the surrender of the mind; it's the surrender of reason, it's the surrender of the only thing that makes us different from other mammals. It's our need to believe, and to surrender our skepticism and our reason, our yearning to discard that and put all our trust or faith in someone or something, that is the sinister thing to me. Of all the supposed virtues, faith must be the most overrated.”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

2005-05-23
Penn & Teller: Bullshit!
season 3 episode 5
Holier Than Thou
Television
2000s, 2005

Faith

“To my mind when a great Judge, a master of the whole subject, thinking it necessary for the decision of the case to carefully examine into and to state the practice, it is nothing to say as against that, that it was not necessary for the decision.”

William Brett, 1st Viscount Esher (1815–1899) British lawyer, judge and politician

Ex parte Bell Cox (1887), 57 L. J. (N. S.) Q. B. 103.

Thinking , Decision

“When the mind grasps the universe, the senses retreat.”

Subhash Kak (1947) Indian computer scientist

The Prajna Sutra (2007)

Sense , Universe

“My father's views for me, which were to guide his choice of college, were twofold. He really wanted me to learn; to get a good education, not so much with the idea of my making my way in the world, as from the value which he had learned to set upon intellect…. He was fond of repeating the sentence in the Eton Latin grammar—" Concessi Cantabrigiam ad capiendum ingenii cultum…." This was the proverb which presided over my whole college life. Though often dimmed, it was never lost sight of, and however much I may have had to hate the grammar on other accounts, I think no other sentence of any book has had so large a share in moulding my mind and character as that one. It was then essential to my father's plans for me that the college to be selected for me should be one where the instruction given was reputed to be good.”

Mark Pattison (1813–1884) English author and Church of England priest

Memoirs (1885)

Life , Hate , Books , World

“Protocols:
Number 10, paras. 6,7
A scheme of government should come ready made from one brain, because it will never be clinched firmly if it is allowed to split into fractional parts in the minds of many. It is allowable, therefore, for us to have cognizance of the scheme of action but not to discuss it lest we disturb its artfulness, and interdependence of its component parts, the practical force of the secret meaning of each clause. To discuss and make alteration in a labor of this kind by means of numerous votings is to impress upon it the stamp of all ratiocinations and misunderstandings which have failed to penetrate the depth and nexus of its plottings….
These schemes will not turn existing institutions upside down just yet, They will only effect changes in their economy and consequently in the whole combined movement of their progress, which will thus be directed along the paths laid down in our schemes.”

Will Eisner (1917–2005) American cartoonist

The Plot: The Secret Story of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (10/2/2005)

Secret , Art , Change , Parting

“Whence, if ever, shall come the actuality
Of a voice speaking the mind's knowing,
The sunlight bright on the green windowshade,
And the self articulate, affectionate, and flowing,
Ease, warmth, light, the utter showing,
When in the white bed all things are made.”

Delmore Schwartz (1913–1966) American poet

"Sonnet: O City, City" http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/sonnet-o-city-city/
Selected Poems: Summer Knowledge (1959)

Light

“Calcutta, for me, was a particular idea of the modern city, and I found it in many forms, works, and genres. … by ‘modernity’ I have in mind something that was never new. True modernity was born with the aura of inherited decay and life. … if you look at paintings and photographs, and see old films of the city, you notice that these walls and buildings were never new – that Calcutta was born to look more or less as I saw it as a child. I’m not referring here to an air of timelessness; the patina that gave to Calcutta’s alleys, doorways, and houses their continuity and disposition is very different from the eternity that defines mausoleums and monuments. It’s this quality I’m trying to get at when I speak of modernity. … modernity in the nineteenth century is indistinguishable from nature; perhaps it is nature – in some ways, the culvert, which has emerged from the rock, seems more of its place than the mountain itself.”

Amit Chaudhuri (1962) contemporary Indian-English novelist

citation needed
On Modernity

Life , Way , Mountain , Idea

“The work of the world must still be done,
And minds are many though truth be one.”

Henry Newbolt (1862–1938) English poet and writer

The Echo.

Truth , World

“The object of education is not merely to draw out the powers of the individual mind: it is rather its right object to draw all minds to a proper adjustment to the physical and social world in which they are to have their life and their development: to enlighten, strengthen and make fit.”

Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) American politician, 28th president of the United States (in office from 1913 to 1921)

"Princeton In The Nation's Service" (21 October 1896)
1890s

Life , World , Education , Drawing

“Her body and her mind were sluggish and lazy, and deep down she fought a tired envy of the people who, so she thought, experienced good things while she went through life a gray cloud in a gray room. Having few actual perceptions, she lived by rules. Education is good. Self-control is necessary. Everything in its time and place. Travel is broadening. And it was this last axiom which had forced her finally on the vacation to Mexico.”

John Steinbeck book The Wayward Bus

About Bernice Pritchard in Ch. 5
The Wayward Bus (1947)

Life , People , Education , Travel

“Give me, kind Heaven, a private station,
A mind serene for contemplation:
Title and profit I resign;
The post of honour shall be mine.”

John Gay (1685–1732) English poet and playwright

The Vulture, the Sparrow, and other Birds. Comparable to: "When vice prevails, and impious men bear sway, The post of honour is a private station", Joseph Addison, Cato, Act iv, scene 4
Fables (1727), Fables, Part the Second (1738)

“We might liken the 'two selves' to Laurel and Hardy. Ollie is the objective mind, 'you'. Stan is the subjective mind, the 'hidden you'. But Stan happens to be in control of your energy supply. So if you wake up feeling low and discouraged, you (Ollie) tend to transmit your depression to Stan, who fails to send you energy, which makes you feel lower than ever. This vicious circle is the real cause of most mental illness.”

Colin Wilson (1931–2013) author

Source: Super Consciousness (2009), p. 121

Feeling

“When your techniques are rough it means you are forcing against the principles; proof that you are still immature. You will not be able to stand up to a stronger opponent — you must try to follow the principles. Your character comes out in your techniques. So do the habits of your mind. By correcting the techniques, you can correct the bad habits of your mind. If you constantly collide with others in your practice, your mind will develop a habit of clashing with other people.”

Koichi Tohei (1920–2011) Japanese aikidoka

49
Ki Sayings (2003)

People

“The one and only God of Universe Vishwanatha, takes the shape of different deities, worshipped by the devotees whether he be Hindu, Jain, Parsi, Mohammed, Yahudi, Christian. Let him also sow seeds of unity and friendship in the mind of the people of the country.”

D. V. Gundappa (1887–1975) Indian writer

One of the six hymns that he had set for the Gokhale Institute of Public Affairs that he had set up in Bangalore quoted in page=13
D.V. Gundappa,Sahitya Akademi

God , Friendship , People , Universe

“The monk, the inquisitor, and the Jesuit were lords of Spain,— sovereigns of her sovereign, for they had formed the dark and narrow mind of that tyrannical recluse. They had formed the minds of her people, quenched in blood every spark of rising heresy, and given over a noble nation to a bigotry blind and inexorable as the doom of fate. Linked with pride, ambition, avarice, every passion of a rich, strong nature, potent for good and ill, it made the Spaniard of that day a scourge as dire as ever fell on man.”

Francis Parkman (1823–1893) American historian

Pt. I, Ch. 7 Menendez
Pioneers of France in the New World (1865)

Fate , People , Nature , Strong

“Whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America had better learn baseball, the rules and realities of the game — and do it by watching first some high school or small-town teams.”

Jacques Barzun (1907–2012) Historian

God's Country and Mine (1954)

School , Game , Reality , Learning

“Titchener interest lay in the generalized, normal, adult mind that had also been Wundt's main concern.”

Edwin Boring (1886–1968) American psychologist

Source: A History of Experimental Psychology, 1929, p. 407

“This must be our belief when we have a correct knowledge of our own self, and comprehend the true nature of everything; we must be content, and not trouble our mind with seeking a certain final cause for things that have none, or have no other final cause but their own existence, which depends on the Will of God, or, if you prefer, on the Divine Wisdom.”

Maimónides book The Guide for the Perplexed

Source: Guide for the Perplexed (c. 1190), Part III, Ch.13

Wisdom , God , Nature , Knowledge

“One must let the play happen to one; one must let the mind loose to respond as it will, to receive impressions, to sense rather than know, to gather rather than immediately understand.”

Edward Albee (1928–2016) American playwright

On his play Tiny Alice, in National Observer (5 April 1965)

Understanding , Sense

“There is not a moral evil which has not its infallible antidote, nor any moral virtue which has not its spring and sustenance in Jesus Christ and Him crucified. To apprehend Him with every faculty of the mind, and with every affection of the heart, and to grow daily in that apprehension, is to emerge from every thing that enthralls, to surmount all that can contaminate.”

Alexander Knox (1757–1831)

Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 96.

Spring , Evil , Heart , Christ

“My teacher, Ales Adamovich, whose name I mention today with gratitude, felt that writing prose about the nightmares of the 20th century was sacrilege. Nothing may be invented. You must give the truth as it is. A "super-literature" is required. The witness must speak. Nietzsche's words come to mind – no artist can live up to reality. He can't lift it. It always troubled me that the truth doesn't fit into one heart, into one mind, that truth is somehow splintered. There's a lot of it, it is varied, and it is strewn about the world.”

Svetlana Alexievich (1948) Belarusian investigative journalist and non-fiction prose writer

Quotes from Nobel Lecture

Truth , World , Literature , Reality

“The … false ideal … [that is] tokenism—which is commonly guised as Equal Rights, and which yields token victories—deflects and shortcircuits gynergy, so that female power, galvanized under deceptive slogans of sisterhood, is swallowed by The Fraternity. This method of vampirizing the Female Self saps women by giving illusions of partial success while at the same time making Success appear to be a far-distant, extremely difficult to obtain "elusive objective." When the oppressed are worn out in the game of chasing the elusive shadow of Success, some "successes" are permitted to occur—"victories" which can easily be withdrawn when the victim's energies have been restored. Subsequently, women are lured into repeating efforts to regain the hard-won apparent gains…. [¶] Thus tokenism is insidiously destructive of sisterhood, for it distorts the warrior aspect of Amazon bonding both by magnifying it and by minimizing it. It magnifies the importance of "fighting back" to the extent of making it devour the transcendent be-ing of sisterhood, reducing it to a copy of comradeship. At the same time, it minimizes the Amazon warrior aspect by containing it, misdirecting and shortcircuiting the struggle. [¶] This is a demonically double-sided trap, for of course reforms, such as legalization of abortion, aid many women in desperate situations. However, because the "changes" that are achieved are victories in a vacuum, that is, in a totally oppressive social context, they do not essentially free the Female Self but instead function to hide both the fact of continuing oppression and the possibilities for better options and for more radical freedom…. The Labrys of the A-mazing Female Mind must cut through the coverings of these double-sided/multiple-sided situations, dis-covering the context, identifying the more radical problems, yet neglecting none.”

Mary Daly (1928–2010) American radical feminist philosopher and theologian

Source: Gyn/Ecology: The Metaethics of Radical Feminism (1978–1990), pp. 375–376 (fnn. omitted, fn. at "apparent gains." giving as examples the Equal Rights Amendment, affirmative action, and abortion & fn. at "more radical freedom." stating "the fact that Lesbians/Spinsters have no need of abortions, unless forcibly raped").

Women , Game , Problem , Effort

“According to the theory of those weak minded persons, man is more perfect than his Creator. For what man says or does has a certain object, whilst the actions of God are different; He commands us to do what is of no use to us, and forbids us to do what is harmless. Far be this! On the contrary, the sole object of the Law is to benefit us.”

Maimónides book The Guide for the Perplexed

Source: Guide for the Perplexed (c. 1190), Part III, Ch.31

God , Law , Personality , Perfection

“What is remarkable is that human beings are actually able to carry out this code-breaking operation, that the human mind has the necessary intellectual equipment for us to "unlock the secrets of nature"…”

Paul Davies (1946) British physicist

Source: The Mind of God: The Scientific Basis for a Rational World (1992), Ch. 6: 'The Mathematical Secret', p. 148

Secret , Nature

“I hate people saying anything stupid. I don't really suffer fools very well at all. When people are acting like idiots, not that I'm not guilty of doing the odd idiotic thing myself from time to time, but when people say stupid things, it stresses me out. I have a pretty thick skin about people coming up to me and saying things to me when I'm out, I don't really mind that too much. but when people are just loud and annoying, it drives me crazy.”

Joshua Jackson (1978) Canadian actor

As quoted in the article 'End of an Era?' in Live and Kicking magazine (2000)

Hate , People , Stupidity , Fools

“No, the Great Man does not boast himself sincere, far from that; perhaps does not ask himself if he is so: I would say rather, his sincerity does not depend on himself; he cannot help being sincere! The great Fact of Existence is great to him. Fly as he will, he cannot get out of the awful presence of this Reality. His mind is so made; he is great by that, first of all. Fearful and wonderful, real as Life, real as Death, is this Universe to him. Though all men should forget its truth, and walk in a vain show, he cannot. At all moments the Flame-image glares in upon him; undeniable, there, there!—I wish you to take this as my primary definition of a Great Man. A little man may have this, it is competent to all men that God has made: but a Great Man cannot be without it.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

1840s, Heroes and Hero-Worship (1840), The Hero as Prophet

Life , Death , Men , God

“Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage;
Minds innocent and quiet take
That for an hermitage;
If I have freedom in my love,
And in my soul am free,
Angels alone that soar above
Enjoy such liberty.”

Richard Lovelace (1617–1658) English writer and poet

To Althea: From Prison, st. 4.
Lucasta (1649)

Love , Angels , Soul , Freedom

“The major enemy of poker players is their rationalizations for their failures to think…. Many poor players evade thinking by letting their minds sink into irrational fogs. Their belief in luck short-circuits their minds by excusing them from their responsibility to think. Belief in luck is a great mystical rationalization for the refusal to think.”

Frank R. Wallace (1932–2006) Philosopher, author, entrepreneur

Wallace, Frank R. Poker: A Guaranteed Income for Life by Using the Advanced Concepts of Poker. Quoted in A Friendly Game of Poker by Ira Glass and Jake Austen, Chicago Review Press, 2003, page 210

Failure , Thinking

“He'll speak his mind only on ploughs;
He hates dissension where he works.
He'll make and follow no war,
He'll oppress no one for his goods,
He's never brutal with us
Nor will he pursue false claims.”

Iolo Goch (1320–1398) Welsh bard

Ni rydd farn eithr ar arnawdd,
Ni châr yn ei gyfar gawdd.
Ni ddeily rhyfel, ni ddilyn,
Ni threisia am ei dda ddyn.
Ni bydd ry gadarn arnam,
Ni yrr hawl gymedrawl gam.
Source: Y Llafurwr (The Labourer), Line 17.

Hate , War , Falseness

Muhammad al-Taqi (811–835) ninth of the Twelve Imams of Twelver Shi'ism

al-Shahid al-Tustari, Ihqaqul-Haq, vol.12, p. 434
General

God , Fear , Smile , Knowledge

“In excited states of the public mind they have scarcely a discretion at all; the tendency of the public perturbation determines what shall and what shall not be dealt with. But, upon the other hand, in quiet times statesmen have great power; when there is no fire lighted, they can settle what fire shall be lit. And as the new suffrage is happily to be tried in a quiet time, the responsibility of our statesmen is great because their power is great too.”

Walter Bagehot book The English Constitution

Introduction, p. xxi
The English Constitution (1867)

Light , Time

“It is a bit unsettling, at first, to think of Apple as a control freak, because it is completely at odds with their corporate image. Weren't these the guys who aired the famous Super Bowl ads showing suited, blindfolded executives marching like lemmings off a cliff? Isn't this the company that even now runs ads picturing the Dalai Lama (except in Hong Kong) and Einstein and other offbeat rebels?
It is indeed the same company, and the fact that they have been able to plant this image of themselves as creative and rebellious free-thinkers in the minds of so many intelligent and media-hardened skeptics really gives one pause. It is testimony to the insidious power of expensive slick ad campaigns and, perhaps, to a certain amount of wishful thinking in the minds of people who fall for them. It also raises the question of why Microsoft is so bad at PR, when the history of Apple demonstrates that, by writing large checks to good ad agencies, you can plant a corporate image in the minds of intelligent people that is completely at odds with reality.”

Neal Stephenson (1959) American science fiction writer

"Class Struggle on the Desktop"
In the Beginning... was the Command Line (1999)

People , Guy , History , Intelligence

“Disordered nerves are the origin of much religious despair, when the individual does not suspect it; and then the body and mind have a reciprocal influence upon each other, and it is difficult to tell which influences the other most. The physician is often blamed, when the fault lies with the minister. Depression never benefits body or soul. We are saved by hope.”

Ichabod Spencer (1798–1854) American minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 191.

Hope , Soul , Despair

“.. About my work Howard – I always have two opinions – one is my way of seeing it for myself – and for myself I am never satisfied – never really – I almost always fail – always I think – now next time I can do it – Maybe that is part of what keeps one working – I can also look at myself – by that I mean my work from the point of view of the looking public – and that is the way I look at it when I think of showing. I have always first had a show for myself – and made up my mind – then after that it doesn't matter to me very much what anyone else say – good or bad.”

Georgia O'Keeffe (1887–1986) American artist

In a letter to William Howard Schubart, (nephew of her died husband), Abiquiu, New Mexico, August 4, 1950; as quoted in Voicing our visions, -Writings by women artists; ed. Mara R. Witzling, Universe New York, 1991, p. 228
1950 - 1970

Way , Thinking , Time , Parting

“Most introverts aren’t aware of how they are constantly spending their time in ways that they would prefer not to be. They’ve been doing it all their lives, so it just becomes second nature. I’m trying to give people entitlement inside their own minds to be who they are.”

Susan Cain (1968) self-help writer

Bielski, Zosia (interviewer), "Giving introverts permission to be themselves," The Globe and Mail, January 26, 2012.

People , Way , Nature , Time

“.. if the objects will be mathematical values, the ambient in which they live will be a particular rhythm in the emotion which surrounds them. The graphic translation of this rhythm will be a state of form, a state of color, each of which will give back to the spectator the 'state of mind' which produced it..”

Umberto Boccioni (1882–1916) Italian painter and sculptor

in a letter of 12 Feb. 1912 from Paris, to his friend Nino Barbantini (director of the Ca' Pesaro in Venice); as cited in: Shannon N. Pritchard, Gino Severini and the symbolist aesthetics of his futurist dance imagery, 1910-1915 https://getd.libs.uga.edu/pdfs/pritchard_shannon_n_200305_ma.pdf Diss. uga, 2003, p. 67
1912

Color , Mathematics

“I think that I’m at a stage where the onus and the responsibility of the leading man, and therefore the onus and responsibility of the success of the film, and its marketing and its sale etc, is really not on my shoulders. Therefore, let me do what is coming my way. Therefore to do something like a Nishabd or even a Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag…well, I enjoyed doing them. Okay, people didn’t like it and they trashed it. And that’s fine, we must respect that. But I didn’t mind doing those roles because they tested my creativity and I enjoyed doing them.”

Amitabh Bachchan (1942) Indian actor

Quotable quotes by Amitabh Bachchan.

People , Way , Thinking , Success

“Writers, especially when they act in a body and with one direction, have great influence on the public mind.”

Edmund Burke book Reflections on the Revolution in France

Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)

“The gap between the committed and the indifferent is a Sahara whose faint trails, followed by the mind's eye only, fade out in sand.”

Nadine Gordimer (1923–2014) South african Nobel-winning writer

"Great Problems in the Street," in I Will Still Be Moved (1963) ed. by Marion Friedmann

Indifference

“Simultaneousness' is a technique. Simultaneous contrast is the most up-to-date honey of this technique in this field. Simultaneous contrast is visible depth – Reality, Form, construction, representation. Depth is the new inspiration. We live in depth, we travel in depth. I’m in it. The senses are in it. And the mind is too.”

Robert Delaunay (1885–1941) French painter

Quote in Delaunay's text 'Simultanism', October 1913; as cited in Futurism, ed. by Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008, p. 57
1910 - 1915

Travel , Reality , Sense

“I knew that until I was ready to tell the truth as I saw it, I was no better than a politician- but I didn't know whether I would ever be brave enough to break ranks and speak my mind.”

Clarence Thomas (1948) Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

Page 116
2000s, (2008)

Truth

“I don't mind if someone thinks I'm a sell out. I go to bed happy knowing I do what I do and I'm not doing anything for reasons of money, and if I were trying to pick up chicks, I'm doing a horrible job. And if I wanted to drive awesome cars, I'm doing a really bad job there too.”

Patrick Stump (1984) American musician

AbsolutePunk.net, Patrick Stump, Part 1 - 10.06.08

Money , Cars , Thinking , Happiness

“All State education is a sort of dynamo machine for polarizing the popular mind; for turning and holding its lines of force in the direction supposed to be most effective for State purposes.”

Henry Adams (1838–1918) journalist, historian, academic, novelist

The Education of Henry Adams (1907)

Education

“You've seen my statements, I do very well, I don't mind paying some taxes. The middle class is getting clobbered in this country. You know the middle class built this country, not the hedge fund guys, but I know people in hedge funds that pay almost nothing and it's ridiculous.”

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

Interview on Bloomberg's With All Due Respect — * 2015-08-26
Donald Trump Says He Wants to Raise Taxes on Himself
David Knowles
Bloomberg
http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-08-26/donald-trump-says-he-wants-to-raise-taxes-on-himself
2010s, 2015

People , Guy , Country

“Luc Saunders: “What do you think happens to individual consciousness after the death of a body?”
Adyashanti: “The question presumes that there is such a thing as individual consciousness. Awakening shows you that there isn’t. The mind creates the illusion of individual consciousness to convince us that this awareness is ours, that it belongs to us. I imagine that, after the death of the body, it’s very difficult to maintain the illusion of individual consciousness. But who knows? We’ll see. I’ll give you a phone call if I can. [Laughs. ]””

Adyashanti (1962) Spiritual teacher

Interview for The Sun Magazine (2007)

Death , Imagination , Question , Thinking

“There are a great many obscene minds, yet more railing and satirical, but very few fastidious ones. A man must have good manners, be very polite, and even have a great deal of originality to be able to jest gracefully and be felicitous in his remarks about trifles; to jest in such a manner and to make something out of nothing is to create.”

Jean de La Bruyère book Les Caractères

4
Les Caractères (1688), De la société et de la conversation

“The man is a humbug — a vulgar, shallow, self-satisfied mind, absolutely inaccessible to the complexities and delicacies of the real world. He has the journalist's air of being a specialist in everything, of taking in all points of view and being always on the side of the angels: he merely annoys a reader who has the least experience of knowing things, of what knowing is like. There is not two pence worth of real thought or real nobility in him. But he isn't dull…”

Clive Staples Lewis (1898–1963) Christian apologist, novelist, and Medievalist

Diary entry regarding Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay, (July 1924), published in Letters (1966), p. 97

World , Angels

“There seemed an unwritten agreement that the Thunder God should be left in peace, which was probably due to the very clearly written message painted on a whitewashed wall in what looked like lumpy congealed blood, which read: Leave me in peace and I probably won't kill you. No promise, mind. Probably is absolutely the best I can do.</i”

Eoin Colfer book And Another Thing...

And Another Thing... (2009), Chapter 8

God , Peace , Reading , Painting

“If what I see in my mind excites me, there is a good chance it will make a good photograph.”

Ansel Adams (1902–1984) American photographer and environmentalist

Sheff
David
May 1983
Playboy
http://davidsheff.com/article/ansel-adams/
Playboy Interview: Ansel Adams
226

Chance

“How senseless is the sordid love of gain;
Blind to all else the mind that's set on profit.”

Diphilus Athenian poet of New Comedy

Fragment 13
Fabulae Incertae

Love

“Much of the present unpopularity of the theory of Americanization is due to confusion in men's minds. It has grown with such rapidity that this has been inevitable. One thinks it is summed up in learning the English language; another thinks it is achieved by becoming an American citizen; a third, that it is adopting American clothes and manners and associating with native Americans; and a fourth, that it means that everybody should be able to sing "The Star Spangled Banner". The means of Americanization are still confused with its essence. While the necessary things were being done each day to help win the war, people were asking : Can we work intelligently and effectively together in a national effort, without agreement as to the definition, the substance, and the form of Americanization? What are the probabilities of success if these matters are left to the individual determination of the thousands of persons and of agencies now at work Americanizing the 2400 or more communities having foreign-born residents? They are beginning to ask what will be the final indestructible definitions and principles of Americanization and what are to be its finally approved methods. So early in the experiment the answers can only be postulated.”

Frances Kellor (1873–1952) American sociologist

What is Americanization? (1919)

Men , War , People , Star

“The condition of the low castes—it is painful to call them low castes—is not only unsatisfactory as this resolution says—it is so deeply deplorable that it constitutes a grave blot on our social arrangements… I think all fair-minded persons will have to admit that it is absolutely monstrous that a class of human beings, with bodies similar to our own, with brains that can think and with hearts that can feel, should be perpetually condemned to a low life of utter wretchedness, servitude, and mental and moral degradation, and that permanent barriers should be placed in their way so that it should be impossible for them ever to overcome them and improve their lot. This is deeply revolting to our sense of justice… How can we possibly realize our national aspirations, how can our country ever hope to take her place among the nations of the world, if we allow large numbers of our countrymen to remain sunk in ignorance, barbarism, and degradation?”

Gopal Krishna Gokhale (1866–1915) social and political leader during the Indian Independence Movement

Gopal Krishna Gokhale on Caste, 3 December 2013, Berkley Center for Religion, Peace & World Affairs: George Ton University http://berkleycenter.georgetown.edu/resources/quotes/gopal-krishna-gokhale-on-caste,
On caste system

Life , Pain , World , Justice

“So many of my thoughts and feelings are shared by the English that England has turned into a second native land of the mind for me.”

Alexis De Tocqueville (1805–1859) French political thinker and historian

Original text: J'ai tant de sentiments et d'idées qui me sont communes avec les Anglais, que l'Angleterre est devenue pour moi une seconde patrie intellectuelle.
Voyages en Angleterre et en Irlande (Journeys to England and Ireland), 1835.
1830s

Feeling

“Meet your own self. Be with your own self, listen to it, obey it, cherish it, keep it in mind ceaselessly. You need no other guide. As long as your urge for truth affects your daily life, all is well with you. Live your life without hurting anybody. Harmlessness is a most powerful form of Yoga and will take you speedily to your goal. This is what I call nisarga yoga, the Natural Yoga. It is the art of living in peace and harmony, in friendliness and love. The fruit of it is happiness, uncaused and endless.”

Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897–1981) Indian guru

Nisarga Yoga
Source: I am That, P.173.

Love , Life , Truth , Peace

“If we look into ourselves we discover propensities which declare that our intellects have arisen from a lower form; could our minds be made visible we should find them tailed.”

William Winwood Reade (1838–1875) British historian

Source: The Martyrdom of Man (1872), Chapter III, "Liberty", p. 314.

“The third model regards mind as an information processing system. This is the model of mind subscribed to by cognitive psychologists and also to some extent by the ego psychologists. Since an acquisition of information entails maximization of negative entropy and complexity, this model of mind assumes mind to be an open system.”

Thaddus E. Weckowicz (1919–2000) Canadian psychologist

Source: Models of Mental Illness (1984), p. 102

“The idea that consciousness is a mystery is a prejudice inherited from monotheism. The early seventeenth-century French philosopher René Descartes believed that animals other than humans are insensate machines. Obviously, this was a restatement in rationalist terms of the Christian belief that only humans have souls. Even if mind and matter were categorically distinct, that would not mean humans alone have minds. It was reported that in order to test his theories, Descartes used to throw animals out of the window and observe their reactions. Looking at behaviour of this kind, one might reasonably conclude that humans are the senseless machines.”

John Gray (1948) British philosopher

Freedom for Über-Marionettes: What Science Won't Tell You (p. 151)
The Soul of the Marionette: A Short Enquiry into Human Freedom (2015)

Soul , Idea , Animals

“Surely all Americans have the right to give their money only to those causes which they support. But what kind of society has this created? A society where the ignorant reign. A society where enlightened must hold their tongues. A nation whose politicians must profess half-hearted devotion to an ancient fable or face the disastrous consequences of speaking their true mind.”

Christopher McCandless (1968–1992) American hiker and explorer

Writing on religious fanaticism in The Emory Wheel student newspaper, October 1987

Money , Support , Heart

“Someone tapped him on the shoulder. he whirled around- and stared into the angry face of Milo Axelrod, his boss. "I told you to stay and mind the shop, dammit!" the druggist roared. "You're fired!" Bartlett snapped his fingers under the older man's nose. "And this here is how much I care," he said. "You can't fire me, on account of I damn well quit. They haven't called up my regiment yet, but I'm joining the Army now, is what I'm doing. Go peddle your pills- us real men will save the country for you. A couple of months from now, after we've licked the Yankees, you can tell me you're sorry."”

Harry Turtledove book The Great War: American Front

Source: The Great War: American Front (1998), p. 33

Men , Country

“Hinduism has destroyed all positive elements that normally exist in a human being. During the post-colonial period their energies were diverted to manipulate education, employment, production and development subtly. Their minds are poisoned with the notion that productive work is mean and that productive castes are inferior. No ruling class in the world is as dehumanized as the Indian brahminical castes. They can be rehumanized only by pushing them into productive work and by completely diverting their attention from the temple, the office, power-seeking, and so on.”

Kancha Ilaiah (1952) Indian scholar, activist and writer

Excerpt from Why I Am Not A Hindu : A Sudra Critique of Hindutva Philosophy, Culture and Political Economy (1996) http://www.swaraj.org/shikshantar/resources_ilaiah.htm.

World , Education

Quotes about mind page 54

Quotes about mind
page 54