Quotes about mind
page 6

Patrick Rothfuss photo
Mary Kay Ash photo
Shunryu Suzuki photo

“In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, in the expert's there are few.”

Shunryu Suzuki (1904–1971) Japanese Buddhist missionary

Prologue
Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind (1973)
Variant: In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there are few
Source: Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind: Informal Talks on Zen Meditation and Practice

Alfred North Whitehead photo

“It requires a very unusual mind to undertake the analysis of the obvious.”

Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947) English mathematician and philosopher

Preface (p. 4)
1920s, Science and the Modern World (1925)

Sylvia Plath photo

“I felt dumb and subdued. Every time I tried to concentrate, my mind glided off, like a skater, into a large empty space, and pirouetted there, absently.”

Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer

Source: CliffsNotes on Plath's The Bell Jar

Richard Dawkins photo
Bertrand Russell photo

“Really high-minded people are indifferent to happiness, especially other people's.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Source: The Impact of Science on Society

Julio Cortázar photo
John Milton photo

“The mind is its own place, and in itself / Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven. / What matter where, if I be still the same…”

i.254-255
Paradise Lost (1667)
Variant: The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a heav'n of hell, a hell of heav'n.
Source: Paradise Lost: Books 1-2

William Shakespeare photo

“When the
mind's free,
The Body's delicate.”

Source: King Lear

Bruce Lee photo

“Possession of anything begins in the mind.”

Bruce Lee (1940–1973) Hong Kong-American actor, martial artist, philosopher and filmmaker

Part 6 "Beyond System — The Ultimate Source of Jeet Kune Do"
Jeet Kune Do (1997)

Virginia Woolf photo
Oscar Wilde photo

“It is awfully hard work doing nothing. However, I don't mind hard work where there is no definite object of any kind. -Algernon”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

Source: The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays

Giovanni Boccaccio photo
Dilgo Khyentse photo
Lewis Carroll photo

“So she was considering in her own mind… whether the pleasure of making a daisy-chain would be worth the trouble of getting up & picking the daisies…”

Lewis Carroll (1832–1898) English writer, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer

Source: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass

Benjamin Disraeli photo

“Little things affect little minds.”

Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister
Emile Zola photo
Frank Herbert photo

“The people I distrust most are those who want to improve our lives but have only one course of action in mind.”

Frank Herbert (1920–1986) American writer

"The Plowboy Interview: Frank Herbert", in Mother Earth News No. 69 (May/June 1981)
General sources

Oscar Wilde photo
Leonardo Da Vinci photo

“Obstacles cannot crush me. Every obstacle yields to stern resolve. He who is fixed to a star does not change his mind.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), X Studies and Sketches for Pictures and Decorations

Thomas Hobbes photo

“Curiosity is the lust of the mind.”

Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) English philosopher, born 1588
Mark Twain photo
Virginia Woolf photo
Robert T. Kiyosaki photo
Friedrich Nietzsche photo
Patrick Rothfuss photo
Marcus Aurelius photo
John Lennon photo

“Turn off your mind, relax, and float downstream.”

John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter
Robert T. Kiyosaki photo
Stephen King photo
James Allen photo
James Allen photo

“The more tranquil a man becomes, the greater is his success, his influence, his power for good. Calmness of mind is one of the beautiful jewels of wisdom.”

James Allen (1864–1912) British philosophical writer

As A Man Thinketh (1902), Serenity
Context: The calm man, having learned how to govern himself, knows how to adapt himself to others; and they, in turn, reverence his spiritual strength, and feel that they can learn of him and rely upon him. The more tranquil a man becomes, the greater is his success, his influence, his power for good.

Terry Pratchett photo
Virginia Woolf photo
Terry Pratchett photo
Malcolm X photo
Emily Dickinson photo
Zbigniew Herbert photo
Mark Twain photo
Albert Schweitzer photo
Oscar Wilde photo
Ronald Reagan photo

“Here you discover that so long as books are kept open, then minds can never be closed.”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)
Virginia Woolf photo
Joseph Murphy photo
Rainer Maria Rilke photo

“All the soarings of my mind begin in my blood.”

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926) Austrian poet and writer

Wartime Letters of Rainer Maria Rilke 1914-1921 (1940), translated by M.D. Herter Norton

Virginia Woolf photo
Friedrich Nietzsche photo
Ajahn Chah photo
René Descartes photo

“It is not enough to have a good mind. The main thing is to use it well.”

René Descartes (1596–1650) French philosopher, mathematician, and scientist

Variant: It is not enough to have a good mind; the main thing is to use it well.
Source: Discourse on Method

Susan B. Anthony photo
Terry Pratchett photo
Vincent Van Gogh photo
Edmund Burke photo

“No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear.”

Part II Section II
A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1757)

Emil M. Cioran photo

“Good health is the best weapon against religion. Healthy bodies and healthy minds have never been shaken by religious fears.”

Emil M. Cioran (1911–1995) Romanian philosopher and essayist

Source: Tears and Saints (1937)

Khaled Hosseini photo
Ralph Waldo Emerson photo

“Words are finite organs of the infinite mind.”

Source: Nature

George Harrison photo
Maurice Merleau-Ponty photo
Albert Einstein photo
Albert Einstein photo

“Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.”

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

Variant: Great ideas often receive violent opposition from mediocre minds.

Cassandra Clare photo
Lewis Carroll photo
Virginia Woolf photo
Margaret Atwood photo
Bruce Lee photo
Terry Pratchett photo
Dilgo Khyentse photo
Tennessee Williams photo
Lewis Carroll photo
Dilgo Khyentse photo
Werner Herzog photo

“Film is not analysis, it is the agitation of mind; cinema comes from the country fair and the circus, not from art and academicism.”

Werner Herzog (1942) German film director, producer, screenwriter, actor and opera director

Herzog on Herzog (2002)

Nicholas Sparks photo
Dan Brown photo
John Lennon photo
Eleanor Roosevelt photo

“I am convinced that every effort must be made in childhood to teach the young to use their own minds. For one thing is sure: If they don't make up their minds, someone will do it for them.”

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States

Source: You Learn by Living: Eleven Keys for a More Fulfilling Life

Zig Ziglar photo
Tracey Emin photo
Libba Bray photo
Stefan Zweig photo
Leonardo Da Vinci photo
Louis Sachar photo
Phil Jackson photo

“Always keep an open mind and a compassionate heart.”

Phil Jackson (1945) basketball player and coach from the United States
Oscar Wilde photo
Virginia Woolf photo
Bruce Lee photo
William Shakespeare photo

“All things are ready, if our mind be so.”

Source: Henry V