Quotes about mind
page 60

“To draw and paint is an elementary thing, it has to be done. But it can be a mental process, intellectual process, thought process. *It is a question of temperament of each artist, there are abstract painters, figurative painters, painters who work in silence or who don’t want to work at all, but they continue with ideas in their mind and in their soul. It’s very fascinating; it’s a vast area without rules or regulations.”

S. H. Raza (1922–2016) Indian artist

Culture:S.H. Raza Comes in Full Circle

Soul, Idea, Question, Silence

“God is the only sure foundation on which the mind can rest.”

Samuel I. Prime (1812–1885) American clergyman, traveler, and writer

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 257.

God

“Be fully aware of your own being and you will be in bliss consciously. Because you take your mind off yourself and make it dwell on what you are not, you lose your sense of well-being, of being well. (…) True happiness is spontaneous and effortless. (..)”

Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897–1981) Indian guru

Bliss and happiness
Source: "I am That." P.96.

Happiness, Sense

“What kind of political order, then, is taking shape in Europe, 15 years after Maastricht? The pioneers of European integration – Monnet and his fellow spirits – envisaged the eventual creation of a federal union that would one day be the supranational equivalent of the nation-states out of which it emerged, anchored in an expanded popular sovereignty, based on universal suffrage, its executive answerable to an elected legislature, and its economy subject to requirements of social responsibility. In short, a democracy magnified to semi-continental scale (they had only Western Europe in mind). But there was always another way of looking at European unification, which saw it more as a limited pooling of powers by member governments for certain – principally economic – ends, that did not imply any fundamental derogation of national sovereignty as traditionally understood, but rather the creation of a novel institutional framework for a specified range of transactions. De Gaulle famously represented one version of this outlook; Thatcher another. Between these federalist and inter-governmentalist visions of Europe, there has been a continual tension down to the present.”

Perry Anderson (1938) British historian

"Depicting Europe", London Review of Books (20 September 2007)

Way, Democracy, Universe

“The whole world knows that virtue consists in the subjugation of one's passions, or in self-renunciation. It is not just the Christian world, against whom Nietzsche howls, that knows this, but it is an eternal supreme law towards which all humanity has developed, including Brahmanism, Buddhism, Confucianism, and the ancient Persian religion. And suddenly a man appears who declares that he is convinced that self-renunciation, meekness, submissiveness and love are all vices that destroy humanity (he has in mind Christianity, ignoring all the other religions).

One can understand why such a declaration baffled people at first. But after giving it a little thought and failing to find any proof of the strange propositions, any rational person ought to throw the books aside and wonder if there is any kind of rubbish that would not find a publisher today. But this has not happened with Nietzsche´s books. The majority of pseudo-enlightened people seriously look into the theory of the Übermensch, and acknowledge its author to be a great philosopher, a descendant of Descartes, Leibniz and Kant. And all this has come about because the majority of pseudo-enlightened men of today object to any reminder of virtue, or to its chief premise: self-renunciation and love—virtues that restrain and condemn the animal side of their life. They gladly welcome a doctrine, however incoherently and disjointedly expressed, of egotism and cruelty, sanctioning the idea of personal happiness and superiority over the lives of others, by which they live.”

Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) Russian writer

Source: What is Religion, of What does its Essence Consist? (1902), Chapter 11

Love, Life, Men, Happiness

“But we must learn it sooner or later. There surely comes a time when the mind perceives that this world is the work of God also and not of devils, and that in the order of nature we may behold the ways of the Eternal; in fact, that God is here and now in the humblest and most familiar fact, as sleepless and active as ever he was in old Judea. This perception has come and is coming to more minds to-day than ever before--this perception of the modernness of God, of the modernness of inspiration, of the modernness of religion; that there was never any more revelation than there is now, never any more conversing of God with man, never any more Garden of Eden, or fall of Adam, or thunder of Sinai, or ministering angels, than there is now; in fact, that these things are not historical events, but inward experiences and perceptions perpetually renewed or typified in the growth of the race. This is the modern gospel; this is the one vital and formative religious thought of modern times.”

John Burroughs (1837–1921) American naturalist and essayist

Source: The Light of Day (1900), Ch. IV: Natural Versus Supernatural

God, World, Religion, Angels

“From the Kantian doctrine of the a priori carried to its genuine completion, as we have now seen it, we infer that the objects which present themselves in course of the normal and critical action of human consciousness are all that objects as objects can be; that beyond or beneath what completed human reason (moral, of course, as well as perceptive and reflective) finds in objects and their relations, or can and will find, there is nothing to be found; that our universe is the universe, which exists, so far as we know it, precisely as we know it, and indeed in and through our knowing it, though not merely by that. To state the case more technically, the cognition belonging to each mind is the indispensable condition of the existence of reality, though it is not the completely sufficient condition. If one asks, What then is this sufficient condition, the answer is, The consensus of the whole system of minds, including the Supreme Mind, or God.”

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.170

God, Reality, Universe

“.. an entirely original painter [ Francois Millet ], high-minded and genuinely rustic in nature, who has expressed things about the country and its inhabitants, about their toil, their melancholy, and the nobleness of their labour. He has represented them in a somewhat barbaric fashion, in a manner to which his ideas gave a more expressive force than his hand possessed. The world has been grateful for his intentions; it has recognised in his methods something of the sensibility of a Burns who was a little awkward in expression.... He stands out as a deep thinker.”

Eugène Fromentin (1820–1876) French painter

Quote from Maitres d'Autrefois; Belgique – Hollande, Eugène Fromentin; Librairie Plon-Nourrit et Cie, Paris, 1877; as quoted by Arthur Hoebert, in The Barbizon Painters – being the story of the Men of thirty – associate of the National Academy of Design; publishers, Frederick A. Stokes Company, New York 1915, p. 73-74

World, Idea, Fashion, Nature

“Baby, let's cruise away from here.
Don't be confused, the way is clear.
And if you want it, you got it forever.
This is not a one night stand, babe, yeah.
So let the music take your mind, whoa.
Just release and you will find

You're gonna fly away, glad you're going my way.
I love it when we're cruisin' together.
The music is playing for love.
Cruisin' is made for love.
I love it when we're cruisin' together.”

Smokey Robinson (1940) American R&B singer-songwriter and record producer

Cruisin (1979)
Song lyrics, Solo

Love, Music, Way, Baby

“The author… has known for that for several centuries freethinkers have led mankind. Only recently… new to him though perhaps long understood by others, possibly Kant and certainly Nietzsche, there emerged into his mind a clarity that will remain… the conception of transcendental divinity is damaging to man.”

Lancelot Law Whyte (1896–1972) Scottish industrial engineer

The Universe of Experience: A Worldview Beyond Science and Religion (1974)

“Philosophy and cognitive science have contributed to the advancement of the object model. The idea that the world could be viewed either in terms of objects or processes was a Greek innovation, and in the seventeenth century, we find Descartes observing that humans naturally apply an object-oriented view of the world. In the twentieth century, Rand expanded upon these themes in her philosophy of objectivist epistemology. More recently, Minsky has proposed a model of human intelligence in which he considers the mind to be organized as a society of otherwise mindless agents. Minsky argues that only through the cooperative behavior of these agents do we find what we call intelligence.”

Grady Booch (1955) American software engineer

Source: Object-oriented design: With Applications, (1991), p. 34-35

World, Behavior, Intelligence, Idea

“Suffering is transcended by total surrender
And the mind attains to nirvana.
As one day all must be given up,
Why not dedicate it now to universal happiness?”

Šantidéva (685–763) 8th-century Indian Buddhist monk and scholar

Bodhicaryavatara

Happiness, Suffering, Universe

“Our ethics and our politics assume, largely without question or serious discussion, that the division between human and 'animal' is absolute. 'Pro-life', to take just one example, is a potent political badge, associated with a gamut of ethical issues such as opposition to abortion and euthanasia.
What it really means is pro-human-life. Abortion clinic bombers are not known for their veganism, nor do Roman Catholics show any particular reluctance to have their suffering pets 'put to sleep'. In the minds of many confused people, a single-celled human zygote, which has no nerves and cannot suffer, is infinitely sacred, simply because it is 'human'. No other cells enjoy this exalted status.
But such 'essentialism' is deeply un-evolutionary. If there were a heaven in which all the animals who ever lived could frolic, we would find an interbreeding continuum between every species and every other. For example I could interbreed with a female who could interbreed with a male who could… fill in a few gaps, probably not very many in this case… who could interbreed with a chimpanzee.
We could construct longer, but still unbroken chains of interbreeding individuals to connect a human with a warthog, a kangaroo, a catfish. This is not a matter of speculative conjecture; it necessarily follows from the fact of evolution.
A successful hybridisation between a human and a chimpanzee. Even if the hybrid were infertile like a mule, the shock waves that would be sent through society would be salutary. This is why a distinguished biologist described this possibility as the most immoral scientific experiment he could imagine: it would change everything! It cannot be ruled out as impossible, but it would be surprising.”

Richard Dawkins (1941) English ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author

Richard Dawkins Chimpanzee Hybrid? The Guardian, Jan 2009 https://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2009/jan/02/richard-dawkins-chimpanzee-hybrid?commentpage=2

Life, People, Imagination, Question

“If one says 'Red' and there are 50 people listening, it can be expected that there will be 50 reds in their minds. And one can be sure that all these reds will be very different.”

Josef Albers (1888–1976) German-American artist and educator

Albers, quoted by Patricia Sloane (1989) in The visual nature of color, p. 1

People

“I found you a thousand times;
I guess you done the same;
But then we lose each other;
It's like a children's game;
As I find you here again;
A thought runs through my mind;
Our love is like a circle;
Let's go 'round one more time.”

Harry Chapin (1942–1981) American musician

Circle
Song lyrics, Sniper and Other Love Songs (1972)

Love, Children, Game, Time

“To cleave that sea in the gentle autumnal season, murmuring the name of each islet, is to my mind the joy most apt to transport the heart of man into paradise.”

Nikos Kazantzakis book Zorba the Greek

On the Aegean Sea, in Ch. 2
Zorba the Greek (1946)

Autumn, Heart, Joy, Sea

“In addition to vision-level BHAGs [shorthand for Big, Hairy, Audacious Goals], an envisioned future needs what we call vivid description – that is, a vibrant, engaging, and specific description of what it will be like to achieve the BHAG. Think of it as translating the vision from words into pictures, of creating an image that people can carry around in their heads. It is a question of painting a picture with your words. Picture painting is essential for making the 10-to-30- year BHAG tangible in people’s minds.”

Jerry I. Porras (1938) American writer

Source: "Building your company's vision," 1996, p. 74

People, Question, Thinking, Future

“When equality is treated not as a medicine or a safety-gadget, but as an ideal, we begin to breed that stunted and envious sort of mind which hates all superiority. That mind is the special disease of democracy, as cruelty and servility are the special diseases of privileged societies. It will kill us all if it grows unchecked. The man who cannot conceive a joyful and loyal obedience on the one hand, nor an unembarrassed and noble acceptance of that obedience on the other — the man who has never even wanted to kneel or to bow — is a prosaic barbarian. But it would be wicked folly to restore these old inequalities on the legal or external plane. Their proper place is elsewhere.”

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

Equality (1943)

Hate, Disease, Democracy

“A curious paradox: people have only the narrowest private interest in mind when they act, yet they are at the same time more than ever determined in their behavior by the instincts of the mass. … The diversity of individual goals is immaterial in face of the identity of the determining forces.”

Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) German literary critic, philosopher and social critic (1892-1940)

Source: One Way Street (1928), p. 451

People, Behavior, Time

“Remember, if this is your world, you're one of them, a teenager. You live in two worlds. You're with them, day in, day out, and you'll never know, Mac, what that does to your mind. Teenager forever. June will come and it’s bye-bye teacher, nice knowin' you, my sister's gonna be in your class in September. But there’s something else, Mac. In any classroom, something is always happening. They keep you on your toes. They keep your fresh. You'll never grow old, but the danger is you might have the mind of an adolescent forever. That's a real problem, Mac. You get used to talking to those kids on their level. Then when you go to a bar for a beer you forgot how to talk to your friends and they look at you. They look at your like you just arrived from another planet and they're right.”

Frank McCourt book Teacher Man

Teacher Man (2005)

World, Beer, Problem, Sister

“The true miracle of the language of art is not that it enables the artist to create the illusion of reality. It is that under the hands of a great master the image becomes translucent. In teaching us to see the visible world afresh, he gives us the illusion of looking into the invisible realms of the mind - if only we know, as Philostratus says, how to use our eyes.”

Ernst Gombrich Art and Illusion

Art and Illusion (1960)

World, Art, Reality

“Think of past wars and of those that subjected people will have to wage to conquer the right to breathe freely, the wars for markets, the wars to create colonial empires. And in France we unfortunately know only too well that every war, victorious or not, is followed by slavery.
And finally what is even worse than all that has just been enumerated, is the fact that the education we all receive from the State, at school and after, has so warped our minds that the very notion of freedom ends up by being lost, and disguised in servitude.
It is a sad sight to see those who believe themselves to be revolutionaries unleashing their hatred on the anarchist — just because his views on freedom go beyond their petty and narrow concepts of freedom learned in the State school. And meanwhile, this spectacle is a reality. The fact is that the spirit of voluntary servitude was always cleverly cultivated in the minds of the young, and still is, in order to perpetuate the subjection of the individual to the State.”

Peter Kropotkin (1842–1921) Russian zoologist, evolutionary theorist, philosopher, scientist, revolutionary, economist, activist, geogr…

Source: The State — Its Historic Role (1897), IX

War, People, Education, Sadness

“In the minds of many writers systems engineering is synonomous with component selection and interface design; that is, the systems engineer does not design hardware but decides what types of existing hardware shall be coupled and how they shall be coupled. Complete agreement that this function is the essence of systems engineering will not be found here, for, besides the very important function of systems engineering in systems analysis, there is the role played by systems engineering in providing boundary conditions for hardware design.”

A. Wayne Wymore (1927–2011) American mathematician

Source: A Mathematical Theory of Systems Engineering (1967), p. 193.

“It is essential to bear in mind that the world of the mystics, like that of modern physics, cannot always be 'explained' in normal words, but often 'shows' itself the better through visual images.. [from the accumulation of matter and of objects to the radicalism of a gesture, it is a matter of] painting the essential and nothing more”

Antoni Tàpies (1923–2012) Catalan painter, sculptor and art theorist

Tàpies is citing here Llull
in his 1990 speech 'L'art modern, la mística i l'humor' ('Modern Art, Mysticism and Humour'), Barcelona: Editorial Empúries i Fundació Antoni Tàpies, 1993; as quoted in: 'Tàpies: From Within', June ─ November, 2013 - Presse Release, Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya (MNAC), p. 12
insisting on his 'magma works' like 'Montseny-Montnegre' and 'Díptic amb dues formes corbes' (Diptych with Two Curved Shapes), 1988.
1981 - 1990

World, Painting

“His face was a frame of strong brutal bones, so hard, the set of his jaw so aggressive, that it brought to mind Teuton warriors, shouts, winging of axes, berserk.”

Alexander Baron

King Dido, description of Dido Peach.

Strong

“What I believe is that the age of creative silliness is not past. Virtue, as an economic theorist, does not consist in squeezing the last drop of blood out of assumptions that have come to seem natural because they have been used in a few hundred earlier papers. If a new set of assumptions seems to yield a valuable set of insights, then never mind if they seem strange.”

Paul Krugman (1953) American economist

How I Work (1993)

Age, Nature, Past

“The long, extended play sessions of my youth were essential to the creator I am today. It helped exercise those world-building and problem solving pathways in my brain, and in turn enabled access to those deep recesses of the creative mind. Like learning a second language, it sinks in more thoroughly when you start young.”

Walter Wick (1953) American photographer and creator of children's books

The Value Of Imaginative Play http://www.walterwick.com/blog/2015/10/13/floor-games (October 13, 2015)

Youth, World, Exercises, Problem

“I doubt whether any girl would be satisfied with her lover's mind if she knew the whole of it.”

Anthony Trollope book The Small House at Allington

Source: The Small House at Allington (1864), Ch. 4

Girl, Lovers

“The brigand's life is a very fine life
For men of generous mind;
We rob the rich to help the poor
And succour oppressed mankind.
The rich, dear souls, are close around
And it's easy work to skelp 'em;
But the poor — damn their eyes — can never be found
When we're in the mood to help them.”

Robertson Davies (1913–1995) Canadian journalist, playwright, professor, critic, and novelist

The Golden Ass (1999)

Life, Men, Soul, Mood

“Men are odd. If they cannot be first, they don't in the least mind being last.”

Gore Vidal (1925–2012) American writer

Source: 1960s, Julian (1964), Chapter 8

Men

“A fateful thing has been happening. The East is waking up from its slumber. The wisdom of Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism is becoming available to the world. Already, it is having a transforming effect on the minds of the people, particularly in countries where there is freedom to seek and express. Dogmas are under a cloud; claims on behalf of Last Prophethood and Only Sonship, hitherto enforced through great intellectual conditioning, brow-beating, and the big stick, are becoming unacceptable. Religions of proxy are in retreat. More and more men and women now seek authentic experience. Borrowed creed will not do. Men and women are ceasing to be obedient believers and are becoming seekers. They no longer want to be anybody’s sheep, now that they know they can be their own shepherds. An external authority, even when it is called God in certain scriptures, threatening and promising alternately, is increasingly making less and less impression; people now realize that Godhead is their own true, secret status and they seek it in the depth of their own being. All this is in keeping with the wisdom of the East.”

Ram Swarup (1920–1998) Indian historian

Introduction to Mohammed and the Rise of Islam by D.S. Margoliouth, Voice of India reprint, New Delhi, 1985, pp. xvii-xviii. 10Ibid., pp. xix-xx.

Wisdom, Women, Men, God

“Man's general way of thinking of the totality, i. e. his general world view, is crucial for overall order of the human mind itself. If he thinks of the totality as constituted of independent fragments, then that is how his mind will tend to operate, but if he can include everything coherently and harmoniously in an overall whole that is undivided, unbroken and without border (for every border is a division or break) then his mind will tend to move in a similar way, and from this will flow an orderly action within the whole.”

David Bohm book Wholeness and the Implicate Order

Wholeness and the Implicate Order (1980)

World, Way, Thinking

“If you ever feel any pride or vanity on account of your sway and rule over your subjects then think of the supreme sway and rule of the Lord over the Universe, the extent of His creations, the supremacy of His Might and Glory, His Power to do things which you cannot even dream of doing and His control over you which is more dominating than that which you can ever achieve over anything around you. Such thoughts will cure your mental weakness, will keep you away from vanity and rebellion (against Allah), will reduce your arrogance and haughtiness and will take you back to the sanity which you had foolishly deserted… Try carefully to realize that a ruler can create goodwill in the minds of his subjects and can make them faithful and sincere to him only when he is kind and considerate to them, when he reduces their troubles, when he does not oppress them and when he never asks for things which are beyond their power. These are the principles which you should keep in mind and act upon.”

Ali book Nahj al-Balagha

Nahj al-Balagha, Letter 53: An order to Malik Al-Ashtar

Faith, Dreams, Feeling, Thinking

“Some temptations cannot be fought. One must close one's mind and fly from them.”

A. J. Cronin book The Keys of the Kingdom

Source: The Keys of the Kingdom (1941), p. 90

Flying

“Sexiness is a state of mind -- a comfortable state of being. It's about loving yourself in your most unlovable moments.”

Halle Berry (1966) American actress

Suzanne Condie Lambert (October 9, 2008) "'Esquire' crowns Berry the sexiest woman alive", The Arizona Republic, p. E6.

Love

“When I hit reset every 24 hours, in my mind I'm in competition with myself and whatever I did the day before, to keep topping how I did it… that's how I measure if I'm any greater in my action steps towards my greatness.”

Cha Cha (rapper) (1980) American rapper, radio personality and actress

Personal quotes

“Between levity and cheerfulness there is a wide distinction; and the mind which is most open to levity is frequently a stranger to cheerfulness.”

Hugh Blair (1718–1800) British philosopher

Reported in The Saturday Magazine‎ (September 28, 1833), p. 118 https://books.google.com/books?id=jh_nAAAAMAAJ&pg=118.

“Poetry is produced not by the mere caprice of pleasure, but by natural necessity. It is the primary activity of the human mind.”

Benedetto Croce (1866–1952) Italian writer, philosopher, politician

Benedetto Croce, The Philosophy of Giambattista Vico. trans. R. G. Collingwood, London 1923.

Pleasure, Nature

“THE prejudice which is commonly entertained against metaphysical speculations seems to arise chiefly from two causes: First, from an apprehension that the subjects about which they are employed, are placed beyond the reach of the human faculties; and, secondly, from a belief that these subjects have no relation to the business of life.
The frivolous and absurd discussions which abound in the writings of most metaphysical authors, afford but too many arguments in justification of these opinions; and if such discussions were to be admitted as a fair specimen of what the human mind is able to accomplish in this department of science, the contempt, into which it has fallen of late, might with justice be regarded, as no inconsiderable evidence of the progress, which true philosophy has made in the present age.”

Dugald Stewart (1753–1828) Scottish philosopher and mathematician

Source: Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind, 1792, p. 9; Lead paragraph (I)

Life, Age, Justice, Business

“A sketch of the progress of Geology is the history of a constant and violent struggle between new opinions and ancient doctrines sanctioned by the implicit faith of many generations and supposed to rest on scriptural authority. The inquiry, therefore, although highly interesting to one who studies the philosophy of the human mind, is singularly barren of instruction to him who searches for truths in physical science.”

Charles Lyell book Principles of Geology

Chpt.3, p. 34
Principles of Geology (1832), Vol. 1

Truth, Faith, History, Search

“When Richard Dawkins first published his idea of a meme, he made it clear he was speaking of "a unit of imitation"… Memes were supposed to be exclusive triumphs of humanity. But memes come in two different kinds—behavioral and verbal. …behavioral memes began brain-hopping long before there were such things as human minds.”

Howard Bloom (1943) American publicist and author

Source: Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century (2000), Ch.6 Threading a New Tapestry

Behavior, Idea

“No mind of a creature can attain Him.”

Yehuda Ashlag (1886–1954) Orthodox Jewish Rabbi and Kabbalist

Assorted Themes, On Above Reason

“The scientific organization and comprehensive exposition in accessible form of the Talmud has a twofold importance for us Jews. It is important in the first place that the high cultural values of the Talmud should not be lost to modern minds among the Jewish people nor to science, but should operate further as a living force. In the second place, The Talmud must be made an open book to the world, in order to cut the ground from under certain malevolent attacks, of anti-Semitic origin, which borrow countenance from the obscurity and inaccessibility of certain passages in the Talmud. To support this cultural work would thus mean an important achievement for the Jewish people.”

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

From a letter by Albert Einstein to Professor Chaim Tchernowitz (31 December 1930) of the Jewish Institute of Religion in New York (Hebrew Union College). Jewish Telegraphic Agency (Jewish Daily Bulletin)
1930s

People, Books, World, Support

“The perfect detective story cannot be written. The type of mind which can evolve the perfect problem is not the type of mind that can produce the artistic job of writing.”

Raymond Chandler (1888–1959) Novelist, screenwriter

"Twelve Notes on the Mystery Story", published in The Notebooks of Raymond Chandler(1976)

Problem, Perfection

“I guess I can't, or my subconscious can't, even imagine a warless world. The best it can do is substitute one kind of war for another. You said, no killing of humans by other humans. So I dreamed up the Aliens. Your own ideas are sane and rational, but this is my unconscious you're trying to use, not my rational mind. Maybe rationally I could conceive of the human species not trying to kill each other off by nations, in fact rationally it's easier to conceive of than the motives of war. But you're handling something outside reason. You're trying to reach progressive, humanitarian goals with a tool that isn't suited to the job. Who has humanitarian dreams?”

Ursula K. Le Guin book The Lathe of Heaven

Source: The Lathe of Heaven (1971), Chapter 6 (Orr)

War, World, Dreams, Imagination

“By annihilating the desires, you annihilate the mind. Every man without passions has within him no principle of action, nor motive to act.”

Claude Adrien Helvétius (1715–1771) French philosopher

En anéantissant les désirs, on anéantit l'âme, & tout homme sans passion n'a en lui ni principe d'action, ni motif pour se mouvoir.
A Treatise on Man: His Intellectual Faculties & His Education, Vol. I (1773)

Motivation, Passion

“I have made the complete return [from imagination] to nature, and nature is, as we all know, primarily an intellectual idea. I am satisfied that painting also is like nature, an intellectual idea, and that the laws of nature as presented to the mind through the eye and the eye is the painter's first and last vehicle are the means of transport to the real mode of thought: the only legitimate source of aesthetic experience for the intelligent painter.”

Marsden Hartley (1877–1943) American artist

n.p.
1921 - 1930, Art and the Personal Life', Marsden Hartley, 1928

Law, Imagination, Intelligence, Idea

“If we like them, they’re freedom fighters, she thought. If we don’t like them, they’re terrorists. In the unlikely case we can’t make up our minds, they’re temporarily only guerrillas.”

Carl Sagan book Contact

Source: Contact (1985), Chapter 3 (p. 55)

Freedom

“[S]ymbols have a reach and a roundness that goes beyond their literal and practical meaning. They are the rich concepts under which the mind gathers many particulars into one name, and many instances into one general induction.”

Jacob Bronowski (1908–1974) Polish-born British mathematician

"The Reach of Imagination" (1967)

“So their eyes are growing hazy
'cause they want to turn it on
so their minds are soft and lazy
Well, hey, give 'em what they want”

Natalie Merchant (1963) American singer-songwriter

Song lyrics, Our Time In Eden (1992), Candy Everybody Wants

“What is so remarkable about Crowley the 'magician' is that he remains Crowley the scientist, and always applies the same probing intellectual curiosity to every field he surveys. This is ultimately the most impressive quality about his mind, and the one that might -- if he had concentrated on developing it to the full -- have brought him the fame that he craved. Crowley's tragedy was that he never concentrated long enough to develop anything to the full.”

Colin Wilson (1931–2013) author

Source: Aleister Crowley: The Nature of the Beast (1987), p. 150

“In every sound convert the judgment is brought to approve of the laws and ways of Christ, and subscribe to them as most righteous and reasonable; the desire of the heart is to know the whole mind of Christ; the free and resolved choice of the heart is determined for the ways of Christ, before all the pleasures of sin, and prosperities of the world; it is the daily care of his life to walk with God.”

Joseph Alleine (1634–1668) Pastor, author

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 163.

Life, God, Pleasure, World

“If a person is unwilling to make a decisive resolution, if he wants to cheat God of the heart’s daring venture in which a person ventures way out and loses sight of all shrewdness and probability, indeed, takes leave of his senses or at least all his worldly mode of thinking, if instead of beginning with one step he almost craftily seeks to find out something, to have the infinite certainty changed into a finite certainty, then this discourse will not be able to benefit him. There is an upside-downness that wants to reap before it sows; there is a cowardliness that wants to have certainty before it begins. There is a hypersensitivity so copious in words that it continually shrinks from acting; but what would it avail a person if, double-minded and fork-tongued he wanted to dupe God, trap him in probability, but refused to understand the improbable, that one must lose everything in order to gain everything, and understand it so honestly that, in the most crucial moment, when his soul is already shuddering at the risk, he does not again leap to his own aid with the explanation that he has not yet fully made a resolution but merely wanted to feel his way. Therefore, all discussion of struggling with God in prayer, of the actual loss (since if pain of annihilation is not actually suffered, then the sufferer is not yet out upon the deep, and his scream is not the scream of danger but in the face of danger) and the figurative victory cannot have the purpose of persuading anyone or of converting the situation into a task for secular appraisal and changing God’s gift of grace to the venture into temporal small change for the timorous. It really would not help a person if the speaker, by his oratorical artistry, led him to jump into a half hour’s resolution, by the ardor of conviction started a fire in him so that he would blaze in a momentary good intention without being able to sustain a resolution or to nourish an intention as soon as the speaker stopped talking.”

Sören Kierkegaard book Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses

Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses, Hong, One Who Prays Aright Struggles In Prayer and is Victorious-In That God is Victorious p. 380-381
1840s, Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses

God, Pain, Way, Feeling

“The sentiment of to-day is social and philanthropic. … [but] we must forever bear in mind that sentiment is subjective, and a personal thing. However exalted and however ardent, it cannot be accepted as a scale for justice, or as a test for truth.”

Agnes Repplier (1855–1950) American essayist

in "The Cost of Modern Sentiment" (1916)

Truth, Justice, Personality

“The oldest definition [of “good”] was this: the noble, the mightier, higher-placed and high-minded held themselves and their actions to be good of the first rank in contradistinction to everything low and low-minded. Noble, in the sense of the class-consciousness of a higher caste, is the primary concept from which develops good in the sense of spiritually aristocratic. The lowly are designated as bad (not evil). Bad does not acquire its unqualified depreciatory meaning till much later. In the mouth of the people it is a laudatory word; the German word schlecht is identical with schlicht”

Georg Brandes (1842–1927) Danish literature critic and scholar

cf. schlechtweg and schlechterdings
Source: An Essay on Aristocratic Radicalism (1889), p. 30

People, Sense, Evil

“There are those who believe that the sole duty of the poker gamesman is to build up his reputation for impenetrability and toughness by suggesting that he last played poker by the light of a moon made more brilliant by the snows of the Yukon, and that his opponents were two white slave traffickers, a ticket-of-leave man and a deserter from the Foreign Legion. To me this is ridiculously far-fetched, but I do believe that a trace of American accent – West Coast – casts a small shadow of apprehension over the minds of English players.”

Stephen Potter (1900–1969) British writer

The Theory and Practice of Gamesmanship (1947) pp. 82-83

Light

“Bhakti is the attitude of the mind, and jnana is the attitude of the intellect, both flow towards the Lord.”

Chinmayananda Saraswati (1916–1993) Indian spiritual teacher

Quotations from Gurudev’s teachings, Chinmya Mission Chicago

“He had once, for example, put down a spokesman for the pesticide industry with a remark that people still quoted at parties: “And I presume on the eighth day God called you and said, ‘I changed my mind about insects!’ “”

John Brunner book The Sheep Look Up

September “MINE ENEMIES ARE DELIVERED INTO MY HAND”
The Sheep Look Up (1972)

God, People, Quotes, Change

“But now in this Valley of Humiliation poor Christian was hard put to it, for he had gone but a little way before he espied a foul Fiend coming over the field to meet him; his name is Apollyon. Then did Christian begin to be afraid, and to cast in his mind whether to go back, or to stand his ground. But he considered again, that he had no Armor for his back, and therefore thought that to turn the back to him might give him greater advantage with ease to pierce him with his Darts; therefore he resolved to venture, and stand his ground. For thought he, had I no more in mine eye than the saving of my life, 'twould be the best way to stand.
So he went on, and Apollyon met him. Now the Monster was hideous to behold, he was cloathed with scales like a Fish (and they are his pride) he had Wings like a Dragon, feet like a Bear, and out of his belly came Fire and Smoke, and his mouth was as the mouth of a Lion. When he was come up to Christian, he beheld him with a disdainful countenance, and thus began to question with him.
Apollyon: Whence come you, and whither are you bound?
Christian: I am come from the City of Destruction, which is the place of all evil, and am going to the City of Zion.
Apollyon: By this I perceive thou art one of my Subjects, for all that Country is mine; and I am the Prince and God of it. How is it then that thou hast run away from thy King? Were it not that I hope thou mayest do me more service, I would strike thee now at one blow to the ground.
Christian: I was born indeed in your Dominions, but your service was hard, and your wages such as a man could not live on, for the wages of Sin is death; therefore when I was come to years, I did as other considerate persons do, look out if perhaps I might mend my self.
Apollyon: There is no Prince that will thus lightly lose his Subjects, neither will I as yet lose thee. But since thou complainest of thy service and wages be content to go back; what our Country will afford, I do here promise to give thee.
Christian: But I have let myself to another, even to the King of Princes, and how can I with fairness go back with thee?
Apollyon: Thou hast done in this, according to the Proverb, Changed a bad for a worse: but it is ordinary for those that have professed themselves his Servants, after a while to give him the slip, and return again to me: do thou so to, and all shall be well.
Christian: I have given him my faith, and sworn my Allegiance to him; how then can I go back from this, and not be hanged as a Traitor?
Apollyon: Thou didst the same to me, and yet I am willing to pass by all, if now thou wilt yet turn again, and go back.
Christian: What I promised thee was in my nonage; and besides, I count that the Prince under whose Banner now I stand, is able to absolve me; yea, and to pardon also what I did as to my compliance with thee: and besides, (O thou destroying Apollyon) to speak truth, I like his Service, his Wages, his Servants, his Government, his Company, and Country better than thine: and, therefore, leave off to perswade me further, I am his Servant, and I will follow him.
Apollyon: Consider again when thou art in cool blood, what thou art like to meet with in the way that thou goest. Thou knowest that for the most part, his Servants come to an ill end, because they are transgressors against me, and my ways. How many of them have been put to shameful deaths! and besides, thou countest his service better than mine, whereas he never came yet from the place where he is, to deliver any that served him out of our hands; but as for me, how many times, as all the World very well knows, have I delivered, either by power or fraud, those that have faithfully served me, from him and his, though taken by them, and so I will deliver thee.
Christian: His forbearing at present to deliver them, is on purpose to try their love, whether they will cleave to him to the end: and as for the ill end thou sayest they come to, that is most glorious in their account. For for present deliverance, they do not much expect it; for they stay for their Glory, and then they shall have it, when their Prince comes in his, and the Glory of the Angels.
Apollyon: Thou hast already been unfaithful in thy service to him, and how doest thou think to receive wages of him?
Christian: Wherein, O Apollyon, have I been unfaithful to him?
Apollyon: Thou didst faint at first setting out, when thou wast almost choked in the Gulf of Dispond; thou didst attempt wrong ways to be rid of thy burden, whereas thou shouldest have stayed till thy Prince had taken it off: thou didst sinfully sleep and lose thy choice thing: thou wast also almost perswaded to go back, at the sight of the Lions; and when thou talkest of thy Journey, and of what thou hast heard, and seen, thou art inwardly desirous of vain-glory in all that thou sayest or doest.
Christian:All this is true, and much more, which thou hast left out; but the Prince whom I serve and honour, is merciful, and ready to forgive: but besides, these infirmities possessed me in thy Country, for there I suckt them in, and I have groaned under them, been sorry for them, and have obtained pardon of my Prince.
Apollyon: Then Apollyon broke out into a grievous rage, saying, I am an enemy to this Prince: I hate his Person, his Laws, and People: I am come out on purpose to withstand thee.
Christian: Apollyon beware what you do, for I am in the King's Highway, the way of Holiness, therefore take heed to your self.
Apollyon: Then Apollyon straddled quite over the whole breadth of the way, and said, I am void of fear in this matter, prepare thy self to die, for I swear by my Infernal Den, that thou shalt go no further, here will I spill thy soul; and with that, he threw a flaming Dart at his breast, but Christian had a Shield in his hand, with which he caught it, and so prevented the danger of that. Then did Christian draw, for he saw 'twas time to bestir him; and Apollyon as fast made at him, throwing Darts as thick as Hail; by the which, notwithstanding all that Christian could do to avoid it, Apollyon wounded him in his head, his hand and foot; this made Christian give a little back: Apollyon therefore followed his work amain, and Christian again took courage, and resisted as manfully as he could. This sore combat lasted for above half a day, even till Christian was almost quite spent. For you must know that Christian by reason of his wounds, must needs grow weaker and weaker.
Then Apollyon espying his opportunity, began to gather up close to Christian, and wrestling with him, gave him a dreadful fall; and with that, Christian's Sword flew out of his hand. Then said Apollyon, I am sure of thee now, and with that, he had almost prest him to death, so that Christian began to despair of life. But as God would have it, while Apollyon was fetching of his last blow, thereby to make a full end of this good Man, Christian nimbly reached out his hand for his Sword, and caught it, saying, Rejoice not against me, O mine Enemy! when I fall, I shall arise; and with that, gave him a deadly thrust, which made him give back, as one that had received his mortal wound: Christian perceiving that, made at him again, saying, Nay, in all these things we are more than Conquerors, through him that loved us. And with that, Apollyon spread forth his Dragon's wings, and sped him away, that Christian saw him no more….”

John Bunyan The Pilgrim's Progress

Source: The Pilgrim's Progress (1678), Part I, Ch. IX : Apollyon

Love, Life, Death, God

“The particular conception of ideology operates primarily with a psychology of interests, while the total conception uses a more formal functional analysis, without any reference to motivations, confining itself to an objective description of the structural differences in minds operating in different social settings. The former assumes that this or that interest is the cause of a given lie or deception. The latter presupposes simply that there is a correspondence between a given social situation and a given perspective, point of view, or apperception mass. In this case, while an analysis of constellations of interests may often be necessary it is not to establish causal connections but to characterize the total situation. Thus interest psychology tends to be displaced by an analysis of the correspondence between the situation to be known and the forms of knowledge.”

Karl Mannheim (1893–1947) Hungarian sociologist

Ideology and Utopia (1929)

Lie, Motivation, Knowledge

“In any concrete act of thinking the mind’s active experience is both intuitive and intellectual.”

Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (1888–1975) Indian philosopher and statesman who was the first Vice President and the second President of India

Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Thinking

“The one self-knowledge worth having is to know one’s own mind.”

F. H. Bradley (1846–1924) British philosopher

No. 8.
Aphorisms (1930)

Knowledge

“Little minds mistake little objects for great ones, and lavish away upon the former that time and attention which only the latter deserve. To such mistakes we owe the numerous and frivolous tribe of insect-mongers, shell-mongers, and pursuers and driers of butterflies, etc. The strong mind distinguishes, not only between the useful and the useless, but likewise between the useful and the curious.”

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield (1694–1773) British statesman and man of letters

6 December 1748
Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman (1774)

Strong, Time

“Neoconservatives believed that history can be pushed along with the right application of power and will. Leninism was a tragedy in its Bolshevik version, and it has returned as farce when practiced by the United States. Neoconservatism, as both a political symbol and a body of thought, has evolved into something I can no longer support. …"[W]ar" is the wrong metaphor for the broader struggle, since wars are fought at full intensity and have clear beginnings and endings. Meeting the jihadist challenge is more of a "long, twilight struggle" whose core is not a military campaign but a political contest for the hearts and minds of ordinary Muslims around the world.”

Francis Fukuyama (1952) American political scientist, political economist, and author

From the essay "After Neoconservatism" http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/19/magazine/neo.html in the New York Times Magazine, February 19, 2006. <br class="br">2000s

War, World, History, Support

“Q: At the time of death when the elements are changing rapidly and there is confusion and fear, what is the method to fix the mind in positivity?”

Baba Hari Dass (1923–2018) master yogi, author, builder, commentator of Indian spiritual tradition

Miscellaneous

Death, Fear, Change, Time

“[A]ll our symbols have the same purpose; words are merely the symbols we use most commonly. The function of words in human thought is to stand for things which are not present to the senses, and allow the mind to manipulate them—things, concepts, ideas, everything that does not have a physical reality in front of us now.”

Jacob Bronowski (1908–1974) Polish-born British mathematician

"The Imaginative Mind in Art" (1978)

Idea, Reality, Sense

“Essential to the Catholic mind is what I would characterize as a keen sense of the prolongation of the Incarnation throughout space and time, an extension that is made possible through the mystery of the church. Catholics see God’s continued enfleshment in the oil, water, bread, imposed hands, wine, and salt of the sacraments; they appreciate it in the gestures, movements, incensations, and songs of the Liturgy; they savor it in the texts, arguments, and debates of the theologians; they sense it in the graced governance of popes and bishops; they love it in the struggles and missions of the saints; they know it in the writings of Catholic poets and in the cathedrals crafted by Catholic architects, artists, and workers. In short, all of this discloses to the Catholic eye and mind the ongoing presence of the Word made flesh, namely Christ.”

Robert Barron (bishop) (1959) priest of the Roman Catholic Church, author, scholar and Catholic evangelist.

Father Barron, Robert. Catholicism: A Journey to the Heart of the Faith (Kindle Locations 75-81). The Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Love, God, Sense, Water

“I don't mind if it's dangerous
I don't mind if it's raining
Take me up to the top of the city
And put me up on the angel's shoulders.”

Kate Bush (1958) British recording artist; singer, songwriter, musician and record producer

Song lyrics, The Red Shoes (1993)

Angels

“Slothful, feeble, pretentious, pedantic, elitist - these are some of the epithets that eventually become associated with the absent minded scholar, the poor sighted reader, the book worm, the nerd.”

Alberto Manguel (1948) writer

The Book Fool, p. 296.
A History of Reading (1996)

Books

“Who ever heard of a devout deist? Who ever heard of one who was willing to spend his life in missionary labor for the good of others? It is not according to the constitution of the mind that such a system should awaken the affections. And what is true of this system is true of every false system. All such systems leave the heart cold, and, accordingly, exert very little genuine, transforming power over the life.”

Mark Hopkins (educator) (1802–1887) American educationalist and theologian

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 504.

Life, Heart, Falseness

“There is today almost no scientific theory which was held when, say, the Industrial Revolution began about 1760. Most often today's theories flatly contradict those of 1760; many contradict those of 1900. In cosmology, in quantum mechanics, in genetics, in the social sciences, who now holds the beliefs that seemed firm sixty years ago? Yet the society of scientists has survived these changes without a revolution, and honors the men whose beliefs it no longer shares. No one has recanted abjectly at a trial before his colleagues. The whole structure of science has been changed and no one has been either disgraced or deposed. Through all the changes of science, the society of scientists is flexible and single-minded together, and evolves and rights itself. In the language of science, it is a stable society.”

Jacob Bronowski (1908–1974) Polish-born British mathematician

as quoted in American Journal of Physics, 44(2), p176, 1976-02
unsorted
Science and Human Values (1956, 1965)

Men, Science, Change

“Unless the gods deceive my mind,
That man is forging fetters for himself.”

Theognis of Megara (-570–-485 BC) Greek lyric poet active in approximately the sixth century BC

Source: Elegies, Lines 539-540, as translated by Dorothea Wender.

God

“There's no pleasure i' living if you're to be corked up for ever, and only dribble your mind out by the sly, like a leaky barrel.”

George Eliot book Adam Bede

Adam Bede (1859)

Pleasure

“A woman's mind is cleaner than a man's—she changes it oftener.”

Oliver Herford (1863–1935) American writer

Saturday Review of Literature, Volume 26 (1943), p. 4.
Attributed

Change, Funny

“For woman is yin, the darkness within, where untempered passions lie. And man is yang, bright truth lighting our minds.”

Amy Tan The Joy Luck Club

Source: The Joy Luck Club (1989), Ch. 4, pg. 81

Truth, Lie, Light, Passion

“First contact with occult, magical and enchanting forces. One of his best friends, a very intelligent and affectionate pink cockatoo, died in the night of 5 January. It was a terrible shock for Max when he found the dead bird in the morning, at the same moment as his father told him of the birth of his sister, Loni. The boy's consternation was so great that he fainted. In his imagination, he linked the two events and made the baby responsible for extinguishing the bird's life. A series of psychological crises and depressions followed. A dangerous amalgamation of birds and human beings became firmly established in his mind and later found expression in his paintings and drawings.”

Max Ernst (1891–1976) German painter, sculptor and graphic artist

Quote in 'Tissue of Truth, Tissue of Lies', Max Ernst; as cited in 'Room 7, Max Ernst', the exhibition text of FONDATION BEYELER 2 - MAX ERNST, 2013, texts: Raphaël Bouvier & Ioana Jimborean; ed. Valentina Locatelli; transl. Karen Williams
Max Ernst is referring to a childhood experience in 1906, when Max Ernst was c. 15 years old
posthumous

Life, Imagination, Intelligence, Boy

“Whether you jump into water or are pushed into it, your cloth will get drenched. Is it not so? Meditate every day, as your mind is yet immature. Constant meditation will make the mind one-pointed.”

Sarada Devi (1853–1920) Hindu religious figure, spiritual consort of Ramakrishna

[Swami Tapasyananda, Swami Nikhilananda, Sri Sarada Devi, the Holy Mother; Life and Conversations, 351-352]

Water, Clothes

“A look into long-neglected quarters of the mind will come as a wholesome shock to the observer. It will convince him of the urgent need for methodical mental culture.”

Nyanaponika Thera (1901–1994) German Buddhist monk

Source: The Vision of Dhamma (1994), p. 75

“In Flight (a quantum fiction novel), essentially our protagonist is a writer who is writing a novel and then begins to see things from his novel occurring in the reality around him, and he questions "am I losing my mind?"”

Vanna Bonta (1958–2014) Italian-American writer, poet, inventor, actress, voice artist (1958-2014)

or "am I somehow influencing reality around me?"
Vanna Bonta Talks About Quantum fiction: Author Interview (2007)

Question, Reality

“He had made one of the greatest catches in Polo Grounds history; he had played third base as no Giant before or since ever played it; he was a slashing hitter and a scientific hitter; he played baseball with courage and spirit. Yet, somehow, failure hovered about him; a pebble in a base line is remembered more than his 24-game hitting streak; his feud with McGraw is recalled more vividly than his 4 hits in a single game against Walter Johnson or the three times he made three hits in a single game all the same season. His spat with Hornsby and his disagreement with Terry come more quickly to mind than those five years he tore pitchers apart; more quickly to mind than the years he hit.358 and.379.

It ought not to be that way. Two pebbles in a base line can cause a team to lose a World Series, but they can't wipe out the dazzling years, the.311 lifetime average. Two pebbles ought not persuade baseball men to say Devlin or Groh or Herzog, but somehow they do. So we put Lindstrom here, on this greatest Giant team, and we put the pebbles back where they belong—as part of a rocky past that littered his way, but in no way diminished the greatness of Fred Lindstrom.”

Arnold Hano (1922) American writer

On Fred Lindstrom, from "Lindy," in Greatest Giants of Them All (1967), pp. 196-197
Sports-related

Men, World, Way, History

“The greatest error is to call a man a weak and miserable sinner. Every time a person thinks in this mistaken manner, he rivets one more link in the chain of avidya that binds him, adds one more layer to the “self-hypnotism” that lies heavy over his mind.”

Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) Indian Hindu monk and phylosopher

Swami Vivekananda, Quoted by M.M. Thomas, The Acknowledged Christ of Indian Renaissance, 2nd Edition, Madras 1976, p. 125. Quoted from Goel, S. R. (1996). History of Hindu-Christian encounters, AD 304 to 1996. Chapter 13

Error, Thinking, Time, Personality

“He never went mad in your sense. My dear fellow, you're very much wrong if you think there was anything pathological about him — then. The man was brilliantly sane. His mind was as keen as a keen sword. I couldn't understand him, but I could judge of his sanity right enough.”

John Buchan (1875–1940) British politician

Space (1912)

Understanding, Thinking, Sense, Madness

“[T]here has been little, if any, doubt that nothing short of a massive regime collapse, or (even more violent and bloody) full-scale war, will ever produce a non-nuclear North Korea. The regime is run by cold-minded and rational people who cannot afford to be emotional…”

Andrei Lankov (1963) Russian academic

"After the Pyongyang debacle, it’s not clear where U.S. policy goes from here" https://www.nknews.org/2018/07/after-the-pyongyang-debacle-where-can-u-s-policy-go-from-here/ (9 July 2018), NK News

War, People

“Those that can readily master the difficulties of Mathematics find a considerable charm in the study, sometimes amounting to fascination. This is far from universal; but the subject contains elements of strong interest of a kind that constitutes the pleasures of knowledge. The marvellous devices for solving problems elate the mind with the feeling of intellectual power; and the innumerable constructions of the science leave us lost in wonder.”

Alexander Bain (1818–1903) Scottish philosopher and educationalist

Source: Education as a Science, 1898, p. 153.

Pleasure, Feeling, Mathematics, Knowledge

“Interviewer: Is it possible to abolish man's humanity?
Levi: Unfortunately, yes. Unfortunately, yes; and that is really the characteristic of the Nazi lager [concentration camp]. About the others, I don't know, because I don't know them; perhaps in Russia the same thing happens. It's to abolish man's personality, inside and outside: not only of the prisoner, but also of the jailer. He too lost his personality in the lager.
These are two different itineraries, but with the same result, and I would say that only a few had the good fortune of remaining aware during their imprisonment; some regained their awareness of the experience later, but during it, they had lost it; many forgot everything. They did not record their experiences in their mind. They didn't impress on their memory track. Thus it happened to all, a profound modification in their personality. Most of all, our sensibility lost sharpness, so that the memories of our home had fallen into second place; the memory of family had fallen into second place in face of urgent needs, of hunger, of the necessity to protect oneself against cold, beatings, fatigue… all of this brought about some reactions which we could call animal-like; we were like work animals.
It is curious how this animal-like condition would repeat itself in language: in German there are two words for eating. One is essen and it refers to people, and the other is fressen, referring to animals. We say a horse frisst, for example, or a cat. In the lager, without anyone having decided that it should be so, the verb for eating was fressen. As if the perception of the animalesque regression was clear to all.”

Primo Levi (1918–1987) Italian chemist, memoirist, short story writer, novelist, essayist

Interview http://www.inch.com/~ari/levi1.html with Daniel Toaff, Sorgenti di Vita (Springs of Life), a program on the Unione Comunita Israelitiche Italiane, Radiotelevisione Italiana [RAI] (25 March 1983); translated by Mirto Stone

Hunger, People, Family, Home

“How could we be were it not for this planet that provided our very shape? Two conditions—gravity and livable temperature range between freezing and boiling—have given us fluids and flesh. The trees we climb and the ground we walk on have given us five fingers and toes. The "place"… gave us far-seeing eyes, the streams and breezes gave us versatile tongues and whorly ears. The land gave us a stride, and the lake a dive. The amazement gave us our kind of mind.”

Gary Snyder (1930) American poet

The Practice of the Wild (1990)

Tree

“I’m looking forward to the peace of mind to just write… Songwriting is something that I just fell into. I never expected to love it. But I’ve always had to kind of treat it like a hobby. Now it’s going to feel so good to know that I can just sit down and write.”

Scott Clifton (1984) American television actor, musician, internet personality.

Responding to the end of his contract with General Hospital, as quoted in "Going Going... Gone" by Rosemary A. Rossi, for ABC Soaps in Depth.

Love, Peace, Feeling

“Oh that it were my chief delight
To do the things I ought!
Then let me try with all my might
To mind what I am taught.”

Jane Taylor (1783–1824) British poet

For a Very Little Child, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919). Bartlett's notes this work to be written by Ann Taylor.

“In that mysterious dimension where the body meets the soul the stereotype is born and has her being. She is more body than soul, more soul than mind. To her belongs all that is beautiful, eve the very word beauty itself. All that exists, exists to beautify her.”

Germaine Greer book The Female Eunuch

The Stereotype
The Female Eunuch (1970)

Beauty, Soul

“The notion that we can transfer our guilt and sufferings to some other being who will bear them for us is familiar to the savage mind. It arises from a very obvious confusion between the physical and the mental, between the material and the immaterial.”

James Frazer book The Golden Bough

Source: The Golden Bough (1890), Chapter 55, The Transference of Evil.

Suffering

“Young Knight learn to love God and revere women so that your honour grows. Practice knighthood and learn the Art that dignifies you, and brings you honour in wars. Wrestle well and wield lance, spear, sword, and dagger manfully, whose use in others' hands is wasted. Strike bravely and hard there! Rush to strike or miss. Those with wisdom loath the one forced to defend. This you should grasp: All arts have length and measure. Whatever you undertake, use deliberation. In earnest or in play, be of good cheer and vitality, so you may be attentive and with good courage ponder what action you should take, so that none may touch you, since good courage and strength make your enemies hesitate. Keep in mind to give no-one any advantage. Avoid foolhardiness, do not attempt to match four or six opponents at once. Restrain your ambition, this will benefit you. He is a courageous man who can stand against his equal, while it is no shame to flee from four or six.”

Johannes Lichtenauer (1300–1389) Founder and grand master of the German School of Swordsmanship

MS 3227a

Love, Wisdom, Women, God

“The man who forgets does not forgive, he only loses the remembrance of the harm inflicted on him; forgiveness is the offspring of a feeling of heroism, of a noble heart, of a generous mind, whilst forgetfulness is only the result of a weak memory, or of an easy carelessness, and still oftener of a natural desire for calm and quietness. Hatred, in the course of time, kills the unhappy wretch who delights in nursing it in his bosom.”

Giacomo Casanova (1725–1798) Italian adventurer and author from the Republic of Venice

Memoirs of J. Casanova de Seingalt (1894)

Feeling, Forgiveness, Nature, Memory

“The subconscious plays a great part in art, that is to say that in conceiving & realizing a work a great deal happens which cannot be logically explained – the mind jumps from one stage to another much further on without there being traceable steps shown between – sudden solutions which cannot be followed step by step – in a word – inspiration.”

Henry Moore (1898–1986) English artist

Source: 1925 - 1940, Unpublished notes' for 'The Sculptor Speaks' (1937), p. 113

Art, Parting

“On certain occasions, the eyes of the mind can supply the want of the most powerful telescopes, and lead to astronomical discoveries of the highest importance.”

François Arago (1786–1853) French mathematician, physicist, astronomer and politician

Laplace, p. 347.
Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men (1859)

“We should not go to the people and say, "Here we are. We come to give you the charity of our presence, to teach you our science, to show you your errors, your lack of culture, your ignorance of elementary things." We should go instead with an inquiring mind and a humble spirit to learn at that great source of wisdom that is the people.”

Ernesto Che Guevara (1928–1967) Argentine Marxist revolutionary

On Revolutionary Medicine (1960)

Wisdom, People, Error, Learning

“We must remember that ideas modify feelings. The anti-intellectualism of English and American artists has led them to the error of not perceiving the connection between the feeling of modern forms and modern ideas. By feeling is meant the response of the 'body-and-mind' as a whole to the events of reality.”

Robert Motherwell (1915–1991) American artist

Modern Painter's World, ed. Robert Motherwell , Dyn, Nov. 1942, p. 9
1940s

Error, Feeling, Idea, Reality

“Until we learn the language of those outside the Church, the language of their hearts and the language of their minds, we will never be able to communicate properly. -Appalachian Melody.”

Mark Heard (1951–1992) American musician and record producer

Liner Notes

Communication, Learning, Heart

“There is a philosophical, or metaphysical position that can be taken–maybe its a scientific hypothesis–that the past cannot in fact exist. Everything that can possibly exist exists now. Things now may be expressive of some conceivable or describable past state of affairs, yes:but that's different from saying this this former state actually somehow exists in the form of "the past". Even in our memory[…]there is no past:no scenes preserved with all their sights and sounds. Merely fleeting states of mind, myriad points assembled for a moment to make a new picture (but "picture" is wrong too, too full, too fixed) of what we think are former states of things: things that once were, or may have been the case.”

John Crowley book Four Freedoms

Prelude
Four Freedoms (2009)

Thinking, Memory, Past

“Consider your state of mind—your consciousness—before going to sleep. This is extremely important. Make a commitment to spend at least fifteen minutes spiritualizing your consciousness before going to bed. Read something spiritual, listen to spiritual discourse or music, or engage in discussion on a spiritual topic. Push aside the chaos and confusion that were a part of your day, and focus on spiritual reality. In this way, you will prepare yourself for the next six to eight hours of sleep. If you allow yourself to focus spiritually, you will provide less of an opportunity for negative elements to enter your dreams. You can then benefit most from your sleeping state.”

Bhakti Tirtha Swami (1950–2005) American Hindu writer

Source: Books, Spiritual Warrior, Volume I: Uncovering Spiritual Truths in Psychic Phenomena (Hari-Nama Press, 1996), Chapter 1: Dreams: A State of Reality, p. 24

Dreams, Music, Way, Reality

“I’m quite convinced in my own mind that those who were arguing that [the need to intervene in Iraq] was a more immediate one than some believed - were I’m sure convinced that they were right on fact, I don’t think they were making it up. So as to lying, I don’t think it has been established that any lies were told.”

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

Scotland Live (2005-10-31): On the 2003 invasion of Iraq
2000s, 2005

Lying, Thinking

Quotes about mind page 60

Quotes about mind
page 60