Quotes about mind
page 65

J. Frank Dobie photo

“I have come to value liberated minds as the supreme good of life on earth.”

J. Frank Dobie (1888–1964) American writer

J. Frank Dobie, cited in: United States. Congress Congressional Record: Proceedings and Debates of the … Congress, Vol. 110, part 17. (1964). p. 22821.

Joseph Joubert photo
Frederick William Robertson photo
Orson Scott Card photo
Victor Villaseñor photo
Carole King photo
Pliny the Younger photo

“To all this, his illustrious mind reflects the noblest ornament; he places no part of his happiness in ostentation, but refers the whole of it to conscience; and seeks the reward of a virtuous action, not in the applauses of the world, but in the action itself.”
Ornat haec magnitudo animi, quae nihil ad ostentationem, omnia ad conscientiam refert recteque facti non ex populi sermone mercedem, sed ex facto petit.

Pliny the Younger (61–113) Roman writer

Letter 22, 5.
Letters, Book I

Neil Gaiman photo

“I am grim of mind and wrathful of spirit and I have no desire to be nice to anyone.”

Neil Gaiman (1960) English fantasy writer

Source: Norse Mythology (2017), Chapter 13, “Hymir and Thor’s Fishing Expedition” (p. 216)

Suze Robertson photo

“I never had difficulties with my students, for I was prepared for their pranks, because fortunately I had often been naughty myself. We frequently made tremendous fun at the Art Academy in The Hague... So I still had my own experience in this area fresh in my mind.”

Suze Robertson (1855–1922) Dutch painter

(version in original Dutch / origineel citaat van Suze Robertson:) Moeilijkheden met mijn leerlingen [o.a. op de Rotterdamse H.B.S. - waar ze met lesgeven begon - van 1876 tot 1882] heb ik nooit gehad, want ik was voorbereid op hun streken, omdat ik gelukkig zelf dikwijls ondeugend was geweest. Wat hadden we op de Haagsche Academie vaak 'n ontzettende pret gemaakt!. .Dus had ik mijn eigen ervaring op dit gebied nog frisch in 't geheugen.
Suze was teaching first in Rotterdam at the Dutch High School, from 1876 to 1882, and afterwards one year in Amsterdam, 1883; then she stopped teaching
Source: 1900 - 1922, Onder de Menschen: Suze Robertson' (1912), p. 30

Jiddu Krishnamurti photo
Elizabeth Bentley (writer) photo
James Hamilton photo
Gavin Douglas photo

“Gavin Douglas, set on a particular labour, with his mind full of Latin quantitative metre, attains a robuster versification than you are likely to find in Chaucer…the texture of Gavin's verse is stronger, the resilience greater.”

Gavin Douglas (1474–1522) Scottish Churchman, Scholar, Poet

Ezra Pound, ABC of Reading (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1934), p. 103.
About

“Science fiction encourages us to explore… all the futures, good and bad, that the human mind can envision.”

Marion Zimmer Bradley (1930–1999) Novelist, editor

As quoted in The Faces of Science Fiction (1984) by Patti Perret

Maimónides photo
Frances Wright photo
Garry Kasparov photo
David Wood photo

“Philosophy is said to have taken the 'linguistic turn' in this century. One hundred years ago, a philosopher would think in terms of mind, spirit, experience, consciousness; now the by-word is language.”

David Wood (1946) British philosopher, born 1946

Source: Philosophy At The Limit (1990), Chapter 2, Metaphysics and Metaphor, p. 26

Victor Hugo photo

“There shall be no slavery of the mind.”

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

Quoted by Courtlandt Palmer, president of the Nineteenth Century Club of New York, while introducing Robert G. Ingersoll as a speaker in a debate, "The Limitations of Toleration," at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York City (1888-05-08); from The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll (Dresden Publishing Company, 1902), vol. VII, p. 217

“Bill and I were pretty much the same age bracket, and strangely enough, we both went through the same influences, starting with Nat Cole, going into Bud Powell during the bebop period, and then getting into the Lennie Tristano school orienta—in my particular case, Lee Konitz more than Lennie. I mean, in an era when everybody else was playing funky piano, we… I suppose, in a general category, that made us both the same. Whereby [sic] to my mind, we were both radically different. But after I put out that first album, the reviews started off by saying, "Clare Fischer owes much to Bill Evans." And then, when I would write an album, they would say "Clare Fischer owes much to Gil Evans."”

Clare Fischer (1928–2012) American keyboardist, composer, arranger, and bandleader

And I would call that my Evans brothers syndrome.
Radio interview https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/talking-jazz-volume-22-arrangers/id398326105, circa 1985, by Ben Sidran, as quoted in Talking Jazz With Ben Sidran, Volume 1: The Rhythm Section https://books.google.com/books?id=O3hZDQAAQBAJ&pg=PT452&dq=%22But+Bill+and+I+were+pretty+much%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjWm_Tw9MXRAhWF8CYKHdeKBs8Q6AEIFDAA#v=onepage&q&f=false (1992, 2006, 2014)

Michael Bloomberg photo

“Nobody’s going to go home for a year and come back. Nobody could ever enforce that. Nobody in their right mind would ever try to do it.”

Michael Bloomberg (1942) American businessman and politician, former mayor of New York City

http://www.gothamist.com/2007/05/29/bloombergs_memo.php
Illegal Immigration

Ernst, Baron von Feuchtersleben photo

“We cannot avoid moodiness; but we may turn to account, as does the poet, the various dispositions of the mind, or give them form and shape, as the sculptor his marble.”

Ernst, Baron von Feuchtersleben (1806–1849) Austrian psychiatrist, poet and philosopher

The Dietetics of the Soul; Or, True Mental Discipline (1838)

Chandrika Kumaratunga photo

“India (even) supported the government of Sri Lanka in another UN resolution in Geneva two years back. So for India having changed its mind this time, there may have been some justifiable reasons. India has been asking the Sri Lankan government to give a political solution.”

Chandrika Kumaratunga (1945) President of Sri Lanka

Quoted by Archive.Indian Express, "India's vote against Sri Lanka not 'let down': ex-President" http://archive.indianexpress.com/news/indias-vote-against-sri-lanka-not-let-down-expresident/934999/, April 10, 2012.

Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon photo

“The natural leaning of our minds is in favour of prisoners; and in the mild manner in which the laws of this country are executed, it has rather been a subject of complaint by some that the Judges have given way too easily to mere formal objections on behalf of prisoners, and have been too ready on slight grounds to make favourable representations of their cases. Lord Hale himself, one of the greatest and best men who ever sat in judgment, considered this extreme facility as a great blemish, owing to which more offenders escaped than by the manifestation of their innocence." We must, however, take care not to carry this disposition too far, lest we loosen the bands of society, which is kept together by the hope of reward, and the fear of punishment. It has been always considered, that the Judges in our foreign possessions abroad were not bound by the rules of proceeding in our Courts here. Their laws are often altogether distinct from our own. Such is the case in India and other places. On appeals to the Privy Council from our colonies, no formal objections are attended to, if the substance of the matter or the corpus delicti sufficiently appear to enable them to get at the truth and justice of the case.”

Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon (1732–1802) British Baron

King v. Suddis (1800), 1 East, 314. Lord Kenyon is later reported to have written, "I once before had occasion to refer to the opinion of a most eminent Judge, who was a great Crown lawyer, upon the subject, I mean Lord Hale; who even in his time lamented the too great strictness which had been required in indictments, and which had grown to be a blemish and inconvenience in the law; and observed that more offenders escaped by the over easy ear given to exceptions in indictments than by their own innocence". King v. Airey (c. 1800), 2 East, 34.

Marsden Hartley photo
Henri Poincaré photo
Nisargadatta Maharaj photo
Mortimer J. Adler photo
Richard Dawkins photo
Georges Duhamel photo
Pravin Togadia photo

“The chapter is poisoning the minds of little children. They will not respect their own religion in future. They will not turn out to be good Hindus and it will cause harm to the nation.”

Pravin Togadia (1957) Indian oncologist, activist

On an NCERT school textbook which said that ancient Indians consumed beef, as quoted in " References to ancient Hindus' beef-eating past deleted from school textbooks http://www.asianews.it/news-en/References-to-ancient-Hindus'-beef-eating-past-deleted-from-school-textbooks-6456.html", Asia News (16 June 2006)

Albert Jay Nock photo
William James photo

“Out of my experience, such as it is (and it is limited enough) one fixed conclusion dogmatically emerges, and that is this, that we with our lives are like islands in the sea, or like trees in the forest. The maple and the pine may whisper to each other with their leaves. … But the trees also commingle their roots in the darkness underground, and the islands also hang together through the ocean's bottom. Just so there is a continuum of cosmic consciousness, against which our individuality builds but accidental fences, and into which our several minds plunge as into a mother-sea or reservoir.”

William James (1842–1910) American philosopher, psychologist, and pragmatist

"Confidences of a 'Psychical Researcher'" http://hcl.harvard.edu/libraries/houghton/exhibits/james/psychical/7_8.cfm, in The American Magazine, Vol. 68 (1909), p. 589
Often (mis)quoted as: "We are like islands in the sea; separate on the surface but connected in the deep", or: "Our lives are like islands in the sea, or like trees in the forest, which co-mingle their roots in the darkness underground."
1900s

Neal Stephenson photo

“I think visual literacy and media literacy is not without value, but I think plain old-fashioned text literacy and mathematical literacy are much more powerful and flexible ways to organize your mind.”

Neal Stephenson (1959) American science fiction writer

Neal Stephenson coins the term "text literacy" during interview for the article "Pushing the Edge With 'Diamond Age' Nano-Machines," Associated Press, May 10, 1995

Ogden Nash photo
Nyanaponika Thera photo
Charlotte Salomon photo
Nikos Kazantzakis photo
Tsunetomo Yamamoto photo
Elizabeth I of England photo
Henry H. Goodell photo
Donald Barthelme photo

“Who among us is not thinking about divorce, except for a few tiny-minded stick-in-the-muds who don’t count?”

Donald Barthelme (1931–1989) American writer, editor, and professor

“Heliotrope”, p. 106.
The Teachings of Don. B: Satires, Parodies, Fables, Illustrated Stories, and Plays of Donald Barthelme (1992)

Dhani Harrison photo
George Gissing photo
Patrick McHale (artist) photo
Oliver Sacks photo
T. E. Hulme photo

“Thought is prior to language and consists in the simultaneous presentation to the mind of two different images.”

T. E. Hulme (1883–1917) English Imagist poet and critic

Notes on Language and Style (1929)

Peter Medawar photo
Johannes Tauler photo
Alexandre Dumas photo

“Now there was one of these Essens, whose name was Manahem, who had this testimony, that he not only conducted his life after an excellent manner, but had the foreknowledge of future events given him by God also. This man once saw Herod when he was a child, and going to school, and saluted him as king of the Jews; but he, thinking that either he did not know him, or that he was in jest, put him in mind that he was but a private man; but Manahem smiled to himself, and clapped him on his backside with his hand, and said," However that be, thou wilt be king, and wilt begin thy reign happily, for God finds thee worthy of it. And do thou remember the blows that Manahem hath given thee, as being a signal of the change of thy fortune. And truly this will be the best reasoning for thee, that thou love justice [towards men], and piety towards God, and clemency towards thy citizens; yet do I know how thy whole conduct will be, that thou wilt not be such a one, for thou wilt excel all men in happiness, and obtain an everlasting reputation, but wilt forget piety and righteousness; and these crimes will not be concealed from God, at the conclusion of thy life, when thou wilt find that he will be mindful of them, and punish time for them." Now at that time Herod did not at all attend to what Manahem said, as having no hopes of such advancement; but a little afterward, when he was so fortunate as to be advanced to the dignity of king, and was in the height of his dominion, he sent for Manahem, and asked him how long he should reign. Manahem did not tell him the full length of his reign; wherefore, upon that silence of his, he asked him further, whether he should reign ten years or not? He replied, "Yes, twenty, nay, thirty years;" but did not assign the just determinate limit of his reign. Herod was satisfied with these replies, and gave Manahem his hand, and dismissed him; and from that time he continued to honor all the Essens. We have thought it proper to relate these facts to our readers, how strange soever they be, and to declare what hath happened among us, because many of these Essens have, by their excellent virtue, been thought worthy of this knowledge of Divine revelations.”

AJ 15.11.4-5
Antiquities of the Jews

Robert Boyle photo
Sarvajna photo
John Bright photo
Alain photo

“When people ask me if the division between parties of the right and parties of the left, men of the right and men of the left, still makes sense, the first thing that comes to mind is that the person asking the question is certainly not a man of the left.”

Alain (1868–1951) French philosopher

Statement of 1931, as quoted by Marcel Gauchet, Realms of Memory: Rethinking the French Past, Vol. 1 - Conflicts and Divisions, edited by Pierre Nora and Lawrence Kritzman, p. 266 ISBN 9780231084048

John Constable photo

“And however one's mind may be elevated, and kept us to what is excellent, by the works of the Great Masters — still Nature is the fountain's head, the source from whence all originally must spring — and should an artist continue his practice without referring to nature he must soon form a manner, & be reduced to the same deplorable situation as the French painter mentioned by Sir J. Reynolds, who told him that he had long ceased to look at nature for she only put him out.For the last two years I have been running after pictures, and seeking the truth at second hand. I have not endeavoured to represent nature with the same elevation of mind — but have neither endeavoured to make my performances look as if really executed by other men….. There is room enough for a natural painter. The great vice of the present day is bravura, an attempt to do something beyond the truth.I am come to a determination to make no idle visits this summer, nor to give up my time to common-place people. I shall return to Bergholt, where I shall make some laborious studies from nature — and I shall endeavour to get a pure and unaffected manner of representing the scenes that may employ me.”

John Constable (1776–1837) English Romantic painter

3 quotes in Constable's letter to John Dunthorne (29 May 1802), from John Constable's Correspondence, ed. R.B. Beckett (Ipswich, Suffolk Records Society, 1962-1970), part 2, pp. 31-32
1800s - 1810s

Martin Luther King, Jr. photo
Mata Amritanandamayi photo
Joseph Addison photo

“The union of the Word and the Mind produces that mystery which is called Life… Learn deeply of the Mind and its mystery, for therein lies the secret of immortality.”

Joseph Addison (1672–1719) politician, writer and playwright

" The Life and Teachings of Thoth Hermes Trismegistus http://magdelene.net/Thoth%20Hermes%20Trismegistus.htm", in The Secret Teachings of All Ages (1928) by the Canadian occultist Manly Hall; a few quotation websites credit this to Addison.
Misattributed

“The more I ponder God's way, the more I believe He changes a person, or molds a person through enlightenment. He changes a person's mind.”

Donald Miller (1971) American writer

Prayer and the Art of Volkswagen Maintenance (2000, Harvest House Publishers)

André Maurois photo
Elizabeth Taylor photo

“My heart…my mind… are broken. I loved Michael with all my soul and I can't imagine life without him. We had so much in common and we had such loving fun together.”

Elizabeth Taylor (1932–2011) British-American actress

As quoted in "Michael Jackson: Elizabeth Taylor Honors her good friend" http://news-briefs.ew.com/2009/06/elizabeth-taylor-honors-good-friend-michael-jackson.html by Dave Karger, Entertainment Weekly (26 June 2009)]

Valentino Braitenberg photo
René Descartes photo
Baruch Spinoza photo
D. V. Gundappa photo
Simon Kuznets photo

“Distinctions must be kept in mind between quantity and quality of growth, between its costs and return, and between the short and the long term. Goals for more growth should specify more growth of what and for what.”

Simon Kuznets (1901–1985) economist

Simon Kuznets in: Herbert David Croly eds. (1962) The New Republic Vol. 147. p. 29: About rethinking the system of national accounting

Hannah Arendt photo
Michael Moorcock photo
John Burroughs photo

“In us or through us the Primal Mind will have contemplated and enjoyed its own works and will continue to do so as long as human life endures on this planet.”

John Burroughs (1837–1921) American naturalist and essayist

Source: Accepting the Universe (1920), p.111

John Bright photo

“The Corn Law is as great a robbery of the man who follows the plough as it is of him who minds the loom…If there be one view of the question which stimulates me to harder work in this cause than another, it is the fearful sufferings which I know to exist amongst the rural laborers in almost every part of this kingdom…And then a fat and sleek dean, a dignitary of the Church and a great philosopher, recommends for the consumption of the people—he did not read a paper about the supplies that were to be had in the great valley of the Mississippi—but he said that there were swede, turnip and mangel-wurzel; and the Hereditary Earl Marshal of England, if to out-Herod Herod himself, recommends hot water and a pinch of curry-powder. The people of England have not, even under thirty years of Corn Law influence, been sunk so low as to submit tamely to this insult and wrong. It is enough that a law should be passed to make your toil valueless, to make your skill and labor unavailing to procure for you a fair supply of the common necessaries of life—but when to this grievous iniquity they add the insult of telling you to go, like beasts that perish, to mangel-wurzel, or to something which even the beasts themselves cannot eat, then I believe the people of England will rise, and with one voice proclaim the downfall of this odious system.”

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

Speech at an Anti-Corn Law League meeting (summer 1843), quoted in G. M. Trevelyan, The Life of John Bright (London: Constable, 1913), pp. 93-94.
1840s

Samuel Johnson photo

“It is man's own fault, it is from want of use, if his mind grows torpid in old age.”

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer

April 9, 1778
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol III

Taylor Caldwell photo
Ambrose Bierce photo

“Strive not for singularity in dress; Fools have the more and men of sense the less. To look original is not worth while, But be in mind a little out of style.”

Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914) American editorialist, journalist, short story writer, fabulist, and satirist

Source: Epigrams, p. 345

Louis Brownlow photo

“And what (else} did we discover? We discovered that it was exceedingly profitable to get garbage from large parts of the town; that garbage was rich in grease and in sugar. And we took it to the reduction plant and we turned that grease into a very acceptable and delightful non-odorous product which you a little later bought in the form of soap.
Another thing, it seems to me, is a by-product of this catholic curiosity, that is the ability to loaf. You can't be an administrator, a good successful administrator, and not know how to loaf. Because if you are industrious all the time and tend to your job, there is always more work than you can possibly do in a day, and if you tend to that job all the time you will be going right on in a routine, you will become more ans more specialized, you will become more and more analytical, you will become more and more interested in what you are particularly charged with doing, and progressively less and less generalized in your outlook, less and less interested in what the other fellow is doing. And the only way you can compensate for that, of course, is to loaf, to loaf whole-heartedly whenever and wherever possible, and with whomever, because the only way that you can find out what are the questions in the minds of these people you have got to loaf with them to find out the truth about how they feel.
Now, of course, you can't loaf with all the individuals, but you have to loaf with a great many of them, and you have to know how to do it, and you know you won't like to do it unless you have a catholic curiosity, not only about things that I've been talking about, but about persons.”

Louis Brownlow (1879–1963) American mayor

Source: "What Is an Administrator?" 1936, p. 12; As cited in Albert Lepawsky (1949), Administration, p. 658

Louis Pasteur photo

“In the fields of observation chance favours only the prepared mind.”

Louis Pasteur (1822–1895) French chemist and microbiologist

Dans les champs de l'observation le hasard ne favorise que les esprits préparés.
Lecture, University of Lille (7 December 1854)
Alternate translations of this or similar statements include:
Chance favors the prepared mind.
Fortune favors the prepared mind.
In the field of observation, chance favors the prepared mind.
Where observation is concerned, chance favors only the prepared mind.

Edward Law, 1st Baron Ellenborough photo
Joseph Joubert photo

“People knock ASBOs but you have to bear in mind they are the only qualification some of these kids are going to get.”

Linda Smith (1958–2006) comedian

Angella Johnson's obituary to Linda, pages 38–39 of The Mail on Sunday, 5th March 2006.

William Cowper photo

“Though on pleasure she was bent,
She had a frugal mind.”

William Cowper (1731–1800) (1731–1800) English poet and hymnodist

St. 8.
The Diverting History of John Gilpin (1785)

Jackson Browne photo

“Well I'm running down the road
Tryin' to loosen my load,
I've got seven women on my mind,
Four that wanna own me,
Two that wanna stone me,
One says she's a friend of mine.”

Jackson Browne (1948) American singer-songwriter

Take It Easy (co-written with Glenn Frey, 1971-1972), from For Everyman; previously recorded on The Eagles' album Eagles (1972)

François de La Rochefoucauld photo

“A man will often believe himself a leader when he is led; while with his mind he endeavours to reach one goal, his heart insensibly drags him toward another.”

L'homme croit souvent se conduire lorsqu'il est conduit; et pendant que par son esprit il tend à un but, son coeur l'entraîne insensiblement à un autre.
Maxim 43.
Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims (1665–1678)

Han-shan photo
Jerry Springer photo

“My campaign is based upon the proposition that the answers to the problems which currently plague our cities, our towns, and our homes, are not to be found in the decisions in Washington. They are instead to be found in the hearts, minds and resources of our own people here at home.”

Jerry Springer (1944) American television presenter, former lawyer, politician, news presenter, actor, and musician

from a speech given circa 1970 to citizens in Cincinnati Ohio.
This American Life http://www.thislife.org/pages/descriptions/04/258.html, Ep. 258, 01/30/04, Leaving the Fold; Act One.

Everett Dean Martin photo