Quotes about thought
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“I had these obsessive desires and thoughts wanting to control them [victims], to–I don't know how to put it–possess them permanently.”

Jeffrey Dahmer (1960–1994) American serial killer, cannibal and necrophile

Inside Edition Interview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtvmGdzgdLM

“Where the heart is full of kindness which seeks no injury to another, either in act or thought or wish, this full love creates an atmosphere of harmony, whose benign power touches with healing all who come within its influence. Peace in the heart radiates peace to other hearts, even more surely than contention breeds contention.”

Patañjali (-200–-150 BC) ancient Indian scholar(s) of grammar and linguistics, of yoga, of medical treatises

Translation by: Charles Johnston
Yoga Sutras of Patañjali

Love, Peace, Heart

“The dimple that thy chin contains has beauty in its round,
That never has been fathomed yet by myriad thoughts profound.”

Hafez (1326–1389) Persian poet

Source: Odes, CXLIII, in Hafiz of Shiraz: Selections from his Poems, translated from the Persian, by Herman Bicknell (1875), p. 197; quoted in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 59

Beauty

“People thought me bad before, but if ever I should get free, I'll let them know what bad means.”

Billy the Kid (1859–1881) American cattle rustler, gambler, horse thief, outlaw, cowboy and ranch hand

in an interview with a reporter from the Daily New Mexican after his capture at Stinking Springs.
The West of Billy the Kid, by Frederick Nolan, page 323. ISBN 0-8061-3082-2

People

“Everyone thought I was going to die like a year later, they didn't know. So I helped educate sports, and then the world, that a man living with HIV can play basketball. He's not going to give it to anybody by playing basketball.”

Magic Johnson (1959) American basketball player

Then & Now: Magic Johnson http://edition.cnn.com/2005/US/01/17/cnn25.tan.johnson/index.html

World, Education, Sport, Help

“It was all a dream, I used to read Word Up magazine. Salt-n-Peppa, Heavy D up in tha limousine. Hangin' pictures on my wall, every Saturday rap attack, Mr. Magic Marley Marl. I let my tape rock till my tape pop, smoking weed and bamboo, sippin' on Private Stock. Way back, when I had the red-and-black lumberjack, with the hat to match. Remember Rappin' Duke? Duh-ha duh-ha, you never thought that hip hop would take it this far. Now I'm in the limelight 'cause I rhyme tight. Time to get paid, blow up like the World Trade! Born sinner, the opposite of a winner. Remember when I used to eat sardines for dinner.”

The Notorious B.I.G. (1972–1997) American rapper

Song lyrics, Ready to Die (1994), "Juicy"

World, Dreams, Way, Time

“I can better understand the inert blindness & defiant ignorance of the reactionaries from having been one of them. I know how smugly ignorant I was—wrapped up in the arts, the natural (not social) sciences, the externals of history & antiquarianism, the abstract academic phases of philosophy, & so on—all the one-sided standard lore to which, according to the traditions of the dying order, a liberal education was limited. God! the things that were left out—the inside facts of history, the rational interpretation of periodic social crises, the foundations of economics & sociology, the actual state of the world today … & above all, the habit of applying disinterested reason to problems hitherto approached only with traditional genuflections, flag-waving, & callous shoulder-shrugs! All this comes up with humiliating force through an incident of a few days ago—when young Conover, having established contact with Henneberger, the ex-owner of WT, obtained from the latter a long epistle which I wrote Edwin Baird on Feby. 3, 1924, in response to a request for biographical & personal data. Little Willis asked permission to publish the text in his combined SFC-Fantasy, & I began looking the thing over to see what it was like—for I had not the least recollection of ever having penned it. Well …. I managed to get through, after about 10 closely typed pages of egotistical reminiscences & showing-off & expressions of opinion about mankind & the universe. I did not faint—but I looked around for a 1924 photograph of myself to burn, spit on, or stick pins in! Holy Hades—was I that much of a dub at 33 … only 13 years ago? There was no getting out of it—I really had thrown all that haughty, complacent, snobbish, self-centred, intolerant bull, & at a mature age when anybody but a perfect damned fool would have known better! That earlier illness had kept me in seclusion, limited my knowledge of the world, & given me something of the fatuous effusiveness of a belated adolescent when I finally was able to get around more in 1920, is hardly much of an excuse. Well—there was nothing to be done … except to rush a note back to Conover & tell him I'd dismember him & run the fragments through a sausage-grinder if he ever thought of printing such a thing! The only consolation lay in the reflection that I had matured a bit since '24. It's hard to have done all one's growing up since 33—but that's a damn sight better than not growing up at all.”

H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author

Letter to Catherine L. Moore (7 February 1937), in Selected Letters V, 1934-1937 edited by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei, pp. 407-408
Non-Fiction, Letters

God, Age, World, Education

“I am not my thoughts, emotions, sense perceptions, and experiences. I am not the content of my life. I am Life. I am the space in which all things happen. I am consciousness.”

Eckhart Tolle (1948) German writer

Stillness Speaks (2003)

Life, Sense

“Whenever the last trumpet shall sound, I will present myself before the sovereign judge with this book in my hand, and loudly proclaim, thus have I acted; these were my thoughts; such was I.”

Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) Genevan philosopher

Variant translation: Let the trumpet of the day of judgment sound when it will, I shall appear with this book in my hand before the Sovereign Judge, and cry with a loud voice, This is my work, there were my thoughts, and thus was I. I have freely told both the good and the bad, have hid nothing wicked, added nothing good.
Confessions of Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1765-1770; published 1782), Book I
Context: Whenever the last trumpet shall sound, I will present myself before the sovereign judge with this book in my hand, and loudly proclaim, thus have I acted; these were my thoughts; such was I. With equal freedom and veracity have I related what was laudable or wicked, I have concealed no crimes, added no virtues; and if I have sometimes introduced superfluous ornament, it was merely to occupy a void occasioned by defect of memory: I may have supposed that certain, which I only knew to be probable, but have never asserted as truth, a conscious falsehood. Such as I was, I have declared myself; sometimes vile and despicable, at others, virtuous, generous and sublime; even as thou hast read my inmost soul: Power eternal! assemble round thy throne an innumerable throng of my fellow-mortals, let them listen to my confessions, let them blush at my depravity, let them tremble at my sufferings; let each in his turn expose with equal sincerity the failings, the wanderings of his heart, and, if he dare, aver, I was better than that man.

Books

“The general who advances without coveting fame and retreats without fearing disgrace, whose only thought is to protect his country and do good service for his sovereign, is the jewel of the kingdom.”

Sun Tzu (-543–-495 BC) ancient Chinese military general, strategist and philosopher from the Zhou Dynasty

Source: The Art of War, Chapter X · Terrain

Fear, Country

“Naturally, every age thinks that all ages before it were prejudiced, and today we think this more than ever and are just as wrong as all previous ages that thought so.”

C.G. Jung book Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle

Source: Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle (1960), p. 33
Context: Naturally, every age thinks that all ages before it were prejudiced, and today we think this more than ever and are just as wrong as all previous ages that thought so. How often have we not seen the truth condemned! It is sad but unfortunately true that man learns nothing from history.

Age, Nature, Thinking

“All that is not thought is pure nothingness”

Henri Poincaré book The Value of Science

Source: The Value of Science (1905), Ch. 11: Science and Reality
Context: All that is not thought is pure nothingness; since we can think only thought and all the words we use to speak of things can express only thoughts, to say there is something other than thought, is therefore an affirmation which can have no meaning.
And yet—strange contradiction for those who believe in time—geologic history shows us that life is only a short episode between two eternities of death, and that, even in this episode, conscious thought has lasted and will last only a moment. Thought is only a gleam in the midst of a long night. But it is this gleam which is everything.<!--p.142

“A totalitarian state is in effect a theocracy, and its ruling caste, in order to keep its position, has to be thought of as infallible.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

"The Prevention of Literature" (1946)
Context: A totalitarian state is in effect a theocracy, and its ruling caste, in order to keep its position, has to be thought of as infallible. But since, in practice, no one is infallible, it is frequently necessary to rearrange past events in order to show that this or that mistake was not made, or that this or that imaginary triumph actually happened. Then, again, every major change in policy demands a corresponding change of doctrine and a revaluation of prominent historical figures.

“A thought transfixed me: for the first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth — that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire.”

Viktor E. Frankl book Man's Search for Meaning

Man's Search for Meaning (1946; 1959; 1984)
Context: A thought transfixed me: for the first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth — that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire. Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love. … For the first time in my life I was able to understand the meaning of the words, "The angels are lost in perpetual contemplation of an infinite glory."

Love, Life, Wisdom, Truth

“I consider those developments in physics during the last decades which have shown how problematical such concepts as "objective" and "subjective" are, a great liberation of thought.”

Niels Bohr (1885–1962) Danish physicist

Remarks after the Solvay Conference (1927)
Context: I consider those developments in physics during the last decades which have shown how problematical such concepts as "objective" and "subjective" are, a great liberation of thought. The whole thing started with the theory of relativity. In the past, the statement that two events are simultaneous was considered an objective assertion, one that could be communicated quite simply and that was open to verification by any observer. Today we know that 'simultaneity' contains a subjective element, inasmuch as two events that appear simultaneous to an observer at rest are not necessarily simultaneous to an observer in motion. However, the relativistic description is also objective inasmuch as every observer can deduce by calculation what the other observer will perceive or has perceived. For all that, we have come a long way from the classical ideal of objective descriptions.
In quantum mechanics the departure from this ideal has been even more radical. We can still use the objectifying language of classical physics to make statements about observable facts. For instance, we can say that a photographic plate has been blackened, or that cloud droplets have formed. But we can say nothing about the atoms themselves. And what predictions we base on such findings depend on the way we pose our experimental question, and here the observer has freedom of choice. Naturally, it still makes no difference whether the observer is a man, an animal, or a piece of apparatus, but it is no longer possible to make predictions without reference to the observer or the means of observation. To that extent, every physical process may be said to have objective and subjective features. The objective world of nineteenth-century science was, as we know today, an ideal, limiting case, but not the whole reality. Admittedly, even in our future encounters with reality we shall have to distinguish between the objective and the subjective side, to make a division between the two. But the location of the separation may depend on the way things are looked at; to a certain extent it can be chosen at will. Hence I can quite understand why we cannot speak about the content of religion in an objectifying language. The fact that different religions try to express this content in quite distinct spiritual forms is no real objection. Perhaps we ought to look upon these different forms as complementary descriptions which, though they exclude one another, are needed to convey the rich possibilities flowing from man's relationship with the central order.

“There is no doubt… Dadabhai served his country with a sacrifice and singleness of purpose which it may be rightly said, without exaggeration, was rare. A devout follower of Zoroaster, he faithfully followed the ethics of that Great Prophet - pure in thought, word and deed.”

Dadabhai Naoroji (1825–1917) Indian politician

Sir Dinshaw Wacha in Dr. Dadabhai Naoroji: "The Grand Old Man of India"
About Dadabhai

Country

“When you first loved and the feeling was returned, you thought it would last forever; but it ended and you acquired knowledge of one of life’s significant lessons; the next time you loved, you did so with caution.”

Gandolfo – (RJ Intindola)

2001

Time, Knowledge, Love, Life

“I was just walking across the street . . . this guy [a porn producer] stops and he gets off his car and he gives me his card, and i thought about it for about two weeks then you made the mistake of saying yes and going in. and . . . yeah, I did it for about three months, and as soon as I started to gain popularity, that's when I was like, "OK I need to get the F out of here, this is not what I was trying to do whatsoever", I just wanted to let loose and rebel.”

Mia Khalifa (1993) American social media personality and former porn actress

Guy, Cars

“Another Boring Love Story

She was risky at best.
She had a sordid past.
She was complicated.
She was wild.
She had numerous demons.
But she had a loving heart.
But she had a soft smile.
But her tears smelled like morning dew.
But she was intelligent and worldly.
But she intimidated men.
So, I dove in headfirst without a second thought.
And wow; she was a demon.
The End”

Gandolfo – (RJ Intindola)

2005

Smile, Past, Intelligence, Heart

“To the well-fed it seems cowardly to complain of tight boots, because the well-fed live in a different world-a world where, if your boots are tight, you can change them; their minds are not warped by petty discomfort. But below a certain income the petty crowds the large out of existence; one's preoccupation is not with art or religion, but with bad food, hard beds, drudgery and the sack. Serenity is impossible to a poor man in a cold country and even his active thoughts will go in more or less sterile complaint.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

Source: Review of Hunger and Love by Lionel Britton, in The Adelphi (April 1931)

Religion, Food, Country, Bad luck

“Oh, the comfort —
the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person —
having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words,
but pouring them all right out,
just as they are,
chaff and grain together;
certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them,
keep what is worth keeping,
and then with the breath of kindness blow the rest away.”

George Eliot (1819–1880) English novelist, journalist and translator

Thiis was published without credit in The Best Loved Poems of the American People (1936) with the title "Friendship", and since that time has sometimes been misattributed http://www.geonius.com/eliot/quotes.html to Eliot; it is actually an adaptation of lines by Dinah Craik, in A Life for a Life (1859): Oh, the comfort — the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person — having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all right out, just as they are, chaff and grain together; certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and then with the breath of kindness blow the rest away. Misattributed

Personality, Faith, Feeling

“When you meet someone better than yourself, turn your thoughts to becoming his equal. When you meet someone not as good as you are, look within and examine your own self.”

Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher

“First we thought the PC was a calculator. Then we found out how to turn numbers into letters with ASCII — and we thought it was a typewriter. Then we discovered graphics, and we thought it was a television. With the World Wide Web, we’ve realized it’s a brochure.”

Douglas Adams (1952–2001) English writer and humorist

World

“Let us not ponder upon the past. It will simply take us backwards.
Look to the future and start fresh.
Put all of your energy and thoughts into a brand new unblemished tomorrow.
It is of the essence.
Don't dream of something you have no idea about.
Don't drive in reverse.
The past is full of cobwebs and dust.
The future is new and clean.
Don't imagine that the past is better than where you are right now.
Renew.
Move forward.
If you are in a bad place, change it for the better, brighter and new you.
~~~~~~~~~~~~”

Stephie Pahlavi Zan

Imagination, Idea, Change, Past

“She could never be a saint, but she thought she could be a martyr if they killed her quick.”

Flannery O’Connor (1925–1964) American novelist, short story writer

“People never like me and I never like people," she thought. "And I never can talk as the Crawford children could. They were always talking and laughing and making noises.”

Frances Hodgson Burnett The Secret Garden

Source: The Secret Garden

Children, People

“When people concentrate on the idea of beauty, they are, without realizing it, confronted with the darkest thoughts that exist in this world. That, I suppose, is how human beings are made.”

Yukio Mishima book The Temple of the Golden Pavilion

Source: The Temple of the Golden Pavilion

People, World, Beauty, Idea

“If it can be written, or thought, it can be filmed.”

Stanley Kubrick (1928–1999) American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer and editor

“If you want to be happy, set a goal that commands your thoughts, liberates your energy, and inspires your hopes.”

Andrew Carnegie (1835–1919) American businessman and philanthropist

Happy, Hope, Happiness

“Reason flows from the blending of rational thought and feeling. If the two functions are torn apart, thinking deteriorates into schizoid intellectual activity and feeling deteriorates into neurotic life-damaging passions.”

Erich Fromm (1900–1980) German social psychologist and psychoanalyst

Life, Feeling, Thinking, Passion

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

Margaret Mead (1901–1978) American anthropologist

Source: Kabir, Hajara Muhammad (2010). Northern women development. [Nigeria]. ISBN 978-978-906-469-4. OCLC 890820657 note: 1940s, Male and Female (1949)

Motivational, For Team, Success, For women

“All I ask of you is one thing: please don't be cynical. I hate cynicism - it's my least favorite quality and it doesn't lead anywhere. Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you're kind, amazing things will happen.”

Conan O'Brien (1963) American television show host and comedian

Final words, January 22, 2010 TV Guide news http://www.tvguide.com/News/Conans-Words-Tonight-1014105.aspx The Tonight Show Context: Before we end this rodeo, a few things need to be said. There has been a lot of speculation in the press about what I legally can and can't say about NBC. To set the record straight, tonight I am allowed to say anything I want. And what I want to say is this: between my time at Saturday Night Live, the Late Night show, and my brief run here on The Tonight Show, I have worked with NBC for over twenty years. Yes, we have our differences right now and yes, we're going to go our separate ways. But this company has been my home for most of my adult life. I am enormously proud of the work we have done together, and I want to thank NBC for making it all possible. Walking away from The Tonight Show is the hardest thing I have ever had to do. Making this choice has been enormously difficult. This is the best job in the world, I absolutely love doing it, and I have the best staff and crew in the history of the medium. But despite this sense of loss, I really feel this should be a happy moment. Every comedian dreams of hosting The Tonight Show and, for seven months, I got to. I did it my way, with people I love, and I do not regret a second. I've had more good fortune than anyone I know and if our next gig is doing a show in a 7-Eleven parking lot, we'll find a way to make it fun. And finally, I have to say something to our fans. The massive outpouring of support and passion from so many people has been overwhelming. The rallies, the signs, all the goofy, outrageous creativity on the Internet, and the fact that people have traveled long distances and camped out all night in the pouring rain to be in our audience, made a sad situation joyous and inspirational. To all the people watching, I can never thank you enough for your kindness to me and I'll think about it for the rest of my life. All I ask of you is one thing: please don't be cynical. I hate cynicism - it's my least favorite quality and it doesn't lead anywhere. Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you're kind, amazing things will happen. As proof, let’s make an amazing thing happen right now. Here to close out our show, are a few good friends, led by Mr. Will Ferrell…

Life, Hate

“These people were not only cheering, they were throwing flowers and hats. The hats were made of stone, but the thought was there.”

Terry Pratchett book Eric

Source: Eric

People, Flowers

“The only thing that stands between you and your wellbeing is a simple fact: you have allowed your thoughts and emotions to take instruction from the outside rather than the inside. On”

Sadhguru book Inner Engineering: A Yogi's Guide to Joy

Variant: The only thing that stands between you and your well-being is a simple fact: you have allowed your thoughts and emotions to take instruction from the outside rather than the inside. On
Source: Inner Engineering: A Yogi's Guide to Joy

“When I examine myself and my methods of thought I come to the conclusion that the gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing positive knowledge.”

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

A comment recalled by János Plesch in János, the Story of a Doctor (1947), p. 207. Also quoted in Einstein: the Life and Times by Ronald W. Clark (1971), p. 118 http://books.google.com/books?id=6IKVA0lY6MAC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA118#v=onepage&q&f=false. 1940s Variant: "When I examine myself and my methods of thought, I come close to the conclusion that the gift of imagination has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing absolute knowledge." From The Ultimate Quotable Einstein by Alice Calaprice (2010), p. 26 http://books.google.com/books?id=G_iziBAPXtEC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA26#v=onepage&q&f=false. This book attributes it to Einstein and the Humanities (1979) by Dennis Ryan, p. 125, but Calaprice seems to have copied it wrong, since searching "inside the book" on this book's amazon page http://www.amazon.com/Einstein-Humanities-Contributions-Dennis-Ryan/dp/0313253803 using the word "gift" shows that p. 125 actually gives the same quote as in János, the Story of a Doctor.

Knowledge

“He thought with a kind of astonishment of the biological uselessness of pain and fear, the treachery of the human body which always freezes into inertia at exactly the moment when a special effort is needed.”

George Orwell book 1984

Source: 1984

Pain, Fear, Effort

“So much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot.”

George Orwell book Inside the Whale and Other Essays

Inside the Whale (1940) http://orwell.ru/library/essays/whale/english/e_itw Source: Inside the Whale and Other Essays

People

“The eyes of others our prisons; their thoughts our cages.”

Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English writer

“My words fly up, my thoughts remain below: Words without thoughts never to heaven go.”

William Shakespeare Hamlet

Source: Hamlet

Flying

“If her rump were any stiffer, she'd break it every time she rides', I thought to Pounce.
'If she fell on the steps, they would never be able to put her together again', he replied.”

Tamora Pierce book Mastiff

Source: Mastiff

Time

“In the information society, nobody thinks. We expected to banish paper, but we actually banished thought.”

Michael Crichton book Jurassic Park

Source: Jurassic Park

Thinking

“What can you do, thought Winston, against the lunatic who is more intelligent than yourself, who gives your arguments a fair hearing and then simply persists in his lunacy?”

George Orwell book 1984

Source: 1984

Intelligence

“An oppressed class which does not strive to learn to use arms, to acquire arms, only deserves to be treated like slaves. We cannot, unless we have become bourgeois pacifists or opportunists, forget that we are living in a class society from which there is no way out, nor can there be, save through the class struggle. In every class society, whether based on slavery, serfdom, or, as at present, wage-labor, the oppressor class is always armed. Not only the modern standing army, but even the modern militia - and even in the most democratic bourgeois republics, Switzerland, for instance - represent the bourgeoisie armed against the proletariat. That is such an elementary truth that it is hardly necessary to dwell upon it. Suffice it to point to the use of troops against strikers in all capitalist countries.
A bourgeoisie armed against the proletariat is one of the biggest fundamental and cardinal facts of modern capitalist society. And in face of this fact, revolutionary Social-Democrats are urged to “demand” “disarmament”! That is tantamount of complete abandonment of the class-struggle point of view, to renunciation of all thought of revolution. Our slogan must be: arming of the proletariat to defeat, expropriate and disarm the bourgeoisie. These are the only tactics possible for a revolutionary class, tactics that follow logically from, and are dictated by, the whole objective development of capitalist militarism. Only after the proletariat has disarmed the bourgeoisie will it be able, without betraying its world-historic mission, to consign all armaments to the scrap-heap. And the proletariat will undoubtedly do this, but only when this condition has been fulfilled, certainly not before.”

Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) Russian politician, led the October Revolution

Source: The Military Programme of the Proletarian Revolution

Truth, World, Way, Learning

“But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.”

George Orwell book 1984

"Politics and the English Language" (1946)
Source: 1984
Context: But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought. A bad usage can spread by tradition and imitation even among people who should and do know better.
Context: All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred, and schizophrenia. When the general atmosphere is bad, language must suffer. I should expect to find — this is a guess which I have not sufficient knowledge to verify — that the German, Russian and Italian languages have all deteriorated in the last ten or fifteen years, as a result of dictatorship.
But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought. A bad usage can spread by tradition and imitation even among people who should and do know better.

“Sanity was statistical. It was merely a question of learning to think as they thought.”

George Orwell book 1984

Source: 1984

Question, Thinking, Learning

“We look before and after,
And pine for what is not:
Our sincerest laughter
With some pain is fraught;
Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.”

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) English Romantic poet

St. 18
To a Skylark (1821)
Source: The Complete Poems

Sad, Pain, Laughter

“If I thought this would never happen again I would die. But this is wrong, nobody dies from lack of sex. It's lack of love we die from.”

Margaret Atwood book The Handmaid's Tale

Source: The Handmaid's Tale

Love, Sex

“The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts; therefore guard accordingly.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

Variant: The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.
Source: Meditations

Happy, Good Morning, Life, Dependency

“… I will exile my thoughts if they think of you again, and I will rip my lips out if they say your name once more. Now if you do exist, I will tell you my final word in life or in death, I tell you goodbye.”

Knut Hamsun book Hunger

Source: Hunger

Life, Death, Thinking

“Our sweetest songs are those of saddest thought.”

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) English Romantic poet

Source: The Complete Poems

Sad

“I've always been an ironic dreamer, unfaithful to my inner promises.
Like a complete outsider, a casual observer of whom I thought I was,
I've always enjoyed watching my daydreams go down in defeat.
I was never convinced of what I believed in.
I filled my hands with sand, called it gold, and opened them up to let it slide through.
Words were my only truth.
When the right words were said, all was done; the rest was the sand that had always been.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Source: The Book of Disquiet

Truth, Unfaithfulness

“Self-control is strength. Right thought is mastery. Calmness is power.”

James Allen book As a Man Thinketh

Source: As a Man Thinketh

“To the past, or to the future. To an age when thought is free. From the Age of Big Brother, from the Age of the Thought Police, from a dead man - greetings!”

George Orwell book 1984

Source: 1984

Age, Past, Future, Dead

“Some have been thought brave because they were afraid to run away.”

Henny Youngman (1906–1998) American comedian

“At twenty I tried to die
And get back, back, back to you.
I thought even the bones would do.”

Sylvia Plath Ariel

Source: Ariel

“You have made a place in my heart where I thought there was no room for anything else. You have made flowers grow where I cultivated dust and stones. Remember this, on this journey you insist on making. If you die, I will not survive you long.”

Robert Jordan The Shadow Rising

al'Lan Mandragoran to Nynaeve al'Meara
(15 September 1992)
Source: The Shadow Rising

Flowers, Heart

“I don't feel that it is necessary to know exactly what I am. The main interest in life and work is to become someone else that you were not in the beginning. If you knew when you began a book what you would say at the end, do you think that you would have the courage to write it? What is true for writing and for a love relationship is true also for life. The game is worthwhile insofar as we don't know what will be the end. My field is the history of thought. Man is a thinking being.”

Michel Foucault (1926–1984) French philosopher

Truth, Power, Self : An Interview with Michel Foucault (25 October 1982)

Love, Life, Books, Feeling

“This is a present from a small, distant world, a token of our sounds, our science, our images, our music, our thoughts and our feelings. We are attempting to survive our time so we may live into yours.”

Jimmy Carter (1924) American politician, 39th president of the United States (in office from 1977 to 1981)

World, Music, Feeling, Distant

“Give thy thoughts no tongue.”

William Shakespeare Hamlet

Source: Hamlet

“Alan, you seem to think we won't like you unless you do things just like everyone else. Have you ever thought we might like you because you're different?”

Tamora Pierce book Alanna: The First Adventure

Source: Alanna: The First Adventure

Thinking

“I will survive, Tracy thought. I face mine enemies naked, and my courage is my shield.”

Sidney Sheldon book If Tomorrow Comes

Source: If Tomorrow Comes

Courage

“Forget conventionalisms; forget what the world thinks of you stepping out of your place; think your best thoughts, speak your best words, work your best works, looking to your own conscience for approval.”

Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906) American women's rights activist

World, Thinking, Forgetting

“Only thought which does violence to itself is hard enough to shatter myth.”

Theodor W. Adorno (1903–1969) German sociologist, philosopher and musicologist known for his critical theory of society

“The human condition: lost in thought.”

Eckhart Tolle book A New Earth

A New Earth (2005)

“When the spirits are low, when the day appears dark, when work becomes monotonous, when hope hardly seems worth having, just mount a bicycle and go out for a spin down the road, without thought on anything but the ride you are taking.”

Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930) Scottish physician and author

Hope, Appearance

“Promise me you'll never forget me because if I thought you would, I'd never leave.”

A.A. Milne (1882–1956) British author

Forgetting

“Patience, he thought. So much of this was patience - waiting, and thinking and doing things right. So much of all this, so much of all living was patience and thinking.”

Gary Paulsen book Hatchet

Source: Hatchet

Thinking, Waiting, Patience

“It got so that when he closed his eyes, letters and words danced in his mind. He thought of little else during that time.”

Christopher Paolini book Eragon

Source: Eragon

Time, Dance

“The moment you say that any idea system is sacred, whether it’s a religious belief system or a secular ideology, the moment you declare a set of ideas to be immune from criticism, satire, derision, or contempt, freedom of thought becomes impossible.”

Salman Rushdie (1947) British Indian novelist and essayist

Idea, Freedom

“Thinking is only a small aspect of consciousness. Thought cannot exist without consciousness, but consciousness does not need thought”

Eckhart Tolle (1948) German writer

Source: The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

Thinking

“Every thought we think is creating our future.”

Louise L. Hay (1926–2017) American writer

Thinking, Future

“Thoughts are the shadows of our feelings — always darker, emptier, simpler.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

Sec. 179
The Gay Science (1882)

Feeling

“Annabeth's face, her blond hair and gray eyes, the way she laughed, threw her arms around him, and gave him a kiss whenever he did something stupid.
She must have kissed me a lot, Percy thought.”

Rick Riordan book The Son of Neptune

Source: The Son of Neptune

Stupidity, Way, Kiss

“When a small child, I thought that success spelled happiness. I was wrong, happiness is like a butterfly which appears and delights us for one brief moment, but soon flits away.”

Anna Pavlova (1881–1931) Russian ballet dancer

Appearance, Success, Happiness

“Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it.”

George Orwell book 1984

Source: 1984

“We are what our thoughts have made us; so take care about what you think. Words are secondary. Thoughts live; they travel far.”

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

Deep, Travel, Thinking

“We, all who live, have
A life that is lived
And another life that is thought,
And the only life we have
It's the one that is divided
In right or wrong.”

Fernando Pessoa (1888–1935) Portuguese poet, writer, literary critic, translator, publisher and philosopher

Life

“Our most important thoughts are those that contradict our emotions.”

Paul Valéry (1871–1945) French poet, essayist, and philosopher

“The history of thought may be summed up in these words: it is absurd by what it seeks and great by what it finds.”

Paul Valéry (1871–1945) French poet, essayist, and philosopher

History

“God is not remote from us. He is at the point of my pen, my (pick) shovel, my paint brush, my (sewing) needle - and my heart and thoughts.”

Pierre Teilhard De Chardin (1881–1955) French philosopher and Jesuit priest

God, Heart, Painting

“There is no reason to suppose that the world had a beginning at all. The idea that things must have a beginning is really due to the poverty of our thoughts.”

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

World, Idea

“How much more suffering is caused by the thought of death than by death itself.”

Will Durant (1885–1981) American historian, philosopher and writer

Source: The Story of Philosophy: The Lives and Opinions of the World's Greatest Philosophers

Death, Suffering

“Logic is the science not of external forms of thought, but of the laws of development "of all material, natural and spiritual things", i. e., of the development of the entire concrete content of the world and of its cognition, i. e., the sum-total, the conclusion of the History of knowledge of the world.”

Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) Russian politician, led the October Revolution

World, Law, History, Nature

“But the thought of being a lunatic did not greatly trouble him; the horror was that he might also be wrong.”

George Orwell book 1984

Source: 1984

“Omnipotence and foreknowledge of God, I repeat, utterly destroy the doctrine of 'free-will' … doubtless it gives the greatest possible offense to common sense or natural reason, that God, Who is proclaimed as being full of mercy and goodness, and so on, should of His own mere will abandon, harden and damn men, as though He delighted in the sins and great eternal torments of such poor wretches. It seems an iniquitous, cruel, intolerable thought to think of God; and it is this that has been such a stumbling block to so many great men down through the ages. And who would not stumble at it? I have stumbled at it myself more than once, down to the deepest pit of despair, so that I wished I had never been made a man. (That was before I knew how health-giving that despair was, and how close to grace”

Martin Luther book On the Bondage of the Will

Source: On the Bondage of the Will (1525), p. 217

Men, God, Health, Age

“If I thought my answer were to one
who would ever return to the world,
this flame should stay without another movement; but since none
ever returned alive from this depth, if what I hear is true,
I answer thee without fear of infamy.”

Dante Alighieri book Inferno

Canto XXVII, lines 61–66 (tr. Sinclair).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Inferno

World, Fear

“I'm standing on the bridge; I'm waiting in the dark. I thought that you'd be here by now. There's nothing but the rain, no footsteps on the ground. I'm listening, but there's no sound. Isn't anyone trying to find me? Won't somebody come take me home?”

Avril Lavigne (1984) Canadian singer-songwriter and actress

"I'm With You"
Let Go (2002)

Home, Waiting

“When we are convinced of some great truths, and feel our convictions keenly, we must not fear to express it, although others have said it before us. Every thought is new when an author expresses it in a manner peculiar to himself.”

Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues (1715–1747) French writer, a moralist

Source: Reflections and Maxims (1746), p. 187.

Truth, Fear, Feeling

“No nation can ever hope to obtain full intellectual stature or eminence without first releasing, the mental processes, of its people from the yoke of a foreign language as the medium of thought and expression.”

Fatima Jinnah (1893–1967) Pakistani dental surgeon, biographer, stateswoman and one of the leading founders of Pakistan

Speech at Inauguration of Urdu Degree College, Karachi, June 1949 [citation needed]

People, Hope

“Only those are happy who never think or, rather, who only think about life's bare necessities, and to think about such things means not to think at all. True thinking resembles a demon who muddies the spring of life or a sickness which corrupts its roots. To think all the time, to raise questions, to doubt your own destiny, to feel the weariness of living, to be worn out to the point of exhaustion by thoughts and life, to leave behind you, as symbols of your life's drama, a trail of smoke and blood — all this means you are so unhappy that reflection and thinking appear as a curse causing a violent revulsion in you.”

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

On the Heights of Despair (1934)

Life, Feeling, Spring, Question

“The most stimulating and encouraging thought is that you, dearest father, and my dear sister, are well, that I am an honest German, and that if I am not always permitted to talk I can think what I please; but that is all.”

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791) Austrian Romantic composer

Letter to Leopold Mozart (Paris, 29 April 1778), from Mozart: The Man and the Artist, as Revealed in his own Words by Friedrich Kerst, trans. Henry Edward Krehbiel (1906)

Thinking, Sister

“Now, of all acts the most complete is that of constructing. A work demands love, meditation, obedience to your finest thought, the invention of laws by your soul, and many other things that it draws miraculously from your own self, which did not suspect that it possessed them. This work proceeds from the most intimate center of your existence, and yet it is distinct from yourself.”

Paul Valéry (1871–1945) French poet, essayist, and philosopher

Socrates, p. 145
Eupalinos ou l'architecte (1921)

Love, Law, Soul, Drawing

“If you talk to a thoughtful Christian, Catholic or Anglican, you often ﬁnd yourself laughed at for being so ignorant as to suppose that anyone ever took the doctrines of the Church literally.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

As I Please (1943–1947)

“Look round at the courses of the stars, as if thou wert going along with them; and constantly consider the changes of the elements into one another; for such thoughts purge away the filth of the terrene life.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

VII, 47
Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book VII

Life, Star, Change