Quotes about thought

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“Your time on this earth is a gift to be used wisely. Don't squander your words or your thoughts. Consider that even the simplest actions you take for your lives matter beyond measure… and they matter forever.”

Andy Andrews (1959) author and corporate speaker

“Language disguises thought.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein book Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

“Extremism is so easy. You've got your position, and that's it. It doesn't take much thought. And when you go far enough to the right you meet the same idiots coming around from the left.

(Interview,, February 20, 2005)”

Clint Eastwood (1930) actor and director from the United States

“It would be ridiculous to talk of male and female atmospheres, male and female springs or rains, male and female sunshine…. how much more ridiculous is it in relation to mind, to soul, to thought, where there is as undeniably no such thing as sex, to talk of male and female education and of male and female schools. [written with Elizabeth Cady Stanton]”

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

“We live not only in a world of thoughts, but also in a world of things. Words without experience are meaningless.”

Vladimir Nabokov book Lolita

“You may go over the world and you will find that every form of religion which has breathed upon this earth has degraded woman… I have been traveling over the old world during the last few years and have found new food for thought. What power is it that makes the Hindoo woman burn herself upon the funeral pyre of her husband? Her religion. What holds the Turkish woman in the harem? Her religion. By what power do the Mormons perpetuate their system of polygamy? By their religion/ Man, of himself, could not do this; but when he declares, 'Thus saith the Lord,' of course he can do it. So long as ministers stand up and tell us Christ is the head of the church, so is man the head of woman, how are we to break the chains which have held women down through the ages? You Christian women look at the Hindoo, the Turkish, the Mormon women, and wonder how they can be held in such bondage…

Now I ask you if our religion teaches the dignity of woman? It teaches us the abominable idea of the sixth century--Augustine's idea--that motherhood is a curse; that woman is the author of sin, and is most corrupt. Can we ever cultivate any proper sense of self-respect as long as women take such sentiments from the mouths of the priesthood?”

Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902) Suffragist and Women's Rights activist

“It always strikes me, and it is very peculiar, that, whenever we see the image of indescribable and unutterable desolation—of loneliness, poverty, and misery, the end and extreme of things—the thought of God comes into one's mind.”

Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890) Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890)

“The only path by which another person can upset you is through your own thought.”

Joseph Murphy The Power of Your Subconscious Mind

“Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words.”

Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet

“As far as consistency of thought goes, I prefer inconsistency.”

John Cage (1912–1992) American avant-garde composer

“A great friendship was like a great work of art, he thought. It took time and attention, and a spark of something that was impossible to describe. It was a happy, lucky accident, finding some kindred part of yourself in a total stranger.”

Elise Broach Masterpiece

“All thought of something is at the same time self-consciousness […] At the root of all our experiences and all our reflections, we find […] a being which immediately recognises itself, […] and which knows its own existence, not by observation and as a given fact, nor by inference from any idea of itself, but through direct contact with that existence. Self-consciousness is the very being of mind in action.”

Maurice Merleau-Ponty book Phenomenology of Perception

“And it was awfully strange, he thought, how she still had the power, as she came tinkling, rustling, still had the power as she came across the room, to make the moon, which he detested, rise at Bourton on the terrace in the summer sky.”

Virginia Woolf book Mrs Dalloway

“When we hold our thoughts up against God's standards of what is true and what is real, we can recognize and, with His help, learn to release many of our negative emotions, damaging thoughts, and destructive attitudes.”

Elizabeth George (1949) American woman mystery and thriller writer

“But it's no use now," thought poor Alice, "to pretend to be two people! Why, there's hardly enough of me left to make one respectable person!”

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

“Strange, he thought, how seldom people tend to look up”

John Flanagan (1873–1938) Irish-American hammer thrower

“Thought that can merge wholly into feeling, feeling that can merge wholly into thought - these are the artist's highest joy.”

Thomas Mann (1875–1955) German novelist, and 1929 Nobel Prize laureate

“If we're always guided by other people's thoughts, what's the point in having our own?”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

“A lot of people have gone further than they thought they could because someone else thought they could”

Zig Ziglar (1926–2012) American motivational speaker

“Action springs not from thought, but from a readiness for responsibility.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) German Lutheran pastor, theologian, dissident anti-Nazi

“Yes, she thought, laying down her brush in extreme fatigues, I have had my vision.”

Virginia Woolf book To the Lighthouse

“I'm the sheen on water, Rin thought. I'm a looking glass. I'm not real.”

Shannon Hale Forest Born

“It was times like these when I thought my father, who hated guns and had never been to any wars, was the bravest man who ever lived.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

“Stick Boy liked Match Girl,
He liked her a lot.
He liked her cute figure,
he thought she was hot.

But could a flame ever burn
for a match and a stick?
It did quite literally;
he burned up quick.”

Tim Burton (1958) American filmmaker

“Thought can organize the world so well that you are no longer able to see it.”

Anthony de Mello (1931–1987) Indian writer

“Artemis thought.”

P. C. Cast (1960) American writer

“There was only one thing the perfume could not do. It could not turn him into a person who could love and be loved like everyone else. So, to hell with it he thought. To hell with the world. With the perfume. With himself”

Patrick Süskind (1949) German writer and screenwriter

“Bring the mind into sharp focus and make it alert so that it can immediately intuit truth, which is everywhere. The mind must be emancipated from old habits, prejudices, restrictive thought processes and even ordinary thought itself.”

Bruce Lee book Tao of Jeet Kune Do

“Inside every sane person there's a madman struggling to get out," said the shopkeeper. "That's what I've always thought. No one goes mad quicker than a totally sane person.”

Terry Pratchett book The Light Fantastic

“The manner in which,, and Salomon de Tultie wrote, is the most usual, the most suggestive, the most remembered, and the oftener quoted; because it is entirely composed of thoughts born from the common talk of life.”

Blaise Pascal Pensées

“Until an hour before the Devil fell, God thought him beautiful in Heaven.”

Arthur Miller The Crucible

“Please, not again what you studied, how long you spent at it, how many books you wrote, what people thought of you - but: what did you learn?”

Idries Shah book Reflections

“Since a time has come, Mademoiselle, when the severe laws of men no longer prevent women from applying themselves to the sciences and other disciplines, it seems to me that those of us who can should use this long-craved freedom to study and to let men see how greatly they wronged us when depriving us of its honor and advantages. And if any woman becomes so proficient as to be able to write down her thoughts, let her do so and not despise the honor, but rather flaunt it instead of fine clothes, necklaces, and rings. For these may be considered ours only by use, whereas the honor of being educated is ours entirely.”

Louise Labé (1524–1566) female French poet of the Renaissance, born in Lyon

“Thoughts are divine.”

Virginia Woolf book Orlando: A Biography

“Just when I thought I was learning how to live, 'twas then I realized I was learning how to die.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

“I have never thought, for my part, that man's freedom consists in his being able to do whatever he wills, but that he should not, by any human power, be forced to do what is against his will.”

Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) Genevan philosopher

“She thought to herself, "This is now." She was glad that the cozy house, and Pa and Ma and the firelight and the music, were now. They could not be forgotten, she thought, because now is now. It can never be a long time ago.”

Laura Ingalls Wilder book Little House in the Big Woods

“I knew nothing but shadows and I thought them to be real.”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

“People who are rather more than six feet tall and nearly as broad across the shoulders often have uneventful journeys. People jump out at them from behind rocks then say things like, "Oh. Sorry. I thought you were someone else.”

Terry Pratchett book Guards! Guards!

“Experience is the child of Thought, and Thought is the child of Action. We can not learn men from books.”

Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister

“I'm sorry to say that the subject I most disliked was mathematics. I have thought about it. I think the reason was that mathematics leaves no room for argument. If you made a mistake, that was all there was to it.”

Malcolm X book The Autobiography of Malcolm X

“We thought the hard part was over—but we were wrong. Living is the hardest part. Figuring out how to live your life when you’re all busted up inside and out—there is nothing harder.”

Paullina Simons book The Summer Garden

“From so much self-revising, I’ve destroyed myself. From so much self-thinking, I’m now my thoughts and not I”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

“I have always thought the actions of men the best interpreters of their thoughts.”

John Locke book An Essay Concerning Human Understanding

“I remained standing in the middle of the room, swaying on my feet as though I had received a blow. I thought of my life and saw what it had been. No one could swim against such a current of mud. I had been a man so horrible that he could have no friend. But wasn't that, I asked myself, because I had always been incapable of wearing a disguise? If all men went through life with unmasked faces, as I had done for half a century, one might be surprised to find how little difference there was between them. But, in fact, no one lives with his face uncovered, no one. Most men ape greatness or nobility. Though they do not know it, they conform to certain fixed types, literary or other. This the saints know, and they hate and despise themselves because they see themselves with unclouded eyes. I should not have been so universally condemned had I not been so defenseless, so open, and so naked.”

Francois Mauriac (1885–1970) French author

“The ego says, ‘I shouldn’t have to suffer,’ and that thought makes you suffer so much more. It is a distortion of the truth, which is always paradoxical. The truth is that you need to say yes to suffering before you can transcend it.”

Eckhart Tolle (1948) German writer

“Forgiveness is the better part of valor. (Acheron)
I always thought it was ‘discretion.’ (Thanatos)
Discretion is easy. It’s finding the courage to forgive yourself and others that is hard. (Acheron)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon book Dance with the Devil

“Let yourself go. Pull out from the depths those thoughts that you do not understand, and spread them out in the sunlight and know the meaning of them.”

E.M. Forster book A Room with a View

“I own a book,' he thought, delighted (Paolini 291).”

Christopher Paolini book Brisingr

“Think big thoughts but relish small pleasures.”

H. Jackson Brown, Jr. (1940) American writer

“When you were six you thought mistress meant to put your shoes on the wrong feet. Now you are older and know it can mean many things, but essentially it means to put your shoes on the wrong feet.”

Lorrie Moore (1957) American writer

“Colon thought Carrot was simple. Carrot often struck people as simple. And he was.
Where people went wrong was thinking that simple meant the same thing as stupid.”

Terry Pratchett book Men at Arms

“Balance your thoughts with action. — If you spend too much time thinking about a thing, you'll never get it done.”

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

“If you have good thoughts they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely.”

Roald Dahl (1916–1990) British novelist, short story writer, poet, fighter pilot and screenwriter

“He who cannot put his thoughts on ice should not enter into the heat of dispute.”

Friedrich Nietzsche book Human, All Too Human

“That's Third Thoughts for you. When a huge rock is going to land on your head, they're the thoughts that think: Is that an igneous rock, such as granite, or is it sandstone?”

Terry Pratchett book Wintersmith

“In order to eat, you have to be hungry. In order to learn, you have to be ignorant. Ignorance is a condition of learning. Pain is a condition of health. Passion is a condition of thought. Death is a condition of life.”

Robert Anton Wilson (1932–2007) American author and polymath

“If you can't stop the bad thoughts from coming to visit, at least you can make fun of them while they're hanging around.”

Jim Butcher Turn Coat

“How small a thought it takes to fill a life.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) Austrian-British philosopher

“Be the silent watcher of your thoughts and behavior. You are beneath the thinker. You are the stillness beneath the mental noise. You are the love and joy beneath the pain.”

Eckhart Tolle (1948) German writer

“he who thinks great thoughts often makes great errors”

Martin Heidegger (1889–1976) German philosopher

“When you come to see you are not as wise today as you thought you were yesterday, you are wiser today.”

Anthony de Mello (1931–1987) Indian writer

“Patience, grasshopper," said Maia. "Good things come to those who wait."
"I always thought that was 'Good things come to those who do the wave,'" said Simon. "No wonder I've been so confused all my life.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Glass

“If you believe yourself unfortunate because you have loved and lost, perish the thought. One who has loved truly, can never lose entirely.”

Napoleon Hill (1883–1970) American author

“The guy I'd felt such an immediate and deep connection to I'd thought that just maybe there really were such things as soul mates, and had considered, at least for a few brief moments, that he might be mine.”

P. C. Cast book Hunted

“Love can flourish only as long as it is free and spontaneous; it tends to be killed by the thought of duty. To say that it is your duty to love so-and-so is the surest way to cause you to hate him of her.”

Bertrand Russell book Marriage and Morals

“The thought that I might kill myself formed in my mind coolly as a tree or a flower.”

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

“How frail the human heart must be —
a mirrored pool of thought.”

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

“You can say any fool thing to a dog and the dog will just give you this look that says, 'My GOSH, you're RIGHT! I NEVER would've thought of that!”

Dave Barry (1947) American writer

“I give no sources, because it is indifferent to me
whether what I have thought has already been
thought before me by another.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein book Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

“A person who has good thoughts cannot ever be ugly. You can have a wonky nose and a crooked mouth and a double chin and stick-out teeth, but if you have good thoughts they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely.”

Roald Dahl book The Twits

“Welcome the view that the things which you think are wrecking your life - like your thoughts and emotions, or illness and death - are actually gifts for your transformation… Whether life presents us with a pleasant sound or an unpleasant sound, a pleasant smell or an unpleasant smell, a pleasant thought or an unpleasant thought, it's sheer delight because instead of identifying with the experience, we simply touch it and let it go.”

Dilgo Khyentse (1910–1991) Bhutanese Buddhist Lama

“No people in history have ever survived, who thought they could protect their freedom by making themselves inoffensive to their enemies.”

Dean Acheson (1893–1971) Statesman and lawyer

“A man is literally what he thinks, his character being the complete sum of all his thoughts.”

James Allen book As a Man Thinketh

“It is a terrible thought, to contemplate that an immense number of mediocre thinkers are occupied with really influential matters.”

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

“If you didn't do anything that wasn't good for you it would be a very dull life. What are you gonna do? Everything that is pleasant in life is dangerous. Have you noticed that? I'd like to find the bastard that thought that one up.”

Lemmy Kilmister (1945–2015) British singer-songwriter

“And what did I think
when I was small
and why did I forget?

And what else will I forget
when I grow older?

And if you forget
is it as if
it never happened?

Will none of the things
you saw or thought or dreamed
matter?”

Sharon Creech book Heartbeat

“do not view mountains from the scale of human thought”

Dogen (1200–1253) Japanese Zen buddhist teacher

“Only love, and not reason, yields kind thoughts.”

Thomas Mann book The Magic Mountain

“Writing, the art of communicating thoughts to the mind through the eye, is the great invention of the world… enabling us to converse with the dead, the absent, and the unborn, at all distances of time and space.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

“You are thought here to the most senseless and fit man for the job.”

William Shakespeare book Much Ado About Nothing

“A mind forever Voyaging through strange seas of Thought, alone.”

William Wordsworth (1770–1850) English Romantic poet

“Books are but waste paper unless we spend in action the wisdom we get from thought - asleep. When we are weary of the living, we may repair to the dead, who have nothing of peevishness, pride, or design in their conversation.”

W.B. Yeats (1865–1939) Irish poet and playwright

“Stefan shook his head., he thought.”

Tamora Pierce book Alanna: The First Adventure

“All truly great thoughts are conceived while walking.”

Friedrich Nietzsche book Twilight of the Idols

“The spirit of the individual is determined by his dominating thought habits.”

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

“Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him? - Lady Macbeth”

William Shakespeare Macbeth

“But anyone with the time and the inclination can acquire technical proficiency. To achieve greatness, though, that requires artistry. That requires imagination and thoughtfulness…”

Christopher Paolini book Inheritance

“I am very proud, revengeful,
ambitious, with more offences at my beck than I have
thoughts to put them in, imagination to give them shape,
or time to act them in.”

William Shakespeare Hamlet

“You said a bad driver was only safe until she met another bad driver? Well, I met another bad driver, didn't I? I mean it was careless of me to makes such a wrong guess. I thought you were rather an honest, straightforward person I thought it was your secret pride."

"I'm thirty," I said. "I'm five years too old to lie to myself and call it honor."

She didn't answer. Angry, and half in love with her, and tremendously sorry, I turned away.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby

“Below me Rontu was running along the cliffs barking at the screaming gulls. Pelicans were chattering as they finished the blue water. But suddenly I thought of Tutok, and the island seemed very quiet.”

Scott O'Dell book Island of the Blue Dolphins

“I think 2-D animation disappeared from Disney because they made so many uninteresting films. They became very conservative in the way they created them. It's too bad. I thought 2-D and 3-D could coexist happily.”

Hayao Miyazaki (1941) Japanese animator, film director, and mangaka

“Books serve to show a man that those original thoughts of his aren't very new after all.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

“You know," Gabriel said, "there was a time I thought we could be friends, Will."

"There was a time I thought I was a ferret," Will said, "but that turned out to be the opium haze. Did you know it had that effect? Because I didn't.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Angel

“What is this terror? what is this ecstasy? he thought to himself. What is it that fills me with this extraordinary excitement?
It is Clarissa, he said.
For there she was.”

Virginia Woolf book Mrs Dalloway

“With regard to matters requiring thought: the less people know and understand about them, the more positively they attempt to argue concerning them.”

Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) Italian mathematician, physicist, philosopher and astronomer

“But why do I notice everything? She thought. Why must I think? She did not want to think. She wanted to force her mind to become a blank and lie back, and accept quietly, tolerantly, whatever came.”

Virginia Woolf book The Years

“A true symbol appears only when there is a need to express what thought cannot think or what is only divined or felt.”

C.G. Jung (1875–1961) Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded analytical psychology

“On that night after Phoebe had given her Pandora report, I thought about the Hope in Pandora's box. Maybe when everything seemed sad and miserable, Phoebe and I could both hope that something might start to go right.”

Sharon Creech Walk Two Moons