quotations about thought
The thoughts that come often unsought, and, as it were, drop into the mind, are commonly the most valuable of any we have, and therefore should be secured, because they seldom return again.
JOHN LOCKE
letter to Mr. Samuel Bold, May 16, 1699
If a person has ugly thoughts, it begins to show on the face. And when that person has ugly thoughts every day, every week, every year, the face gets uglier and uglier until you can hardly bear to look at it.
ROALD DAHL
The Twits
In the union of noble thoughts and fair phrases the sons of God still marry the daughters of men.
HORACE SMITH
The Tin Trumpet: Or, Heads and Tails for the Wise and Waggish
Thought is required wherever a statement is proved, or, it may be, a general truth enunciated.
ARISTOTLE
Poetics
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
ARISTOTLE
Metaphysics
There is something at the bottom of every new human thought, every thought of genius, or even every earnest thought that springs up in any brain, which can never be communicated to others, even if one were to write volumes about it and were explaining one's idea for thirty-five years; there's something left which cannot be induced to emerge from your brain, and remains with you forever.
FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY
The Idiot
I take it to be true that pure thought can grasp the real, as the ancients had dreamed.
ALBERT EINSTEIN
Herbert Spencer lecture delivered at Oxford, June 10, 1933
Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth -- more than ruin, more even than death. Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible; thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habits; thought is anarchic and lawless, indifferent to authority, careless of the well-tried wisdom of the ages. Thought looks into the pit of hell and is not afraid. It sees man, a feeble speck, surrounded by unfathomable depths of silence; yet it bears itself proudly, as unmoved as if it were lord of the universe. Thought is great and swift and free, the light of the world, and the chief glory of man.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Why Men Fight: A Method of Abolishing the International Duel
He trudg'd along, unknowing what he sought,
And whistled as he went, for want of thought.
JOHN DRYDEN
Cymon and Iphigenia
For thought is a bird of space, that in a cage of words may indeed unfold its wings but cannot fly.
KAHLIL GIBRAN
The Prophet
A thought is harmless unless we believe it.
BYRON KATIE
Loving What Is: Four Questions That Can Change Your Life
It is generally accepted that much of our thought is non-verbal, and at least some of it might be inexpressible in language. Notably, language often cannot express the concrete experiences engendered by contemporary art and fails to formulate the kind of abstract thought characteristic of much modern science. Language is not a flawless vehicle for conveying thought and feelings.
PAVLO SHOPIN
"Is language as we know it still relevant for the digital age?", Open Democracy, May 24, 2017
A man is not idle because he is absorbed in thought. There is visible labor and there is invisible labor.
VICTOR HUGO
Les Misérables
An artist carrying a thought from his mind into expression is like a child bearing a bucket brimming with water from the well to the house--part of the content is spilled.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought
I hold it true that thoughts are things
Endowed with bodies, breath, and wings,
And that we send them forth to fill
The world with good results--or ill.
ELLA WHEELER WILCOX
"Secret Thoughts"
When soul to soul can message send--
Dispatched from mind to mind--
All nations will be swayed by thought,
And thought will rule mankind.
ARDELIA COTTON BARTON
Thoughts
True thoughts are those alone which do not understand themselves.
THEODOR W. ADORNO
Minima Moralia
Thought is what makes humans human ... It's the luminous spark of reason that grants us lordship over the animals, endows us with cell phones, and offers hope, even in our darkest hours, that our species will somehow calculate the way forward to a brighter tomorrow.
BRUNO MADDOX
Discover Magazine, May 2006
Thought is power -- real, objective power. Moreover, the thoughts we create have a life of their own. They have a kind of material reality that affects other people for good or ill -- hence our responsibility to chose.
ANNIE BESANT
The Power of Thought
I'll put that in my considering cap.
JOHN FLETCHER
The Loyal Subject