quotations about thought
The world is your kaleidoscope, and the varying combinations of colours, which at every succeeding moment it presents to you are the exquisitely adjusted pictures of your ever-moving thoughts.
JAMES ALLEN
As a Man Thinketh
The wise man hath his thoughts in his head; the fool, on his tongue.
IVAN PANIN
Thoughts
O for a life of Sensations rather than of Thoughts!
JOHN KEATS
letter to Benjamin Bailey, November 22, 1817
My thoughts are stars I cannot fathom into constellations.
JOHN GREEN
The Fault in Our Stars
If you're up against a smart opponent, make him think himself to death.
C. J. CHERRYH
Chanur's Legacy
For good thoughts (though God accept them) yet, towards men, are little better than good dreams, except they be put in act; and that cannot be, without power and place, as the vantage, and commanding ground.
FRANCIS BACON
"Of Great Place", The Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral
Ah, the mighty men who conquer,
And the men whose words we drink,
Are the men who quit the jangle,
Quit the turmoil and the wrangle
Of the world, and turn their faces
To secluded, silent places,
Where in solitude they think.
EDGAR GUEST
"Think"
A man of action forced into a state of thought is unhappy until he can get out of it.
JOHN GALSWORTHY
Maid in Waiting
A man has a right to think lots of things he has no right to say.
EDGAR WATSON HOWE
Country Town Sayings
A great thought is best dressed in the simplest language.
CHARLES NORDHOFF
attributed, Day's Collacon
Upon the cunning loom of thought
We weave our fancies, so and so.
THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH
Cloth of Gold
Two heads are better than one.
JOHN HEYWOOD
Proverbs
Thought is valuable in proportion as it is generative.
EDWARD BULWER LYTTON
Caxtoniana
Thought exists at the farthest remove from the vocalizations of the human animal.
MICHAEL W. CLUNE
"Thought Against Life: Cyrus Console's 'Romanian Notebook'", L.A. Review of Books, May 21, 2017
Thought and action should be one.
GEBHARD LEBRECHT VON BLUCHER
attributed, Day's Collacon
The history of human thought recalls the swinging of a pendulum which takes centuries to swing. After a long period of slumber comes a moment of awakening. Then thought frees herself from the chains with which those interested -- rulers, lawyers, clerics -- have carefully enwound her. She shatters the chains. She subjects to severe criticism all that has been taught her, and lays bare the emptiness of the religious political, legal, and social prejudices amid which she has vegetated. She starts research in new paths, enriches our knowledge with new discoveries, creates new sciences.
PETER KROPOTKIN
Anarchist Morality
The course of history has often been turned by sentiment, but by thought never. The thinkers are but valuable ornaments. A safe place is assigned to them on the world's mantelpiece, while humanity basks and blinks stupidly on the hearth.
MAX BEERBOHM
The Prince of Minor Writers: The Selected Essays of Max Beerbohm
Our thoughts at least are ours.
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
It Was an April Morning: Fresh and Clear
I don't believe in thought. Too much thinking.
PHILIP MOELLER
The Roadhouse in Arden
I am full of thoughts,
A thousand wheels toss my uncertain fears,
There is a storm in my hot boiling brains,
Which rises without wind. A horrid one.
THOMAS DEKKER
The Noble Spanish Soldier