Harold, like the rest of us, had many impressions which saved him the trouble of distinct ideas.

Memories are thoughts that arise. They’re not realities. Only when you believe that they are real, then they have the power over you. But when you realize it’s just another thought arising about the past, then you can have a spacious relationship with that thought. The thought no longer has you in its grip.

I never saw a contradiction between the ideas that sustain me and the ideas of that symbol, of that extraordinary figure, Jesus Christ.

Thoughts are the shadows of our feelings – always darker, emptier and simpler.

All violent feelings have the same effect. They produce in us a falseness in all our impressions of external things, which I would generally characterize as the pathetic fallacy.

When I arrived in Laos and found young Americans living there, out of free choice, I was surprised. After only a week, I began to have a sense of the appeal of the country and its people – along with despair about its future.

My daughter has impressions that she does of me.

The work of science is to substitute facts for appearances, and demonstrations for impressions.

He is the greatest artist who has embodied, in the sum of his works, the greatest number of the greatest ideas.

In all seriousness, people think that it’s the ideas that are important. Well, everyone has ideas, all the time. I tend to write mine down and remember them, but at some point you have to apply the bum to the seat and knock out about sixty five thousand words – that’s how long a novel is.

I don’t invest in ideas because ideas are a dime a dozen. I could steal the idea pretty quickly.

No one wants advice – only corroboration.

No man means all he says, and yet very few say all they mean, for words are slippery and thought is viscous.

The ideas gained by men before they are twenty-five are practically the only ideas they shall have in their lives.

You have your ideology and I have mine.

There’s this lingering philosophy that movie stars shouldn’t do TV.

I think that growing up in a crowded continent like Europe with an awful lot of competing claims, ideas… cultures… and systems of thought, we have, perforce, developed a more sophisticated notion of what the word ‚freedom‘ means than I see much evidence of in America.

Songwriting is my way of channeling my feelings and my thoughts. Not just mine, but the things I see, the people I care about. My head would explode if I didn’t get some of that stuff out.

If I have something to say, I want it to be meaningful.

With ideas it is like with dizzy heights you climb: At first they cause you discomfort and you are anxious to get down, distrustful of your own powers; but soon the remoteness of the turmoil of life and the inspiring influence of the altitude calm your blood; your step gets firm and sure and you begin to look – for dizzier heights.

Life consists in what a man is thinking of all day.

When I grew up, the Devil was a reason why I had a headache or the Devil was the reason I got mad today. We always blamed the Devil. I think today when I say the Enemy, I like to make it broader. Sometimes the Enemy can be our own thoughts.

The intense happiness of our union is derived in a high degree from the perfect freedom with which we each follow and declare our own impressions.

Ideas can be life-changing. Sometimes all you need to open the door is just one more good idea.

‚Kiss Land‘ wasn’t about what people wanted to hear on the radio. It was the state of mind I was in – introverted, like David Cronenberg’s ‚Naked Lunch.‘ You didn’t know if you were hearing a chorus or a verse. It was just my thoughts.

Thoughts are fine when you don’t confuse them with who you are, and then thoughts are not a problem. Thinking is a wonderful tool to create things in this world. It only becomes problematic and a source of suffering when you confuse thinking with who you are.

It is always good to know which ideas cannot be checked directly, but it is not necessary to remove them all. It is not true that we can pursue science completely by using only those concepts which are directly subject to experiment.

Writing is such a strange, utterly mysterious process. First, there was nothing; then, suddenly, there was something. I don’t know where thoughts are born. Where the hell does it come from? I don’t know. I really don’t know.

To travel is to discover that everyone is wrong about other countries.

Fashion is not something that exists in dresses only. Fashion is in the sky, in the street, fashion has to do with ideas, the way we live, what is happening.

The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts.

In the egoic state, your sense of self, your identity, is derived from your thinking mind – in other words, what your mind tells you about yourself: the storyline of you, the memories, the expectations, all the thoughts that go through your head continuously and the emotions that reflect those thoughts. All those things make up your sense of self.

Every nation ridicules other nations, and all are right.

Don’t think you are going to conceal thoughts by concealing evidence that they ever existed.

I’m half-black, half-white, so I basically put it like this: I can fit in anywhere. That’s why I write so many stories from so many different perspectives, because I’ve seen so many.

In business, success often depends upon the relative age of your ideas.

At Microsoft there are lots of brilliant ideas but the image is that they all come from the top – I’m afraid that’s not quite right.

You do things when the opportunities come along. I’ve had periods in my life when I’ve had a bundle of ideas come along, and I’ve had long dry spells. If I get an idea next week, I’ll do something. If not, I won’t do a damn thing.

Just as our eyes need light in order to see, our minds need ideas in order to conceive.

I would like to express the thoughts of a man who, having finally penetrated the partitions and ceilings of little countries, little coteries, little sects, rises above all these categories and finds himself a child and citizen of the Earth.

First comes thought; then organization of that thought, into ideas and plans; then transformation of those plans into reality. The beginning, as you will observe, is in your imagination.

There are a thousand thoughts lying within a man that he does not know till he takes up a pen to write.

Behavior is what a man does, not what he thinks, feels, or believes.

Great men are they who see that spiritual is stronger than any material force – that thoughts rule the world.

A man is what he thinks about all day long.

At one time, I was very angry. I even treated fashion like a kind of crusade: you were either with us or against us, that kind of feeling. Now I know we need ideas, not kicking down a door.

In today’s world, having money has allowed people who are extremely uncool to think that they’re cool and carry it like that. People who really are cool and people who really are artists and have ideas have to literally turn in their cool card to society just to make it past the age of 28.

In a magazine, one can get – from cover to cover – 15 to 20 different ideas about life and how to live it.

Man, alone, has the power to transform his thoughts into physical reality; man, alone, can dream and make his dreams come true.

You see, you are a spirit, you have a soul, and you live in a body. You have emotions, you have thoughts, you have a will, and you have a conscience. You are a complex being! And Jesus came to heal every single part of you. There’s not one part that He doesn’t want to make completely whole.

Good ideas are free – or at least they should be.

Getting a great idea with song writing is a lot like love. You don’t know why this one is different, but it is. You don’t know why this one is better, but it is. It sticks in your head, and you can’t stop thinking about it.

I can unload my opinion on anybody at anytime.

One of the disadvantages of wine is that it makes a man mistake words for thoughts.

God doesn’t dwell in the wooden, stony or earthen idols. His abode is in our feelings, our thoughts.

Savages we call them because their manners differ from ours.

Chance gives rise to thoughts, and chance removes them; no art can keep or acquire them.

Wicked thoughts and worthless efforts gradually set their mark on the face, especially the eyes.

Ideas are the beginning points of all fortunes.

One must marry one’s feelings to one’s beliefs and ideas. That is probably the only way to achieve a measure of harmony in one’s life.

What we feel and think and are is to a great extent determined by the state of our ductless glands and viscera.