thinking quotes

Most people are unable to write because they are unable to think, and they are unable to think because they congenitally lack the equipment to do so, just as they congenitally lack the equipment to fly over the moon.

Of my mental cycles, I devote maybe ten percent to business thinking. Business isn’t that complicated. I wouldn’t want to put it on my business card.

Few people think more than two or three times a year; I have made an international reputation for myself by thinking once or twice a week.

I seldom think of politics more than eighteen hours a day.

I have been influenced in my thinking by both west and east.

As for gun control advocates, I have no hope whatever that any facts whatever will make the slightest dent in their thinking – or lack of thinking.

I grew up with the biologists. I know how they think.

A flippant, frivolous man may ridicule others, may controvert them, scorn them; but he who has any respect for himself seems to have renounced the right of thinking meanly of others.

Silence is golden when you can’t think of a good answer.

The best book, like the best speech, will do it all – make us laugh, think, cry and cheer – preferably in that order.

Ambition never is in a greater hurry than I; it merely keeps pace with circumstances and with my general way of thinking.

I still live, I still think: I still have to live, for I still have to think.

Many a man fails as an original thinker simply because his memory it too good.

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.

Talking with a friend is nothing else but thinking aloud.

The intersection of law, politics, and technology is going to force a lot of good thinking.

Faith is an oasis in the heart which will never be reached by the caravan of thinking.

Here’s something that’s contrary to popular belief: I actually don’t like thinking. I think people think I like to think a lot. And I don’t. I do not like to think at all.

Mental fight means thinking against the current, not with it. It is our business to puncture gas bags and discover the seeds of truth.

Thinking isn’t agreeing or disagreeing. That’s voting.

All intelligent thoughts have already been thought; what is necessary is only to try to think them again.

Thinking is a wonderful tool if it’s applied. Thinking, however, can not become the master. Thinking is a very bad master. If you’re dominated by thinking then your life becomes very restricted.

People usually think according to their inclinations, speak according to their learning and ingrained opinions, but generally act according to custom.

When a man asks himself what is meant by action he proves that he isn’t a man of action. Action is a lack of balance. In order to act you must be somewhat insane. A reasonably sensible man is satisfied with thinking.

Think left and think right and think low and think high. Oh, the thinks you can think up if only you try!

When the mind is thinking it is talking to itself.

Writing, to me, is simply thinking through my fingers.

Reading is equivalent to thinking with someone else’s head instead of with one’s own.

Thinking is easy, acting is difficult, and to put one’s thoughts into action is the most difficult thing in the world.

Principles and rules are intended to provide a thinking man with a frame of reference.

To be a real philosopher all that is necessary is to hate some one else’s type of thinking.

Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason why so few engage in it.

Thinking is more interesting than knowing, but less interesting than looking.

Science is a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge.

Anyone who thinks must think of the next war as they would of suicide.

Living is like tearing through a museum. Not until later do you really start absorbing what you saw, thinking about it, looking it up in a book, and remembering – because you can’t take it in all at once.

A bookstore is one of the only pieces of evidence we have that people are still thinking.

Most of one’s life is one prolonged effort to prevent oneself thinking.

I’ve always been very liberal when it comes to people thinking for themselves.

What then do you call your soul? What idea have you of it? You cannot of yourselves, without revelation, admit the existence within you of anything but a power unknown to you of feeling and thinking.

Thinking: the talking of the soul with itself.

What with making their way and enjoying what they have won, heroes have no time to think. But the sons of heroes – ah, they have all the necessary leisure.

Writing is good, thinking is better. Cleverness is good, patience is better.

Wisdom is nothing but a preparation of the soul, a capacity, a secret art of thinking, feeling and breathing thoughts of unity at every moment of life.

I don’t digest things with my mind.

We get into the habit of living before acquiring the habit of thinking. In that race which daily hastens us towards death, the body maintains its irreparable lead.

The mere thought hadn’t even begun to speculate about the merest possibility of crossing my mind.

Reading, after a certain age, diverts the mind too much from its creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking.

I very rarely think in words at all. A thought comes, and I may try to express it in words afterwards.

The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking and we thus drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.

When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive – to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.

The soul never thinks without a picture.