Our [Western] science has cut itself off from an adequate understanding of the Subject of Cognizance, of the mind. This is precisely the point where our present way of thinking needs to be amended, perhaps by a bit of blood-transfusion from Eastern thought.
— What Is Life? with Mind and Matter and Autobiographical Sketches
Animation can explain whatever the mind of man can conceive. This facility makes it the most versatile and explicit means of communication yet devised for quick mass appreciation.
Strength of mind rests in sobriety for this keeps your reason unclouded by passion.
Happiness is a state of mind, you know. I don't think you are permanently happy. One is happy about certain things and not so happy about others.
The diversity of the phenomena of nature is so great, and the treasures hidden in the heavens so rich, precisely in order that the human mind shall never be lacking in fresh nourishment.
Although all the good arts serve to draw man's mind away from vices and lead it toward better things, this function can be more fully performed by this art, which also provides extraordinary intellectual pleasure.
Modest doubt is call'd the beacon of the wise.
— Troilus and Cressida
A man is not idle because he is absorbed in thought. There is visible labor and there is invisible labor.
— Les Misérables
I would walk along the quais when I had finished work or when I was trying to think something out. It was easier to think if I was walking and doing something or seeing people doing something that they understood.
— A Moveable Feast
Poirot," I said. "I have been thinking.""An admirable exercise my friend. Continue it.
— Peril at End House
You've never lived what you are thinking, and that isn't good. Only the ideas we actually live are of any value.
— Demian. Die Geschichte von Emil Sinclairs Jugend
...our philosophy has preserved essential traits of animistic modes of thought such as the over-estimation of the magic of words and the belief that real processes in the external world follow the lines laid down by our thoughts.
— New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis
You are not the mind itself. For You are the Lord God of the mind. All these things are liable to change, but You remain immutable above all things.
— Confessions
By thinking of things you could understand them.
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Paper is more patient than man.
— The Diary of a Young Girl
Let us tenderly and kindly cherish therefore, the means of knowledge. Let us dare to read, think, speak, and write .
— The Works Of John Adams, Second President Of The United States
Your hand can seize today, but not tomorrow; and thoughts of your tomorrow are nothing but desire. Don’t waste this breath, if your heart isn’t crazy, since "the rest of your life" won’t last forever.
— Quatrains - Ballades
…every feeling is the perception of a truth...
— New Essays on Human Understanding
take a strict view of their excrements, and, from the colour, the odour, the taste, the consistence, the crudeness or maturity of digestion, form a judgment of their thoughts and designs; because men are never so serious, thoughtful, and intent, as when they are at stool...
— Gulliver's Travels
Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking.
Don't join the book burners. Don't think you're going to conceal faults by concealing evidence that they ever existed. Don't be afraid to go in your library and read every book...
Whether you think you can or think you can't, you're right.
You can't start a movie by having the attitude that the script is finished, because if you think the script is finished, your movie is finished before the first day of shooting.