quotations about thinking
A thinking that approaches its objects openly, rigorously ... is also free toward its objects in the sense that it refuses to have rules prescribed to it by organized knowledge. It ... rends the veil with which society conceals them, and perceives them anew.
THEODOR W. ADORNO
Why Still Philosophy?
Half the trouble in the world arises because you can't stop people from thinking, and the other half because you can't start them.
EVAN ESAR
20,000 Quips & Quotes
The world is a tragedy to those who feel, but a comedy to those who think.
HORACE WALPOLE
The Letters of Horace Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford
Individuality in opinion, or, what is more, in thinking, is simply one with thinking at all; for he who thinks thereby looks at the thing or the fact itself and takes its measure by observation directly, not content with the measures of others.
JAMES VILA BLAKE
Essays
Not to be able to stop thinking is a dreadful affliction, but we don't realize this because almost everybody is suffering from it, so it is considered normal. This incessant mental noise prevents you from finding that realm of inner stillness that is inseparable from Being.
ECKHART TOLLE
The Power of Now
Not out of right practice comes right thinking, but out of right thinking comes right practice. It matters enormously what you think. If you think falsely, you will act mistakenly; if you think basely, your conduct will suit your thinking.
ANNIE BESANT
Daily Meditations on the Path and Its Qualifications
Think before you speak. Read before you think.
FRAN LEBOWITZ
The Fran Lebowitz Reader
Many a man who thinks he is thinking, is merely digesting yesterday's newspaper.
EVAN ESAR
20,000 Quips & Quotes
Better to think wrongly with your own head, than to think rightly with the head of another.
IVAN PANIN
Thoughts
In martial arts, as in life, you quickly learn not to think too much. You have to do. While you're thinking, you open spaces where an opponent can successfully strike at you. The more you think, the more vulnerable you become.
JOSEPH CARDILLO
Be Like Water
We are powerfully imprisoned in these Dark Ages simply by the terms in which we have been conditioned to think.
BUCKMINSTER FULLER
Cosmography
I figure if you think too much about things, life sometimes just passes you by.
DAVID BALDACCI
Split Second
All practical men try to bring the world under their hands; all thinkers, under their heads.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe
A man who does not think for himself does not think at all.
OSCAR WILDE
The Soul of Man Under Socialism
There are two ways to slide easily through life: to believe everything or to doubt everything; both ways save us from thinking.
ALFRED KORZYBSKI
attributed, 20,000 Quips & Quotes
Thinking may be said to be the living principle of wisdom.
DEGERANDO
attributed, Day's Collacon
If I could think how these my thoughts to leave,
Or thinking still, my thoughts might have good end:
If rebel sense would reason's law receive;
Or reason foil'd would not in vain contend:
Then might I think what thoughts were best to think:
Then might I wisely swim, or gladly sink.
PHILIP SIDNEY
sonnet
As he thinketh in his heart, so is he.
BIBLE
Proverbs 23:7
One never lives so intensely as when one has been thinking hard.
FERNANDO PESSOA
The Book of Disquiet
Man has been born for two things--thinking and acting; to think is to live.
CICERO
attributed, Day's Collacon