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Thinking quotes

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“Learning without thought is labour lost; thought without learning is perilous.” Confucius, “Analects”

“Stop thinking, and end your problems.” Lao Tzu, “Tao Te Ching” - 4th century BC

“there is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so” William Shakespeare, “Hamlet” - 1623

“Writing is good, thinking is better.” Hermann Hesse, “Siddhartha” - 1922

“To determine not to think of it was but to think of it still, to suffer from it still.” Marcel Proust, “Swann's Way” - 1913

“Someone has said that it requires less mental effort to condemn than to think.” Emma Goldman, “Anarchism and Other Essays” - 1910

“O, teach me how I should forget to think!” William Shakespeare, “Romeo and Juliet” - 1597

“'I don't think—' 'Then you shouldn't talk'” Lewis Carroll, “Alice's Adventures in Wonderland” - 1865

“My thought is me: that’s why I can’t stop. I exist because I think... and I can’t stop myself from thinking. At this very moment—it’s frightful—if I exist, it is because I am horrified at existing.” Jean-Paul Sartre, “Nausea” - 1938

“Think not, is my eleventh commandment; and sleep when you can, is my twelfth” Herman Melville, “Moby-Dick” - 1851

“I’m one of those people who doesn’t really know what he thinks until he writes it down” Stephen King, “11/22/63” - 2011

“He who thinks little, errs much.” Leonardo da Vinci, “The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci” - 1478 – 1519

“My God, there's absolutely nothing tenth-rate about you, and yet you're up to your neck at this minute in tenth-rate thinking.” J. D. Salinger, “Franny and Zooey” - 1961

“To talk to each other is but a more animated and an audible thinking.” Charlotte Brontë, “Jane Eyre” - 16 October 1847

“If you’re for the right thing, then you do it without thinking.” Maya Angelou, “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” - 1969

“True, he said; how could they see anything but the shadows if they were never allowed to move their heads?” Plato, “The Republic”

“It was a lonely life to lead, for I had nothing to think of, having been made such a little while before.” L. Frank Baum, “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” - 1900

“But in this retirement of the mind from the senses, it often retains a yet more loose and incoherent manner of thinking, which we call dreaming.” John Locke, “An Essay Concerning Human Understanding” - 1689

“LOGIC, n. The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding.” Ambrose Bierce, “The Devil's Dictionary” - 1911

“That's the whole trouble. When you're feeling very depressed, you can't even think.” J. D. Salinger, “The Catcher in the Rye” - 1951

“You don't have to think too hard when you talk to a teacher.” J. D. Salinger, “The Catcher in the Rye” - 1951

“Thinking is common to all.” Heraclitus, “On Nature” - c. 535 – c. 475 BCE

“Everyone can perform magic, everyone can reach his goals, if he is able to think, if he is able to wait, if he is able to fast.” Hermann Hesse, “Siddhartha” - 1922

“Thinking is the hardest work any one can do—which is probably the reason why we have so few thinkers.” Henry Ford, “My Life and Work” - 1922

“They give the pupils something to do, not something to learn; and the doing is of such a nature as to demand thinking, or the intentional noting of connections; learning naturally results.” John Dewey, “Democracy and Education” - 1916

“Whatsoever is, is in God, and without God nothing can be, or be conceived.” Baruch Spinoza, “Ethics” - 1677

“Thinking and feeling that have to do with action in association with others is as much a social mode of behavior as is the most overt cooperative or hostile act.” John Dewey, “Democracy and Education” - 1916

“With school turning out more runners, jumpers, racers, tinkerers, grabbers, snatchers, fliers, and swimmers instead of examiners, critics, knowers, and imaginative creators, the word 'intellectual,' of course, became the swear word it deserved to be.” Ray Bradbury, “Fahrenheit 451” - 1953

“God is no fonder of intellectual slackers than of any other slackers.” C. S. Lewis, “Mere Christianity” - 1952

“I can think. I can wait. I can fast.” Hermann Hesse, “Siddhartha” - 1922

“what we dwell on is who we become—as a woman thinks, so she is.” Oprah Winfrey, “What I Know For Sure” - 2014

“The truth is... you think what people want you to think.” Chuck Palahniuk, “Haunted” - 2005

“It seemed better to delay thinking...” Charles Bukowski, “Ham on Rye” - 1982

“I couldn't bear to think about it; and yet, somehow, I couldn't think about nothing else.” Mark Twain, “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” - 1884

“Is a woman a thinking unit at all, or a fraction always wanting its integer?” Thomas Hardy, “Jude the Obscure” - 1895

“There are no evil thoughts except one: the refusal to think.” Ayn Rand, “Atlas Shrugged” - 1957

“When you step outside of school and have to teach yourself about life, you develop a different relationship to information. I’ve never been a purely linear thinker.” Jay-Z, “Decoded” - 2010

“My ideas flow so rapidly that I have not time to express them—by which means my letters sometimes convey no ideas at all to my correspondents.” Jane Austen, “Pride and Prejudice” - 28 January 1813

Related topics

writing action talking God waiting work school education learning women mind knowledge dream suffering evil trouble empathy silence bad senses

Related authors

J. D. Salinger (3)
Hermann Hesse (3)
William Shakespeare (2)
John Dewey (2)
Jane Austen (1)
Mark Twain (1)
Lewis Carroll (1)
Charlotte Brontë (1)
Herman Melville (1)
Heraclitus (1)
C. S. Lewis (1)
Maya Angelou (1)
Ayn Rand (1)
Plato (1)
Confucius (1)
Thomas Hardy (1)
L. Frank Baum (1)
John Locke (1)
Ambrose Bierce (1)
Leonardo da Vinci (1)

Related sources

Siddhartha (3)
The Catcher in the Rye (2)
Democracy and Education (2)
Romeo and Juliet (1)
Hamlet (1)
Pride and Prejudice (1)
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1)
Jane Eyre (1)
Moby-Dick (1)
On Nature (1)
Mere Christianity (1)
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1)
The Republic (1)
Analects (1)
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1)
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1)
The Devil's Dictionary (1)
The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci (1)
Ham on Rye (1)
Tao Te Ching (1)