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703957a The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it. open-mind thinking Terry Pratchett
15116b4 Don't Jus action criticize dream learning inspiration inspirational-attitude inspirational-life inspirational-quotes inspire life-and-living life-quotes living optimistic positive-affirmation positive-life dreams change inspiring positive positive-thinking life-lessons optimism life inspirational inspirational-quote transform act feeling doing giving encouragement ponder experience listening life-philosophy thinking Roy T. Bennett
cde669d All truly great thoughts are conceived while walking. intelligence reflection thinking walking Friedrich Nietzsche
4250c05 "Poirot," I said. "I have been thinking." "An admirable exercise my friend. Continue it." thinking Agatha Christie
7824434 The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks. opinions skepticism independent-thought thinking Christopher Hitchens
4c289ce The world isn't just the way it is. It is how we understand it, no? And in understanding something, we bring something to it, no? Doesn't that make life a story? world thinking Yann Martel
b6ae32e If you don't want a man unhappy politically, don't give him two sides to a question to worry him; give him one. Better yet, give him none. Let him forget there is such a thing as war. If the government is inefficient, top-heavy, and tax-mad, better it be all those than that people worry over it. Peace, Montag. Give the people contests they win by remembering the words to more popular songs or the names of state capitals or how much corn Iowa grew last year. Cram them full of noncombustible data, chock them so damned full of 'facts' they feel stuffed, but absolutely 'brilliant' with information. Then they'll feel they're thinking, they'll get a of motion without moving. And they'll be happy, because facts of that sort don't change. war politics change happiness philosophy contests data popular brilliance taxation information motion questioning worry facts government peace ignorance thinking forget Ray Bradbury
0a369a3 Think for yourself and let others enjoy the privilege of doing so too. independence-of-thought tolerance voltaire thinking Voltaire
a96b884 You may believe that you are responsible for what you do, but not for what you think. The truth is that you are responsible for what you think, because it is only at this level that you can exercise choice. What you do comes from what you think. thinking Marianne Williamson
e905e0d Every faction conditions its members to think and act a certain way. And most people do it. For most people, it's not hard to learn, to find a pattern of thought that works and stay that way. But our minds move in a dozen different directions. We can't be confined to one way of thinking, and that terrifies our leaders. It means we can't be controlled. And it means that no matter what they do, we will always cause trouble for them. dystopia thinking Veronica Roth
e97e948 My mother said the cure for thinking too much about yourself was helping somebody who was worse off than you. too-much the-bell-jar sylvia-plath worse think yourself mother thinking Sylvia Plath
69acdf0 is the statement of an intellectual who underrates toothaches. is a truth much more universally valid, and it applies to everything that's alive. My self does not differ substantially from yours in terms of its thought. Many people, few ideas: we all think more or less the same, and we exchange, borrow, steal thoughts from one another. However, when someone steps on my foot, only I feel the pain. The basis of the self is not thought but suffering, which is the most fundamental of all feelings. While it suffers, not even a cat can doubt its unique and uninterchangeable self. In intense suffering the world disappears and each of us is alone with his self. Suffering is the university of egocentrism. suffering truth feeling thinking thought Milan Kundera
0706ac0 So, in the interests of survival, they trained themselves to be agreeing machines instead of thinking machines. All their minds had to do was to discover what other people were thinking, and then they thought that, too. women kurt-vonnegut manipulation girls machines thinking Kurt Vonnegut
b61ba9a Life is an experimental journey undertaken involuntarily. It is a journey of the spirit through the material world and, since it is the spirit that travels, it is the spirit that is experienced. That is why there exist contemplative souls who have lived more intensely, more widely, more tumultuously than others who have lived their lives purely externally. spiritual life thinking Fernando Pessoa
045c9d7 Patience, he thought. So much of this was patience - waiting, and thinking and doing things right. So much of all this, so much of all living was patience and thinking. waiting thinking patience Gary Paulsen
6fcfc3d Writing is thinking. To write well is to think clearly. That's why it's so hard. writing precision creative-process thinking thought David McCullough
265043c It's nice to have things to look forward to. inspirational look-forward-to stephen-chbosky the-perks-of-being-a-wallflower things thinking Stephen Chbosky
3dce227 Thinking very often resembles napping, but the intent is different. --Stephanie Plum plum stephanie-plum napping intent sleeping thinking Janet Evanovich
9b7318c For this feeling of wonder shows that you are a philosopher, since wonder is the only beginning of philosophy. wisdom wondering thinking Plato
1ac81c6 I cannot pretend I am without fear. But my predominant feeling is one of gratitude. I have loved and been loved; I have been given much and I have given something in return; I have read and traveled and thought and written. I have had an intercourse with the world, the special intercourse of writers and readers gratitude death life love inspirational oliver-sacks thinking Oliver Sacks
ef5cf66 I cannot pretend I am without fear. But my predominant feeling is one of gratitude. I have loved and been loved; I have been given much and I have given something in return; I have read and traveled and thought and written. I have had an intercourse with the world, the special intercourse of writers and readers. Above all, I have been a sentient being, a thinking animal, on this beautiful planet, and that in itself has been an enormous privilege and adventure. gratitude life love inspirational oliver-sacks thinking Oliver Sacks
d5fb581 For I have always been a seeker, a dreamer, and a ponderer on seeking and dreaming... dreams thinking H.P. Lovecraft
da31f1e "I--I didn't think--" "That," said Professor McGonagall, "is obvious." professor-mcgonagall thinking J.K. Rowling
3777cd0 Groceries, you need to learn how to select your thoughts just the same way you select what clothes you're gonna wear every day. This is a power you can cultivate. If you want to control things in your life so bad, work on the mind. That's the only thing you should be trying to control. Drop everything else but that. Because if you can't learn to master your thinking, you're in deep trouble forever. thinking Elizabeth Gilbert
039008b What I learned on my own I still remember reading discovery learning education intelligence schooling thinking thought Nassim Nicholas Taleb
fe6483f ...most people in the world don't really use their brains to think. And people who don't think are the ones who don't listen to others. thinking Haruki Murakami
6fb0245 Cliches, stock phrases, adherence to conventional, standardized codes of expression and conduct have the socially recognized function of protecting us against reality, that is, against the claim on our thinking attention that all events and facts make by virtue of their existence. thinking Hannah Arendt
66676a7 Earthlings went on being friendly, when they should have been thinking instead. wisdom thinking humans Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
755ef45 "Tall, aren't you?" she said. "I didn't mean to be." Her eyes rounded. She was puzzled. She was thinking. I could see, even on that short acquaintance, that thinking was always going to be a bother to her." thinking Raymond Chandler
6539e85 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. magic people goals waiting thinking Hermann Hesse
bcbd232 That's what I do. Watch movies and read. Sometimes I even pretend to write, but I'm not fooling anyone. Oh, and I go to the mailbox. reading life love everyday-life write movies thinking Nicole Krauss
4bf4ab8 Magic is the art of thinking, not strength or language. oromis thinking Christopher Paolini
432dfdb Oh, gentlemen, perhaps I really regard myself as an intelligent man only because throughout my entire life I've never been able to start or finish anything. Granted, granted I'm a babbler, a harmless, irksome babbler, as we all are. But what's to be done if the sole and express purpose of every intelligent man is babble--that is, a deliberate pouring from empty into void. philosophical-musings meaning-of-life thinking searching Fyodor Dostoyevsky
cb5e2c1 The most important thing is not to think very much about oneself. To investigate candidly the charge; but not fussily, not very anxiously. On no account to retaliate by going to the other extreme -- thinking too much. egotism worry thinking Virginia Woolf
ba3bfde "We assured Phelan that we were more than happy to let him have you and your menagerie," Leo retorted. "After that, he said he needed to think." "About what?" Beatrix demanded. "What is there to think about? Why is it taking him so long to make a decision?" "He's a man, dear," Amelia explained kindly. "Sustained thinking is very difficult for them." -- men humor thinking Lisa Kleypas
88fd5a1 "This was not the time to say "I don't know." The brothers had begging, hungry looks, like dogs waiting to be fed. They wanted an answer. It would be nice if it was the right answer, but if it couldn't be, then any answer would do, because then we would stop being worried...and then his mind caught alight. That's what the gods are! An answer that will do! Because there's food to be caught and babies to be born and life to be lived and so there is no time for big, complicated, and worrying answers! Please give us a simple answer, so that we don't have to think, because if we think, we might find answers that don't fit the way we want the world to be." religion thinking Terry Pratchett
846c05b Thinking is learning all over again how to see, directing one's consciousness, making of every image a privileged place. the-myth-of-sisyphus thinking thought Albert Camus
aa0165a The study of thinking machines teaches us more about the brain than we can learn by introspective methods. Western man is externalizing himself in the form of gadgets. william-burroughs naked-lunch thinking William S. Burroughs
57718d2 Sleep is like a cat: It only comes to you if you ignore it. I drank more and continued my mantra. 'Stop thinking', swig, 'empty your head', swig, 'now, seriously empty your head'. sleep thoughts drinking binging empty-your-head ignoring playing-hard-to-get stop-thinking talking-to-yourself voices-inside-your-head thinking-process the-mind self-assurance murphy-s-law mantra insomnia sleeping alone cat ignorance thinking cats alcoholic lonely Gillian Flynn
1c76e6b The thing about living alone is that it gives you a lot of time to think. You don't necessarily reach any conclusions, because wisdom is largely a function of intelligence and self-awareness, not time on your hands. But you do become very good at thinking yourself into endless loops of desperation in half the time it would take a normal person. thoughts wisdom thinking desperation Jonathan Tropper
12d1771 Thinking can only serve to measure out the helplessness of thought. ego helplessness perception thinking thought H. Rider Haggard
b13b73b The zipper displaces the button and a man lacks just that much time to think while dressing at dawn, a philosophical hour, and thus a melancholy hour. progress philosophical philosophy dressing innovation melancholy thinking thought introspection Ray Bradbury
c9b8790 I don't have time to feel sorry for myself. I've got to think. using-your-brain gemma-doyle libba-bray thinking Libba Bray
233bb9c While some of us act without thinking, too many of us think without acting. thinking Dan Millman
731845b I swear to you that to think too much is a disease, a real, actual disease. thinking Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28a84a5 While you can't control your experiences, you can control your explanations. optimism speculations thinking thought Martin E.P. Seligman
67b7825 "Extroverts are more likely to take a quick-and-dirty approach to problem-solving, trading accuracy for speed, making increasing numbers of mistakes as they go, and abandoning ship altogether when the problem seems too difficult or frustrating. Introverts think before they act, digest information thoroughly, stay on task longer, give up less easily, and work more accurately. Introverts and extroverts also direct their attention differently: if you leave them to their own devices, the introverts tend to sit around wondering about things, imagining things, recalling events from their past, and making plans for the future. The extroverts are more likely to focus on what's happening around them. It's as if extroverts are seeing "what is" while their introverted peers are asking "what if." focus problem-solving processing-information tendencies thought-patterns extroverts introverts thinking Susan Cain
7296421 Sometimes thinking is like talking to another person, but that person is also you. thoughts thinking Terry Pratchett
859abae It is one of the unexpected disasters of the modern age that our new unparalleled access to information has come at the price of our capacity to concentrate on anything much. The deep, immersive thinking which produced many of civilization's most important achievements has come under unprecedented assault. We are almost never far from a machine that guarantees us a mesmerizing and libidinous escape from reality. The feelings and thoughts which we have omitted to experience while looking at our screens are left to find their revenge in involuntary twitches and our ever-decreasing ability to fall asleep when we should. reality achievements electronics information thinking concentration Alain de Botton
e10edc0 Saying that studying the brain is limited to the study of physical entities would be like saying that literary criticism must focus on paper and bookbinding, ink and its chemistry, page sizes and margin widths, typefaces and paragraph lengths, and so forth. structure thinking Douglas R. Hofstadter
31d92a1 The greatest enemy of good thinking is busyness. contemplation thinking John C. Maxwell
3d9e10e We have a language that is full of ambiguities; we have a way of expressing ourselves that is often complex and elusive, poetic and modulated; all our thoughts can be rendered with absolute clarity if we bother to put the right dots and squiggles between the words in the right places. Proper punctuation is both the sign and the cause of clear thinking. If it goes, the degree of intellectual impoverishment we face is unimaginable. punctuation language thinking Lynne Truss
33ca9fa "Man's mind is his basic tool of survival. Life is given to him, survival is not. His body is given to him, its sustenance is not. His mind is given to him, its content is not. To remain alive, he must act, and before he can act he must know the nature and purpose of his action. He cannot obtain his food without a knowledge of food and of the way to obtain it. He cannot dig a ditch - or build a cyclotron - without a knowledge of his aim and of the means to achieve it. To remain alive, he must think. philosophy foce galt thinking Ayn Rand
eb57548 Stefan shook his head. , he thought. guts thinking Tamora Pierce
294fa04 Thinking is generally thought of as doing nothing in a production-oriented society, and doing nothing is hard to do. It's best done by disguising it as doing something, and the something closest to doing nothing is walking. thinking walking Rebecca Solnit
6441c4a Pondering is a little like considering and a little like thinking, but looser. To ponder, one must let the facts roll around the rim of the mind's roulette wheel, coming to settle in whichever slot they feed pulled to. fluke moore thinking Christopher Moore
bf865e1 He was alone with his thoughts. They were extremely unpleasant thoughts and he would rather have had a chaperon. solitude thoughts thinking depressed scared Douglas Adams
3346b23 And sometimes I try to stop speculating the future out of existence, and other times I just lean back and run with it because maybe it's for the best. reminiscing thinking Bryan Lee O'Malley
43ee091 And Siobhan says people go on holidays to see new things and relax, but it wouldn't make me relaxed and you can see new things by looking at earth under a microscope or drawing the shape of the solid made when 3 circular rods of equal thickness intersect at right angles. And I think that there are so many things just in one house that it would take years to think about all of them properly. And also, a thing is interesting because of thinking about it and not because of it being new. interesting vacation new thinking Mark Haddon
9abef4d I have never distinguished readily between thinking and dreaming. I know my life would be much different if I could ever say, This I have learned from my senses, while that I have merely imagined. reality thinking Marilynne Robinson
15e51da A thinking mind is not swallowed up by what it comes to know. It reaches out to grasp something related to itself and to its present knowledge (and so knowable in some degree) but also separate from itself and from its present knowledge (not identical with these). In any act of thinking, the mind must reach across this space between known and unknown, linking one to the other but also keeping visible to difference. It is an erotic space. eros-the-bittersweet thinking knowledge thought Anne Carson
23e434b The dull mind, once arriving at an inference that flatters the desire, is rarely able to retain the impression that the notion from which the inference started was purely problematic. fallacy thinking George Eliot
83a6e38 Intellectual labor is a common technique for the avoidance of thinking. peter-straub thinking Peter Straub
45a920e The momentum of the mind can be vexingly, involuntarily capricious. mind-thoughts moody thinkers mood think thinking Gregory Maguire
2e1b39a "Let me alone," said Mildred "Let alone!" He almost cried out with laughter. "Letting you alone is easy, but how can I leave alone? That's what's wrong. We need to be let alone. We need to be upset and stirred and bothered, once in a while, anyway. Nobody bothers anymore. Nobody thinks. Let a baby alone, why don't you? What would you have in twenty years? A savage, unable to think or talk--like us!" books bothered savage talking thinking Ray Bradbury
86c3cc8 I'm just capable of entertaining the fantastic idea that, in certain circumstances, might actually be capable of thinking. It must be worth a go, since we've tried everything else. people living life-lessons life-philosophy thinking Terry Pratchett
0e2b269 Sometimes I closed my eyes hard to avoid thinking, but the eye of the mind refused to be closed and continued to plague me with images. images thinking Ishmael Beah
94c55f3 You weren't thinking and you weren't paying attention either. People who don't pay attention often get stuck in the Doldrums. thinking Norton Juster
0204a6d But Mr. Hale resolved that he would not be disturbed by any such nonsensical idea; so he lay awake, determining not to think about it. thinking Elizabeth Gaskell
388866a No, no - I think about thinking thinking Douglas R. Hofstadter
297cf51 It seems as if I can only thing if I write my journal, it just connects the part of my head that is busy doing things with the part that is busy thinking about everything else. I know all these pepole are so busy because they love each other and me. We are a noisy crowd of love writing thinking Nancy E. Turner
f70e64a I've had enough of these streets that sweat a cold, yellow slime, of hostile people, of crying myself to sleep every night. I've had enough of thinking, enough of remembering. sleep people hostile slime streets sweat enough cry crying thinking remembering Jean Rhys
973bffe "My dad said to me a few years ago: "There's no harm in thinking." We were talking about Crazy Uncle Albert and whether it was right to use your brain to build weapons. He said, "You can't expect people not to think. Not to know things just because they COULD be bad." I said, "Yeah, but then they built it and a hundred thousand people died." My dad laughed and said there were a lot of steps between the thinking and the doing. Which I know, duh. All I was saying is that when you think of doing something, you don't always know the consequences. For a while people THOUGHT about building the bomb, but nothing happened. In the end it was a lot of different people doing a lot of different things, most of which had nothing to do with the bomb, that did make it happen. I think about that sometimes. Who was the person who had the first thought, the one that started it all? And after they had the thought, what was the first thing they did? I know my uncle never thought, Hey, all this great science- one day I'll use it to kill a whole bunch of people. You just look at his picture; he's not that kind of person. And yet, I guess in a way he sort of is." head-games judith-ellis mariah-fredericks thinking Mariah Fredericks
841375e There is still a popular fantasy, long since disproved by both psychoanalysis and science, and never believed by any poet or mystic, that it is possible to have a thought without a feeling. It isn't. When we are objective we are subjective too. When we are neutral we are involved. When we say 'I think' we don't leave our emotions outside the door. To tell someone not to be emotional is to tell them to be dead. thoughts feelings objectivity subjectivity thinking Jeanette Winterson
a5c8412 ... in moments of crisis our thoughts do not run consecutively but rather sweep over us in waves or intuition and experience ... intuition experience thinking John le Carré
c9cedef Tabini was at least canny enough in the differences between atevi and human to know that, gut level, he might think he understood - but chances were very good that he wouldn't, couldn't, and never would, unaided by the paidhi, come up with the right forecast of human behavior because he didn't come with the right hardwiring. Average people didn't analyze what they thought: they thought they thought, and half of it was gut reaction. gut-reaction think thinking instinct C.J. Cherryh
4ef014f There is a devilishly direct relationship between the significance of an idea and how nervous we become at the prospect of having to think about it. life significance thinking decisions ideas Alain de Botton
646cfda ...he quit drinking coffee, and naturally, his brain stopped working. humor coffee thinking Orhan Pamuk
46c6172 This mournful and restless sound was a fit accompaniment to my meditations. suicide mourning depression empathy sadness music heartbreak heart love mournful ruminating tradgedy lost-love thinking regret lost nostalgia Joseph Conrad
95bfcb8 Ever been in a spelling bee as a kid? That snowy second after the announcement of the word as you sift your brain to see if you can spell it? It was like that, the blank panic. thoughts anxious blank-mind going-blank lost-thoughts the-human-mind spelling-bee the-mind panic-attack brain forgetting panic thinking Gillian Flynn
e19a724 I like walking because it is slow, and I suspect that the mind, like the feet, works at about three miles an hour. If this is so, then modern life is moving faster than the speed of thought or thoughtfulness. time thoughtfulness slow reflection thinking walking modernity technology Rebecca Solnit
d99e94c Another way to look at meditation is to view the process of thinking itself as a waterfall, a continual cascading of thought. In cultivating mindfulness we are going beyond or behind our thinking, much the way you might find a vantagepoint in a cave or depression in a rock behind a waterfall. We still see and hear the water, but we are out of the torrent. beyond-thinking cascading-of-thought cultivating-mindfulness process-of-thought mindfulness waterfall meditation thinking Jon Kabat-Zinn
958e313 Man has been called a rational being, but rationality is a matter of choice -- and the alternative his nature offers him is: rational being or suicidal animal. Man has to be man -- by choice; he has to hold his life as a value -- by choice; he has to learn to sustain it -- by choice; he has to discover the values it requires and practice his virtues -- by choice. A code of values accepted by choice is a code of morality. virtue man mind good morality choice reason life philosophy john-galt pursuit-of-happiness objectivism rational think thinking morals values evil Ayn Rand
667b300 Thinking is man's only basic virtue, from which all the others proceed. And his basic vice, the source of all his evils, is that nameless act which all of you practice, but struggle never to admit: the act of blanking out, the willful suspension of one's consciousness, the refusal to think - not blindness, but the refusal to see; not ignorance, but the refusal to know. It is the act of unfocusing your mind and inducing an inner fog to escape the responsibility of judgment - on the unstated premise that a thing will not exist if only you refuse to identify it, that A will not be A so long as you do not pronounce the verdict 'It is. virtue man mind good morality reason life philosophy truth wisdom john-galt pursuit-of-happiness objectivism rational think thinking morals values evil Ayn Rand
0578d80 "I want a big breakfast," said Fuchsia at last. "I want a lot to eat, I'm going to think today." -- thinking Mervyn Peake
e9eb968 I can't think again. Not ever again. I don't know if you've ever felt like that. That you wanted to sleep for a thousand years. Or just not exist. Or just not be aware that you do exist. Or something like that. I think wanting that is very morbid, but I want it when I get like this. That's why I'm trying not to think. I just want it all to stop spinning. thinking ptsd trauma Stephen Chbosky
fa837b5 The mind is an intricate mechanism that can be run on the fuels of both victory and defeatism. optimism emotions thinking pessimism Pat Conroy
4d8a81e It seems that we had...not a better education, per se, but perhaps more incentive to use it. They learn, but they hardly think. thinking Ilona Andrews
537f593 Pain is a good cleanser of the mind and therefore of the sight. Matters which seem to mean the world, in health, are found to be of no import when pain is hard upon you. pain mind sight thinking Richard Llewellyn
4bb7abf Sometimes what you think is an end is only a beginning. And that wouldn't do at all. thinking Agatha Christie
dc63d71 When a person pauses in mid-sentence to choose a word, that's the best time to jump in and change the subject! It's like an interception in football! You grab the others guy's idea and run the opposite way with it! The more sentences you complete, the higher your score! The idea is to block the other guy's thoughts and express your own! That's how you win! Conversations aren't contests! Ok, a point for you, but I'm still ahead. thoughts humour speaking thinking ideas Bill Watterson
c1c2757 Some people are pragmatists, taking things as they come and making the best of the choices available. Some people are idealists, standing for principle and refusing to compromise. And some people just act on any whim that enters their heads. I wonder which one YOU are. I pragmatically turn my whims into principles! thoughts realist pragmatist whimsical spontaneity thinking principles Bill Watterson
755ed73 That's all that brave means - not thinking about the dangers. Just thinking about what you must do. Of course you were frightened. I was too, today. But you kept your mind on what you had to do. fear doing thinking Lois Lowry
0179f0b For the first time she could see a man's head naked of its skull. Saw the cunning thoughts race in and out through the caves and promontories of his mind long before they darted through the tunnel of his mouth. man woman mind thoughts thinking Zora Neale Hurston
1a2462e And when I am in a new place, because I see everything, it is like when a computer is doing too many things at the same time and the central processor unit is blocked up and there isn't any space left to think about other things. And when I am in a new place and there are lots of people there it is even harder because people are not like cows and flowers and grass and they can talk to you and do things that you don't expect, so you have to notice everything that is in the place, and also you have to notice things that might happen as well. And sometimes when I am in a new place and there are lots of people there it is like a computer crashing and I have to close my eyes and put my hands over my ears and groan, which is like pressing CTRL + ALT + DEL and shutting down programs and turning the computer off and rebooting so that I can remember what I am doing and where I am meant to be going. people going-out thinking Mark Haddon
3a71a5f Independence is the recognition of the fact that yours is the responsibility of judgment and nothing can help you escape it--that no substitute can do your thinking--that the vilest form of self-abasement and self-destruction is the subordination of your mind to the mind of another, the acceptance of an authority over your brain, the acceptance of his assertions as facts, his say-so as truth, his edicts as middle-man between your consciousness and your existence. virtue pain man mind good independence morality reason happiness life philosophy truth wisdom john-galt pursuit-of-happiness objectivism rational think thinking morals values evil Ayn Rand
3297c43 Happiness is the successful state of life, pain is an agent of death. Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one's values. A morality that dares to tell you to find happiness in the renunciation of your happiness--to value the failure of your values--is an insolent negation of morality. virtue man mind good morality reason happiness life philosophy john-galt pursuit-of-happiness objectivism rational think thinking morals values evil Ayn Rand
e259b27 There is no way to help a learner to be disciplined, active, and thoroughly engaged unless he perceives a problem to be a problem or whatever is to-be-learned as worth learning, and unless he plays an active role in determining the process of solution. learning inquiry thinking teaching Neil Postman
46d7707 Not your thinking, but your being, is distinctiveness. Therefore not after difference, ye think it, must ye strive; but after YOUR OWN BEING. At bottom, therefore, there is only one striving, namely, the striving after your own being. distinctiveness striving thinking C.G. Jung
8aaf2aa Once, I remember, we came upon a man-of-war anchored off the coast. There wasn't even a shed there, and she was shelling the bush. It appears the French had one of their wars going on thereabouts. Her ensign dropped limp like a rag; the muzzles of the long six-inch guns stuck out all over the low hull; the greasy, slimy swell swung her up lazily and let her down, swaying her thin masts. In the empty immensity of earth, sky, and water, there she was, incomprehensible, firing into a continent. Pop, would go one of the six-inch guns; a small flame would dart and vanish, a little white smoke would disappear, a tiny projectile would give a feeble screech--and nothing happened. Nothing could happen. There was a touch of insanity in the proceeding, a sense of lugubrious drollery in the sight; and it was not dissipated by somebody on board assuring me earnestly there was a camp of natives--he called them enemies!--hidden out of sight somewhere. life hypocrisy thinking Joseph Conrad
96f06a0 God is not honored by groundless love. In fact, there is no such thing. If we do not know anything about God, there is nothing in our mind to awaken love. If love does not come from knowing God, there is no point in calling it love . love thinking knowledge John Piper
9c425e3 Life is a process of self-sustaining and self-generated action. If an organism fails in that action, it dies...It is only the concept of 'Life' that makes the concept of 'Value' possible. It is only to a living entity that things can be good or evil. virtue man mind good morality reason life philosophy john-galt pursuit-of-happiness objectivism think thinking morals values evil Ayn Rand
ffb3f5d "But it is not time constraints alone that produce such fragmented and discontinuous language. When a television show is in process, it is very nearly impermissible to say, "Let me think about that" or "I don't know" or "What do you mean when you say...?" or "From what sources does your information come?" This type of discourse not only slows down the tempo of the show but creates the impression of uncertainty or lack of finish. It tends to reveal people in the , which is as disconcerting and boring on television as it is on a Las Vegas stage. Thinking does not play well on television, a fact that television directors discovered long ago. There is not much to in it. It is, in a phrase, not a performing art. But television demands a performing art." television intelligence public-discourse thinking Neil Postman
8d6b22d Thinking is the soul speaking to itself. medication thinking Rebecca Goldstein
d4aa10e Rationality is the recognition of the fact that existence exists, that nothing can alter the truth and nothing can take precedence over that act of perceiving it, which is thinking--that the mind is one's only judge of values and one's only guide of action--that reason is an absolute that permits no compromise--that a concession to the irrational invalidates one's consciousness and turns it from the task of perceiving to the task of faking reality--that the alleged short-cut to knowledge, which is faith, is only a short-circuit destroying the mind--that the acceptance of a mystical invention is a wish for the annihilation of existence and, properly, annihilates one's consciousness. virtue pain man mind good morality reason happiness life philosophy truth wisdom john-galt pursuit-of-happiness objectivism rational think thinking morals values evil Ayn Rand
a514c2b Existence is Identity, Consciousness is Identification. virtue man mind existence morality reason life philosophy truth wisdom john-galt pursuit-of-happiness objectivism rational think consciousness thinking morals values Ayn Rand
4c555ad Are you seeking to know what is wrong with the world? All the disasters that have wrecked your world, came from your leaders' attempt to evade the fact that A is A. All the secret evil you dread to face within you and all the pain you have ever endured, came from your own attempt to evade the fact that A is A. virtue man mind good morality reason life philosophy truth wisdom john-galt pursuit-of-happiness objectivism rational think thinking morals values evil Ayn Rand
1a2e991 Our minds are always active. We analyze, reflect, daydream, or dream. There is not a moment during the day or night when we are not thinking. You might say our thinking is 'unceasing.' Sometimes we wish that we could stop thinking for a while; that would save us from many worries, guilt feelings, and fears. Our ability to think is our greatest gift, but it is also the source of our greatest pain. Do we have to become victims of our unceasing thoughts? No, we can convert our unceasing thinking into unceasing prayer by making our inner monologue into a continuing dialogue with our God, who is the source of all love. Let's break out of our isolation and realize that Someone who dwells in the center of our beings wants to listen with love to all that occupies and preoccupies our minds. prayer thinking Henri J.M. Nouwen
de627a5 If you can change the way people think, she said.The way they see themselves.The way they see the world.If you do that, you can change the way people live their lives.And that's the only lasting thing you can create. thinking Chuck Palahniuk
6246715 Pride is no respecter of persons. The serious thinkers may be humble, and the careless mystics may be arrogant. thinking pride John Piper
34e4e51 "Not much goes on in the mind of a squirrel. Huge portions of what is loosely termed "the squirrel brain" are given over to one thought: food. The average squirrel cogitation goes something like this: ." thoughts rodents squirrels brains thinking food Kate DiCamillo
3cef2f5 What are wits for unless a man uses them? wits thinking Ellis Peters
d2cce05 The humility of wisdom is the happy consciousness that all things come from God, are sustained by God, and exist for God. This wisdom is rooted in the pride-destroying, joy-giving cross of Christ. wisdom humility thinking John Piper
123cb60 Meditation does not involve trying to change your thinking by thinking some more. It involves watching thought itself. The watching is the holding. By watching your thoughts without being drawn into them, you can learn something profoundly liberating about thinking itself, which may help you to be less of a prisoner of those thought patterns (....) holding-thought liberation-about-thinking not-drawn-into-thought watching-thought mindfulness meditation thought-patterns thinking Jon Kabat-Zinn
5d406ec Once a man began thinking with his body, intelligent decisions came few and far between. thinking Tanya Huff
1efda71 Or was Chris thinking, as I was, that if we went to the police and told our story, our faces would be splashed on the front pages of every newspaper in the country? Would the glare of publicity make up for what we'd lose? Our privacy-our need to stay together? Could we lose each other just to get even? story front-page newpaper faces lose together privacy newspapers thinking police stories V.C. Andrews
5baad92 Loving God with all our mind means that love thinking John Piper
5acec87 For every fact there is an infinity of hypotheses. The more you look the more you see. thoughts mindfulness possibilities perspective zen thinking questions ideas Robert M. Pirsig
17e41ab Our past thinking has determined our present status, and our present thinking will determine our future status; for man is what man thinks. present thoughts past thinking C.G. Jung
e5cf665 A foolish German had said that man thought in words. It was totally false; a pernicious doctrine; the thoughts flashed into being in a hundred simultaneous forms, with a thousand associations, and the speaking mind selected one, forming it grossly into the inadequate symbols of words, inadequate because common to disparate situations - admitted to be inadequate for vast regions of expression, since for them there were the parallel languages of music and painting. Words were not called for in many or indeed most forms of thought: Mozart certainly thought in terms of music. He himself at this moment was thinking in terms of scent. mind thinking Patrick O'Brian
25a53fe Go. Think. Turn black into white. Night into day. I am tired of thinking. I know where it will lead me and I don't Want to be there. Go love. Do your thinking. thinking Walter Dean Myers
e19ab2f 'n ltklm hw kynwn@ 'yDan . flym@ w lklm@ hm fkr lnsn . wyjb `dm ltHdth jzfan wdwn hdf talking thinking Isabel Allende
862ff92 To feel everything in every way; to be able to think with the emotions and feel with the mind; not to desire much except with the imagination; to suffer with haughtiness; to see clearly so as to write accurately; to know oneself through diplomacy and dissimulation; to become naturalized as a different person, with all the necessary documents; in short, to use all sensations but only on the inside, peeling them all down to God and then wrapping everything up again and putting it back in the shop window like the sales assistant I can see from here with the small tins of a new brand of shoe polish. stream-of-consciousness poetic thinking Fernando Pessoa
3379f7f A man cannot think himself out of mental evil; for it is actually the organ of thought that has become diseased, ungovernable, and, as it were, independent. He can only be saved by will or faith. The moment his mere reason moves, it moves in the old circular rut; he will go round and round his logical circle. thinking G.K. Chesterton
7b5df7e By all kinds of traps and sign-boards, threatening the extreme penalty of the divine law, exclude such trespassers from the only ground which can be sacred to you. It is so hard to forget what it is worse than useless to remember! If I am to be a thoroughfare, I prefer that it be of the mountain-brooks, the Parnassian streams, and not the town-sewers. There is inspiration, that gossip which comes to the ear of the attentive mind from the courts of heaven. There is the profane and stale revelation of the bar-room and the police court. The same ear is fitted to receive both communications. Only the character of the hearer determines to which it shall be open, and to which closed. I believe that the mind can be permanently profaned by the habit of attending to trivial things, so that all our thoughts shall be tinged with triviality. Our very intellect shall be macadamized, as it were,--its foundation broken into fragments for the wheels of travel to roll over; and if you would know what will make for the most durable pavement, surpassing rolled stones, spruce blocks, and asphaltum, you have only to look into some of our minds which have been subjected to this treatment so long. mind thoughts meaning trivia gossip thinking intellect Henry David Thoreau
356d30f He sat down and collected his thoughts. They were quite easy to collect, because there weren't very many of them, and they all concerned the same subject--what a burden his life was. thoughts life troubles thinking Philip Pullman
afc0d32 You need to be so careful when there is one simple diagnosis that instantly pops into your mind that beautifully explains everything all at once. That's when you need to stop and check your thinking...Beware of the delirious guy in the emergency unit with the long history of alcoholism, because you will say, 'He's just drunk,' and you'll miss the subdural hematoma. redelmeier pattern-recognition decision-making thinking Michael Lewis
3d85b76 An unrested mind is prone to wander into unfruitful avenues; it is nothing that a good night's sleep cannot cure. sleep rest thinking Diane Setterfield
9a7397f pg.90 of Philosophy in the Flesh: We are basing our argument on the existence of at least three stable scientific findings--the embodied mind, the cognitive unconscious, and metaphorical thought. Just as the ideas of cells and DNA in biology are stable and not likely to be found to be mistakes, so we believe that there is more than enough converging evidence to establish at least these three results. Ironically, these scientific results challenge the classical philosophical view of scientific realism, a disembodied objective scientific realism that can be characterized by the following three claims: 1. There is a world independent of our understanding of it. 2. We can have stable knowledge of it. 3. Our very concepts and forms of reason are characterized not by our bodies and brains, but by the external world in itself. It follows that scientific truths are not merely truths as we understand them, but absolute truths. Obiviously, we accept (1) and (2) and we believe that (2) applies to the three findings of cognitive science we are discussing on the basis of converging evidence. But those findings themselves contradict (3). science religion-philosophy thoughts-of-the-mind western-philosophy philosophy-of-science religion-and-philoshophy philosophy-of-life thinking George Lakoff
cdecef8 The power of knowing, in that first two seconds, is not a gift given magically to a fortunate few. It is an ability that we can all cultivate for ourselves. knowing thinking Malcolm Gladwell
3cb0320 Knowing and thinking exist for the sake of love -- for the sake of building people up in faith. Thinking that produces pride instead of love is not true thinking. love thinking pride John Piper
da1b5b6 "She shakily rushed towards the car to find Alecto casually standing beside it, smoking a cigarette and staring fixedly on the radio as it played the song 'Draggin' the Line' by Tommy James, his expression thoughtful. "What are you thinking about?" Mandy questioned. "Wouldn't the world be a very loud place to live if we said everything we thought?" Alecto asked quietly." live mind world music song dragging tommy-james noisy cigarette line place quiet radio thinking question loud noise thought smoking Rebecca McNutt
5c0859a It's just that it's fearsome for a man to have a woman start thinking right in front of him. It always leads to trouble. woman fear fearsome thinking Larry McMurtry
293a6a1 I like to see the people arriving. I like to imagine their lives. It keeps me from thinking too much about my own. A man shouldn't be too introspective. It weakens him. That is the difference between Tennessee Williams and Ernest Hemingway. I'm a Hemingway man myself although I don't believe it is right to hunt lions. life tennessee-williams hunting thinking lives introspection Jeanette Winterson
7c0acb4 Well, I like to know where I'm going before I try to get there. It's a mistake to try to execute a plan before you've thought of one, in my experience. travel plans thinking planning Max Barry
015de01 Perhaps trust had to be accompanied by a measure of common sense, and a hefty dose of realism about human nature. But that would need a lot of thinking about, and the tea break did not go on forever. trust thinking Alexander McCall Smith
66c2290 What's emerging from the pattern of my own life is the for belief that the crisis is being caused by the inadequacy of existing forms of thought to cope with the situation. It can't be solved by rational means because the rationality itself is the source of the problem. The only ones who're solving it are solving it at a personal level by abandoning 'square' rationality altogether and going by feelings alone. Like John and Sylvia here. And millions of others like them. And that seems like a wrong direction too. So I guess what I'm trying to say is that the solution to the problem isn't that you abandon rationality but that you expand the nature of rationality so that it's capable of coming up with a solution. thoughts philosophy modern-problems solutions rational thinking Robert M. Pirsig
a2d40b1 Now we've a real intellectual impasse. Our reason, which is supposed to make things more intelligible, seems to be making them less intelligible, and when reason thus defeats its own purpose something has to be changed in the structure of our reason itself. reason intelligence philosophy rationale reasoning thinking logic Robert M. Pirsig
0d896f6 Solve problems, make art, think deeply. life life-philosophy introversion make-art solve-problems think-deeply thinking Susan Cain
9b7c163 When I'm in turmoil, when I can't think, when I'm exhausted and afraid and feeling very, very alone, I go for walks. It's just one of those things I do. I walk and I walk and sooner or later something comes to me, something to make me feel less like jumping off a building. thinking turmoil walk walking Jim Butcher
88fa95b "Mother's intentions were always sound, never muddy; I don't imagine that she troubled herself to feel very guilty. But the Rev. Mr. Merrill was a man who took to wallowing in guilt; his remorse, after all, was all he had to cling to-especially after his scant courage left him, and he was forced to acknowledge that he would never be brave enough to abandon his miserable wife and children for my mother. He would continue to torture himself, of course, with the insistent and self-destructive notion that he loved my mother. I suppose that his "love" of my mother was as intellectually detached from feeling and action as his "belief" was also subject to his immense capacity for remote and unrealistic interpretation. My mother was a healthier animal; when he said he wouldn't leave his family for her, she simply put him out of her mind and went on singing. But as incapable as he was of a heartfelt response to a real situation, the Rev. Mr. Merrill was tirelessly capable of thinking; he pondered and brooded and surmised and second-guessed my mother to death." remorse thinking guilt John Irving
6f1feb1 The whole procedure of his thinking, Jason knew, was an imbecilic exercise; there was no compelling reason for him to seek an answer. And yet his mind bored on and on and he could not stop it, hanging with desperation to an impossibility to which it never should have paid attention. mind worry thinking Clifford D. Simak
1cd2c88 Some ideas are dangerous. women philosophy thinking Donna Woolfolk Cross
393a3fd Logiskai maste, o paskui elgesi logiska isvada. Taciau daugelis is musu, itariu, daro priesingai: priima instinktyvu sprendima, paskui kuria priezasciu infrastruktura jam pateisinti. O rezultata pavadina sveiku protu. thinking Julian Barnes
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