quotations about the mind
When I cannot sing my heart, I can only speak my mind.
JOHN LENNON
"Julia", The White Album
There is an elasticity in the human mind, capable of bearing much, but which will not show itself, until a certain weight of affliction be put upon it; its powers may be compared to those vehicles whose springs are so contrived that they get on smoothly enough when loaded, but jolt confoundedly when they have nothing to bear.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon
The mind commands the body, and it obeys instantly; the mind commands itself, and is resisted.
ST. AUGUSTINE
Confessions
It would seem as if, when the mind was once set apart by the natural consequences of the disease, and secluded from the usual occupations of, and customary contact with, other minds, it searched about through all the universe for causes of trouble and anguish. A certain pain probably exists; and even in insanity, man is so far a rational being that he seeks and craves at least the outside and semblance of a reason for a suffering, which is really and truly without reason. Something must be found to justify its anguish to itself.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Literary Studies
The best way to prove the clearness of our mind, is by showing its faults; as when a stream discovers the dirt at the bottom, it convinces us of the transparency and purity of the water.
ALEXANDER POPE
"Thoughts on Various Subjects"
The mind
Is so hospitable, taking in everything
Like boarders, and you don't see until
It's all over how little there was to learn
Once the stench of knowledge has dissipated.
JOHN ASHBERY
"Houseboat Days"
Mind unemployed is mind unenjoyed.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
Good books are to the young mind what the warming sun and the refreshing rain of spring are to the seeds which have lain dormant in the frosts of winter. They are more, for they may save from that which is worse than death, as well as bless with that which is better than life.
HORACE MANN
Thoughts
Our mind is but a lump of clay
That Fate, grim potter, holds
On sorrow's wheel that rolls away,
And, as he pleases, moulds.
BHARTRHARI
"On Time the Destroyer"
The mind delights most in being led through a mystic maze before reaching the open door.
LEWIS F. KORNS
Thoughts
The propensity to excessive simplification is indeed natural to the mind of man, since it is only by abstraction and generalisation, which necessarily imply the neglect of a multitude of particulars, that he can stretch his puny faculties so as to embrace a minute portion of the illimitable vastness of the universe.
JAMES FRAZER
The Golden Bough
There is not an enemy so stout, as to storm and take the fortress of the mind,
Unless its infirmity turn traitor, and Fear unbar the gates.
MARTIN FARQUHAR TUPPER
Proverbial Philosophy
To see a thing clearly in the mind makes it begin to take form.
HENRY FORD
Theosophist Magazine, February 1930
Like the mind, the computer is useful because it produces information. Computers are also functional because they are able to produce a wide variety of responses that mimic human abilities. As the brain has been compared with the computer, the idea that the mind is a mechanical entity has become more plausible. For example, just as the computer operates on electricity, the brain is now described as an object comprised of electronically sensitive cells or neuron networks. Although the nervous system, which is the controlling agent for the body, continues to be shrouded in mystery, many investigators have found it attractive to equate the mind with the brain and to identify both with the computer.
VICENTE BERDAYES
Computers, Human Interaction, and Organizations
There is nothing mind can do that cannot be better done in the mind's immobility and thought-free stillness.
SRI AUROBINDO
Essays Divine and Human
First, then, I say, that the mind, which we often call the intellect, in which is placed the conduct and government of life, is not less an integral part of man himself, than the hand, and foot, and eyes, are portions of the whole animal.
LUCRETIUS
De Rerum Natura
Different minds incline to different objects; one pursues the vast alone, the wonderful, the wild; another sighs for harmony and grace, and gentlest beauty.
MARK AKENSIDE
The Pleasures of Imagination
The mind self-edits. The mind airbrushes. It's a different thing to be inside a body than outside. From outside, you can look, inspect, compare. From inside there is no comparison.
JEFFREY EUGENIDES
Middlesex
The mind goes on working no matter how we try to hold it back.
FRANK HERBERT
Dune
Some minds are so unclothed that they are indecent.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought