quotations about thought
Words are but the shining garments of Thought.
EDWIN LEIBFREED
"The Song of the Soul"
Good thoughts are apt to vanish away if they be not speedily embodied in good actions.
JOHN THORNTON
Maxims and Directions for Youth
It's the thought that counts.
SWEDISH PROVERB
Nothing in this world requires such long seasoning and ripening as new thoughts.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
Only in thought is man a God; in action and desire we are the slaves of circumstance.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
letter to Lucy Donnely, November 25, 1902
Second thoughts are the adopted children of experience.
ELIZA COOK
"Diamond Dust", Eliza Cook's Journal, Volume 3
Thought breeds thought; children familiar with great thoughts take as naturally to thinking for themselves as the well-nourished body takes to growing; and we must bear in mind that growth, physical, intellectual, moral, spiritual, is the sole end of education.
CHARLOTTE M. MASON
The Original Home Schooling Series
Thoughts ... have tarried in my mind and peopled its inner chambers,
The sober children of reason, or desultory train of fancy.
MARTIN FARQUHAR TUPPER
Proverbial Philosophy
Thoughts are no more than electrical surges in the brain.
ALAN LIGHTMAN
Einstein's Dreams
A thought by thought is piled, till some great truth
Is loosened, and the nations echo round,
Shaken to their roots, as do the mountains now.
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
Prometheus Unbound
A word devoid of thought is a dead thing, and a thought unembodied in words remains a shadow.
LEV S. VYGOTSKY
Thought and Language
Man being made a reasonable, and so a thinking creature, there is nothing more worthy of his being, than the right direction and employment of his thoughts; since upon this depends both his usefulness to the public, and his own present and future benefit in all respects.
WILLIAM PENN
Some Fruits of Solitude
Thought and action are the jailers of Fate -- they imprison, being base; they are also the angels of Freedom -- they liberate being noble.
JAMES ALLEN
As a Man Thinketh
Thought is not made in a vacuum, nor created out of likeness. It requires travel and shipping and the coming and going of strangers to impregnate a civilization. That is why thought has flourished in cities which lie along the paths of communication. Nineveh, Athens, Alexandria, Rome, Venice, the Hansa towns, London, Paris -- they have made ideas out of the movement and contact of many people. Men are jostled into thought. Left alone they spin the same thread from the same dream. A community which is self-contained and homogeneous and secluded is intellectually deaf, dumb, and blind. It can cultivate robust virtue and simple dogmatism, but it will not invent or throw out a profusion of ideas.
WALTER LIPPMANN
The Stakes of Diplomacy
Thought is valuable in proportion as it is generative.
EDWARD BULWER LYTTON
Caxtoniana
Trying to write an inspiring memoir while repressing such thoroughly uninspiring thoughts is a path to madness.
RON CHARLES
"'Woman No. 17' a juice box of suburban satire", Denver Post, May 26, 2017
You could attach prices to thoughts. Some cost a lot, some a little. And how does one pay for thoughts? The answer, I think, is: with courage.
LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN
Culture and Value
Action helps thought, and thought helps action. By action thought is rendered more masculine, attains to greater breadth, and acquires a certain nobleness and dignity. Thanks to thought, action may become more definite, more precise, more fruitful.
ALFRED AUSTIN
The Bridling of Pegasus
And yet, as angels in some brighter dreams
Call to the soul when man doth sleep,
So some strange thoughts transcend our wonted themes,
And into glory peep.
HENRY VAUGHN
They are all gone into the World of Light
Great thoughts come from the heart.
LUC DE CLAPIERS, MARQUIS DE VAUVENARGUES
Reflections and Maxims