There’s nothing of so infinite vexation
As man’s own thoughts. John Webster, The White Devil
The superior man is broadminded but not partisan; the inferior man is partisan but not broadminded. Confucius, 551-479 B.C.
When everyone is thinking the same, no-one is thinking. John Wooden
I felt a cleaving in my mind
As if my brain had split;
I tried to match it seam by seam,
But could not make it fit.
The thought behind I strove to join
Unto the thought before
But sequence ravelled out of reach
Like balls upon a floor. Emily Dickinson, The Lost Thought
I stood
Among them, but not of them; in a shroud
Of thoughts which we not their thoughts. Lord Byron
He gave men speech, and speech created thought,
Which is the measure of the universe. Percy Bysshe Shelley, Prometheus Unbound
No great improvements in the lot of mankind until a great change takes place in the constitution of their modes of thought. John Stuart Mill
No-one can be a great thinker who does not recognise that as a thinker it is his first duty to follow his intellect to whatever conclusion it may lead. Truth gains more even by the errors of one who, with due study and preparation, thinks for himself, than by the opinions of those who only hold them because they do not suffer themselves to think. John Stuart Mill
Next to selfishness the principle cause which makes Life unsatisfactory is want of mental cultivation. John Stuart Mill
The Khomeini cry for the execution of Rushdie is an infantile cry. From the beginning of time we have seen that. To murder the thinker does not murder the thought. Arnold Wesker
Stung by the splendour of a sudden thought. Robert Browning, A Death in the Desert
Perish the thought! Colley Cibber 1671-1757
Don’t think twice, it’s all right. Bob Dylan, title of song
Some people are aware of another sort of thinking which ... leads to those simple ideas that are obvious only after they have been thought of ... the term ‘lateral thinking’ has been coined to describe this other sort of thinking; ‘vertical thinking’ is used to denote the conventional logical process. Edward de Bono, The Use of Lateral Thinking 1967
Those who know how to think need no teachers. Mahatma Gandhi
I have found power in the mysteries of thought. Euripides, Alcestis 438 B.C.
Take time to deliberate, but when the time for action comes, stop thinking and go in. Napoleon Bonaparte
It is easier to put up with unpleasantness from a man of one’s own way of thinking than from one who takes an entirely different point of view. Napoleon Bonaparte, letter 14th April 1807
The Power of Positive Thinking. Norman Vincent Peale, title of book 1952
He trudged along unknowing what he sought,
And whistled as he went, for want of thought. John Dryden 1631-1700, Cymon and Iophigenia
When all is done and said, in the end thus shall you find,
He most of all doth bathe in bliss that hath a quiet mind;
And, clear from worldly cares, to deem can be content
The sweetest time in all his life in thinking to be spent. Thomas, Lord Vaux, 1510-56, The Pleasures of Thinking
Thought crime is so insidious it creeps up on you. 1984 1984 starring Richard Burton & John Hurt & Suzanna Hamilton & Cyril Cusack & Gregor Fisher & James Walker et al, director Michael Radford, friend to Winston in cell
Thoughtcrime, they called it. Thoughtcrime was not a thing that could be concealed for ever. You might dodge successfully for a while, even for years, but sooner or later they were bound to get you. George Orwell, 1984
But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought. ibid.
Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it. ibid.
The whole climate of thought will be different. In fact there will be no thought, as we understand it now. Orthodoxy means no thinking – not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness. ibid.
Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting them both. ibid.
Thoughts are free; who can guess them?
They flee like nocturnal shadows
No man can shoot them,
As so it will always be: thoughts are free. Author unknown, Die Gedanken Sind Frei, cited Lieder der Brienzer Madchen
The bottom line is that the government is getting what they have ordered. They do not want your children to be educated. They do not want you to think too much. That is why our country and our world has become so proliferated with entertainments, mass media, television shows, amusement parks, drugs, alcohol and every kind of entertainment to keep the human mind entertained, so that you don’t get in the way of important people by doing too much thinking. You had better wake up and understand that there are people who are guiding your life and you don’t even know it. Jordan Maxwell, Matrix of Power
Strive to still your thoughts. Make your mind one-pointed in meditation. Bhagavad Gita
Hidden on the wild coast of South Africa where the Indian Ocean joins the Atlantic there is a cave. Today it is abandoned but once it teemed with life. For here tens of thousands of years ago some of our earliest ancestors lived. Horizon: The Day We Learned to Think, BBC 2003
When did our ancestors cease being brute animals and first become truly human? When did we learn to think? ibid.
For archaeologists this realisation that art, language and thought was all the same thing was a huge breakthrough. Suddenly what they had to look for was clear. Discover the earliest forms of human art and you would have found the day we learned to think. ibid.
And they found more: intricately worked statuettes. Thousands of pieces of jewellery. Here at last in Europe was the evidence archaeologists had been looked for ... And it all dated from the same period: about thirty-five thousand years ago. ibid.
Modern human behaviour had not started in Europe 40,000 years ago but in Africa at least 30,000 years earlier. The human revolution theory had to be wrong ... Like everything else in Nature thought and language had emerged gradually just as the laws of evolution said they should. ibid.
Leo O’Bannon: Come on, Tommy, you know I don’t like to think.
Tommy: Yeah, well think about whether you should start. Miller’s Crossing 1990 starring Gabriel Byrne & Marcia Gay Harden & John Turturro & John Polito & Albert Finney & J E Freeman & Steve Buscemi & John McConnell & Mike Starr & Al Mancini & Olek Krupa & Michael Jeter et al, director Joel Coen
Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours. John Locke
Five percent of the people think;
ten percent of the people think they think;
and the other eighty-five percent would rather die than think. Thomas A Edison
‘Poirot,’ I said. ‘I have been thinking.’
‘An admirable exercise, my friend. Continue it.’ Agatha Christie, Peril at End House
6Stop thinking, and end your problems. Lao Tzu
People don’t like to think. If one thinks, one must reach conclusions. Conclusions are not always pleasant. Helen Keller
Sometimes I think it is a great mistake to have matter that can think and feel. It complains so. By the same token, though, I suppose that boulders and mountains and moons could be accused of being a little too phlegmatic. Kurt Vonnegut