Mind wandering has a long history in mind creativity. Horizon – The Creative Brain: How Insight Works, BBC 2013
Whoso would be a man must be a non-conformist ... Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. Ralph Waldo Emerson
The mind acts like an enemy for those who do not control it. Bhagavad Gita
The disunited mind is far from wise; how can it meditate? How be at peace? When you know no peace, how can you know joy? ibid.
The mind is restless and difficult to restrain, but it is subdued by practice. ibid.
Little by little, through patience and repeated effort, the mind will become stilled in the Self. ibid.
One gradually attains tranquillity of mind by keeping the mind fully absorbed in the Self by means of a well-trained intellect, and thinking of nothing else. ibid. 14:24
And the first problem with having a mind, Montaigne thought, is that it makes for awkward relations with our bodies. Alain de Botton, Philosophy: Montaigne on Self-Esteem, Channel 4 2000
Montaigne was inviting us not to be humiliated by aspects of ourselves. ibid.
For it is in your power to retire into yourself whenever you choose. Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
The diversity of our opinions, consequently, does not arise from some being endowed with a larger share of reason than others, but solely from this, that we conduct our thoughts along different ways, and do not fix our attention on the same objects. For to be possessed of a vigorous mind is not enough; the prime requisite is rightly to apply it. The greatest minds, as they are capable of the highest excellences, are open likewise to the greatest aberrations; and those who travel very slowly may yet make far greater progress, provided they keep always to the straight road, than those who, while they run, forsake it. Rene Descartes, ‘Discourse on Method and Meditations on Philosophy’
The greatest minds are capable of the greatest vices as well as of the greatest virtues. Rene Descartes
It is not good enough to have a good mind; the main thing is to use it well. Rene Descartes
Do you think my mind is maturing late,
Or simply rotted early? Ogden Nash, Lines on Facing Forty, 1942
Anything, anything would be better than this agony of mind, this creeping pain that gnaws and fumbles and caresses one and never hurts quite enough. Jean-Paul Sartre
The wandering outlaw of his own dark mind. Lord Byron, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage
The mind can make
Substance, and people planets of its own
With beings brighter than have been, and give
A breath to forms which can outlive all flesh. Lord Byron, The Dream
Babylon in all its desolation is a sight not so awfyl as that of the human mind in ruins. Scrope Davies, c.1783-1852
Of all ruins that of a noble mind is the most deplorable. Arthur Conan Doyle, His Last Bow, 1917
‘My mind,’ he said, ‘rebels at stagnation. Give me problems, give me work, give me the most abstruse cryptogram or the most intricate analysis, and I am in my own proper atmosphere. I can dispense then with artificial stimulants. But I abhor the dull routine of existence. I crave for mental exaltation. That is why I have chosen my own particular profession, or rather created it, for I am the only one in the world.’ Arthur Conan Doyle, The Sign of Four
For those whom God to ruin has designed,
He fits for fate, and first destroys their mind. John Dryden, 1631-1700, The Hind and the Panther
The mind of a man is capable of anything. Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness
Like all weak men he laid an exaggerated stress on not changing one’s mind. W Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage
Thou canst not touch the freedom of my mind. John Milton, Comus
The mind is its own place, and in it self
Can make a Heav’n of Hell, or a Hell of Heav’n. John Milton, Paradise Lost I: 255-256
Evil into the mind of God or Man
May come and go, so unapproved, and leave
No spot or blame behind. ibid. V:117-119, Adam to Eve
I’ll follow thee, and make a heaven of hell. William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream II i 243
My mind did lose it. ibid. I i 114, Theseus to Lysander
In my mind’s eye. William Shakespeare, Hamlet I ii 184, Hamlet to Horatio
To be, or not to be – that is the question.
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? – To die – to sleep –
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to; ’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die – to sleep –
To sleep! Perchance to dream. Aye, there’s the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause. There’s the respect
That makes calamity of so long life.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law’s delay,
The insolence of office...’ ibid. III i 56-73
O! what a noble mind is here o’erthrown:
The courier’s, soldier’s, scholar’s, eye, tongue, sword;
The expectancy and rose of the fair state,
The glass of fashion, and the mould of form,
The observed of all observers, quite, quite down. ibid. III i 150
Now see that noble and most sovereign reason,
Like sweet balls jangled, out of tune and harsh. ibid. ibid. III i 166
I am a fellow o’ th’ strangest mind i’ th’ world. William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night I iii 108-109, Sir Andrew
Good faith, how foolish are our minds! William Shakespeare, Othello IV iii 22, Desdemona
When the mind’s free
The body’s delicate. This tempest in my mind
Doth from my senses take all feeling else
Save what beats there. William Shakespeare, The History of King Lear III iv 12, Lear
Where have I been? Where am I? Fair daylight? ibid. IV v 50, Lear
I am a very foolish, fond old man,
Fourscore and upward, not an hour more or less;
And, to deal plainly,
I fear I am not in my perfect mind. ibid. IV vii @60
O, full of scorpions is my mind. William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of Macbeth III iii 37, Macbeth
Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased?
Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow,
Raze out the written troubles of the brain,
And with some sweet oblivious antidote
Cleanse the stuffed bosom of that perilous stuff
Which weighs upon the heart? ibid. V iii 37
But how is it
That this lives in thy mind? What seeth thou else
In the dark and backward and abyss of time? William Shakespeare, The Tempest I ii @48 Prospero
And rapt in secret studies … To closeness and the bettering of my mind. ibid. I ii 77 & 90 Prospero
My mind to me a kingdom is.
Such perfect joy therein I find
That it excels all other bliss
That would affords or grows by kind.
Though much I want which most would have,
Yet still my mind forbids to crave. Edward Dyer, In Praise of a Contented Mind, 1588