Quotes About Thought

When Rector Alward came over here to preach an anti-Jewish crusade, after some thought I decided that the best thing to do was to have him protected by forty Jewish policemen.

More thought is demanded but more accomplished if we set them up: "Written boldly into the Bible is this phrase . . ." "Paul felt keenly that . . ." "This is what Charles Dickens was trying to tell us when he observed . . ." "You can see the significance of those words embedded in verse 10 . . .

If the ability to tell right from wrong should have anything to do with the ability to think, then we must be able to 'demand' its exercise in every sane person no matter how erudite or ignorant.

Action is, in fact, the one miracle-working faculty of man, as Jesus of Nazareth, whose insights into this faculty can be compared in their originality and unprecedentedness with Socrates' insights into the possibilities of thought, must have known very well when he likened the power to forgive to the more general power of performing miracles, putting both on the same level and within the reach of man.

La pensée se dédouble entre pensée abstraite et jugement dès qu'elle fait intervenir le dialogue avec soi.

Since no one is capable of forming his own opinion without the benefit of a multitude of opinions held by others, the rule of public opinion endangers even the opinion of those few who may have the strength not to share it. This is one of the reasons for the curiously sterile negativism of all opinions which oppose a popularly acclaimed tyranny. [...] public opinion, by virtue of its unanimity, provokes a unanimous opposition and thus kills true opinions everywhere.

Hannah Arendt

every thought that deviates from the officially prescribed and permanently changing line is already suspect, no matter in which field of human activity it occurs. Simply because of their capacity to think, human beings are suspects by definition, and this suspicion cannot be diverted by exemplary behavior, for the human capacity to think is also a capacity to change one's mind.

The danger of exchanging the necessary insecurity of philosophical thought for the total explanation of an ideology and its [worldview], is not even so much the risk of falling for some usually vulgar, always uncritical assumption as of exchanging the freedom inherent in man's capacity to think for the straight-jacket of logic with which man can force himself almost as violently as he is forced by some outside power.

This story took no more than perhaps ten minutes to tell, and when it was over - the senseless, needless destruction of twenty-seven years in less than twenty-four hours - one thought foolishly: everyone, everyone should have his day in court.

Menselijke wezens zijn per definitie verdacht, op grond van hun vermogen om te denken, en deze verdenking kan niet afgewend worden door voorbeeldig gedrag, want het menselijk vermogen om te denken is ook het vermogen om zich te bedenken.[...]De volgende beslissende stap is [...] de moord op de morele persoon in de mens. Dit gebeurt hoofdzakelijk door het martelaarschap onmogelijk te maken.

Hannah Arendt

Philosophy suffered more from modernity than any other field of human endeavor.

The fermenta cognitionis which Lessing scattered into the world were not intended to communicate conclusions, but to stimulate others to independent thought, and this for no other purpose than to bring about a discourse between thinkers.

Nothing expressed in words can ever attain to the immobility of an object of contemplation. Compared to the latter, meaning, which can be said and spoken about, is slippery; if the philosopher wants to see and grasp it, it slips away.

What I propose, therefore, is very simple: it is nothing more than to think what we are doing.

La dicotomía entre contemplar la verdad en soledad y apartamiento y quedar atrapado en las relaciones y relatividades de los asuntos humanos se convirtió en algo indiscutible para la tradición del pensamiento político.

Can life be said to exist at all?

It is like the distinction between war and peace: just as war takes place for the sake of peace, thus every kind of activity, even the processes of mere thought, must culminate in the absolute quiet of contemplation.11 Every movement, the movements of body and soul as well as of speech and reasoning, must cease before truth. Truth, be it the ancient truth of Being or the Christian truth of the living God, can reveal itself only in complete human stillness.12 Traditionally

An idea is a curious thing. It will not work unless you do.

Il mare appariva come una volta eterea, come un cielo solido e senza stelle sotto di noi, e nell'aria trasparente si perdeva nell'immensità; nessuna striscia, scura o luminosa, limitava l'orizzonte; c'era una chiarità, una vastità infinita, che non si può dipingere né descrivere, se non nella profondità eterna del pensiero.

Sitting for an hour without reading material meant he had to think.

Confusion helps. Confusion leads to lengthy reconstruction and clarification and exposition and several other ions.

So what does she think?" Esperanza asked again. "About what?" "About the prospects for peace in the Middle East," she snapped. "What do you think I mean? Your playing again.