Quotes About Thought

That was the trouble with freethinkers, they had overactive imaginations that made them uncertain.

Did I dream this belief or did I believe this dream?

octopuses, far more than rats and pigeons, have their own ideas:

Thinking ish-ly allowed ideas to flow freely.

First there is simply irritation at the whole impractical situation. Then there is the feeling that always comes over me at the mere thought of that book: veneration. The knowledge that it is the foundation, the boundary. That if you work your way backwards, past Lobachevsky and Newton and as far back as you can go, you end up at Euclid.

Wir verkümmern, lieber Herr Doktor, weil wir nur noch meinen und nicht mehr denken.

Horror is something perfectly natural: the mind's emptiness. A thought is taking shape, then suddenly it notices that there is nothing more to think. Whereupon it crashes to the ground like a figure in a comic strip who suddenly realises that he has been walking on air.

I realized that as a thinking person his advantage lay precisely in his lack of formal education. Nobody told him what to think, and thus he was free to think clearly.

Curiosity is an impure thought

And by that habit of submission, with which we are only too familiar, the thought of the next generation retains this religious twist, which is at once servile and authoritative; for authority and servility walk ever hand in hand.

and after serious thought I rebuked the nobles and officials, saying, “You are exacting usury from your own brothers!” So I called a large assembly against them

“If one ventures a word with you, will you be wearied? Yet who can keep from speaking?

Must I wait, now that they are silent, now that they stand and no longer reply?

Behold, I will open my mouth; my address is on the tip of my tongue.

The words of a manís mouth are deep waters; the fountain of wisdom is a bubbling brook.

For the more words, the more futility—and how does that profit anyone?