Quotes About Cognition

I probably revisit in my work the moment at which I realised that dreams couldn't be reality.

I only understand realism.

I'm a realist about who really reads books and who acts like they read books.

Attention is what steers your perceptions; it's what controls your reality. It's the gateway to the mind.

Distinctions drawn by the mind are not necessarily equivalent to distinctions in reality.

My left brain has gradually 'eaten' the right-brain capabilities away.

I speak four languages and read a great deal, so I do as much working out on the brain as I do on the body.

I don't know a great deal about Alzheimer's - just what it does.

Lack of sleep greatly impairs your ability to make good decisions.

I believe that if your brain has to get to grips with complicated words, then you won't get Alzheimer's. I'm sure it's not true, but I do believe it.

People who grow up with two or more languages understand that each can express certain aspects of reality better than the other.

Language comes first. It's not that language grows out of consciousness, if you haven't got language, you can't be conscious.

Our inherited desire to explain what we see fuels two kinds of cognitive errors. First, we are too easily seduced by patterns and by the theories that explain them. Second, we latch onto data that support our theories and discount contradicting evidence. We believe stories simply because they are consistent with the patterns we observe and, once we have a story, we are reluctant to let it go.

What's the difference between a human being and an animal?" "Intelligence, I suppose." Audrey looked at me for guidance. "We're smarter. Wouldn't you agree?" I nodded. "As long as we're writing the tests.

White-collar professionals also use prescription drugs such as Provigil, Ritalin, and Adderall to boost their intelligence and attentiveness.

What is familiar and well known as such is not really known for the very reason that it is familiar and well known.

Two percent of the people think; three percent of the people think they think; and ninety-five percent of the people would rather die than think.

Few people think more than two or three times a year; I have made an international reputation for myself by thinking once or twice a week.

One man that has a mind and knows it can always beat ten men who haven't and don't.

I consider that a man's brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things, so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it.

The moment we want to believe something, we suddenly see all the arguments for it, and become blind to the arguments against it.

for anything he knew his brains lay in small bags at his temples

It's all in the mind."

It would be more accurate to say that we see with our brain rather than with our eyes. However, the more interesting point is that the brain does not always need to receive information through the eyes in order to "see." It can recall sights, sounds, and feelings from memory and run the whole sequence like a movie, all inside our head, in the mind's eye.