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Quotes About Mind

A mind enclosed in language is in prison.
~ Simone Weil
The mind is not forced to believe in the existence of anything (subjectivism, absolute idealism, solipsism, skepticism: c.f. the Upanishads, the Taoists and Plato, who, all of them, adopt this philosophical attitude by way of purification). That is why the only organ of contact with existence is acceptance, love. That is why beauty and reality are identical. That is why joy and the sense of reality are identical.
~ Simone Weil
Nearly everywhere – often even when dealing with purely technical problems – instead of thinking, one merely takes sides: for or against. Such a choice replaces the activity of the mind. This is an intellectual leprosy; it originated in the political world and then spread through the land, contaminating all forms of thinking. This leprosy is killing us; it is doubtful whether it can be cured without first starting with the abolition of all political parties.
~ Simone Weil
It is not enough to have perceived such a notion, given it one's attention, understood it; it must be given a permanent place in the mind, so that it may be present even when one's attention is directed toward something else.
~ Simone Weil
Political parties are a marvellous mechanism which, on the national scale, ensures that not a single mind can attend to the effort of perceiving, in public affairs, what is good, what is just, what is true. As a result – except for a very small number of fortuitous coincidences – nothing is decided, nothing is executed, but measures that run contrary to the public interest, to justice and to truth.
~ Simone Weil
It sometimes happens that a thought, either formulated to oneself or not formulated at all, works secretly on the mind and yet has but little direct influence over it.
~ Simone Weil
Supplier un homme, c'est une tentative désespérée pour faire passer à force d'intensité son propre système de valeurs dans l'esprit d'un autre. Supplier Dieu, c'est le contraire : tentative pour faire passer les valeurs divines dans sa propre âme.
~ Simone Weil
L'intelligence n'a rien à trouver, elle a à déblayer. Elle n'est bonne qu'aux tâches serviles.
~ Simone Weil
La science est aujourd'hui regardée par les uns comme un simple catalogue de recettes techniques, par les autres comme un ensemble de pures spéculations de l'esprit qui se suffisent à elles-mêmes ; les premiers font trop de peu de cas de l'esprit et les seconds du monde.
~ Simone Weil
Nearly everywhere- often when dealing with purely technical problems -instead of thinking, one merely takes sides- for or against. Such a choice replaces the activity of the mind. This is intellectual leprosy: it originated in the political world and then spread through the land, contaminating all forms of thinking. this leprosy is killing us; it is doubtful whether it can be cured without first starting with the abolition of all political parties.
~ Simone Weil
No! What I'd really like us to do would be to come out and tell the whole world: 'Now you boys never mind about the moral side of this. We have power, and power is its own excuse!
~ Sinclair Lewis
she did her work with the thoroughness of a mind which reveres details and never quite understands them . . .
~ Sinclair Lewis
And drawers started opening in my brain, drawers I hadn't opened in years, and I was slamming them shut again but bits of memory kept coming, a voice here, a scream there.
~ Siobhan Dowd
I say, Watson,' he whispered, 'would you be afraid to sleep in the same room as a lunatic, a man with softening of the brain, an idiot whose mind has lost its grip?' 'Not in the least,' I answered in astonishment. 'Ah, that's lucky,' he said, and not another word would he utter that night.
~ Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
There are no fools so troublesome as those of the mind
~ Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
It is not the cold which makes me shiver
~ Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Leaning back in the cab, this amateur bloodhound carolled away like a lark while I mediated upon the many-sidedness of the human mind.
~ Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Nuestra mente debe ser tan libre como la misma naturaleza- Sherlock Holmes, Estudio en escarlata
~ Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Mi querido Watson, no estoy de acuerdo con los que opinan que la modestia es una virtud. Para la mente lógica, todo debería verse exactamente tal como es, y subestimarse es algo tan lejano de la realidad como exagerar nuestras propias facultades.
~ Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
It is not fantasy's hot fire, Whose wishes, son as granted, fly; It liveth not in fierce desire, With dead desire it doth not die; It is the secret sympathy, The silver link, the silken tie, Which heart to heart, and mind to mind, In body and in soul can bind.
~ Sir Walter Scott
EMONE Su, lascia l'ira, cambia mente.»
~ Sofocle
Devote the mind to confusion and we know only too well, if we´re honest, that it will become a dark master of confusion, adept in its addictions, subtle and perversely supple in its slaveries. Devote it in meditation to the task of freeing itself from illusion, and we will find that, with time, patience, discipline, and the right training, our mind will begin to unknot itself and know its essential bliss and clarity.
~ Sogyal Rinpoche
There is a famous saying: If the mind is not contrived, it is spontaneously blissful, just as water, when not agitated, is by nature transparent and clear.
~ Sogyal Rinpoche
Spiritual truth is not something elaborate and esoteric, it is in fact profound common sense. When you realize the nature of mind, layers of confusion peel away. You don't actually "become" a buddha, you simply cease, slowly, to be deluded. And being a buddha is not being some omnipotent spiritual superman, but becoming at last a true human being.
~ Sogyal Rinpoche