Quotes About Thinking

As the biggest library if it is in disorder is not as useful as a small but well-arranged one, so you may accumulate a vast amount of knowledge but it will be of far less value to you than a much smaller amount if you have not thought it over for yourself; because only through ordering what you know by comparing every truth with every other truth can you take complete possession of your knowledge and get it into your power.

reading is equivalent to thinking with someone else's head instead of with ones own

Omul ordinar este preocupat sa-si omoare timpul, omul de spirit va sti intotdeauna cum sa si-l intrebuinteze. De aceea, jocul de carti a ajuns ocupatia predilecta in orice societate. Neavind idei de schimbat, oamenii schimba cartea la masa si-si cistiga banii unii altora. Cei care nu stiu nici atit, sau sint de-a dreptul prosti, bat darabana cu degetele-n masa. Tigarea inlocuieste, de asemenea, gindirea, atunci cind nu are ce stimula.

If this world were populated with really thinking beings, it would be impossible for all kinds of noise to be permitted and given such unlimited scope, even the most terrible and purposeless. But if nature had intended man for thinking, she would not have given him ears, or at any rate would have furnished them with air-tight flaps, as with bats whom for this reason I envy.

You can apply yourself voluntarily to reading and learning, but you cannot really apply yourself to thinking: thinking have to be kindled, as a fire is by a draught, and kept going by some kind of interest in its object, which may be an objective interest or merely a subjective one.

Reading is merely a surrogate for thinking for yourself; it means letting someone else direct your thoughts. Many books, moreover, serve merely to show how many ways there are of being wrong, and how far astray you yourself would go if you followed their guidance.

Alles Urdenken geschieht in Bildern: darum ist die Phantasie ein so nothwendiges Werkzeug desselben, und werden phantasielose Köpfe nie etwas Großes leisten, - es sei denn in der Mathematik.

A library may be very large; but if it is in disorder, it is not so useful as one that is small but well arranged. In the same way, a man may have a great mass of knowledge, but if he has not worked it up by thinking it over for himself, it has much less value than a far smaller amount which he has thoroughly pondered.

just because universal concepts result only from thinking away and leaving out actual and existing determinations, and are therefore the emptier the more universal they are, the use of this procedure is limited to the elaboration of knowledge already acquired.

How very learned many a man would be if he knew everything that was in his own books! The consequence of this is that these writers talk in such a loose and vague manner, that the reader puzzles his brains in vain to understand what it is of which they are really thinking. They are thinking of nothing.

do nauki tej nale?? ogólne prawa myÅ›lenia, którym rozum podlega w chwili, gdy jest pozostawiony samemu sobie, gdy nic mu nie przeszkadza, a wiÄ™c podczas samotnego myÅ›lenia rozumnej istoty, której nic w bÅ'Ä…d nie wprowadza

However, the main endeavor must always be to let particular observations precede general ideas, and not vice versa, as is usually and unfortunately the case; as though a child should come feet foremost into the world, or a verse be begun by writing down the rhyme! The ordinary method

If anyone spends almost the whole day in reading...he gradually loses the capacity for thinking...This is the case with many learned persons; they have read themselves stupid.

Lesen heißt mit einem fremden Kopfe, statt des eigenen, denken.

Truth that has been merely learned is like an artificial limb, a false tooth, a waxen nose; at best, like a nose made out of another's flesh; it adheres to us only because it is put on. But truth acquired by thinking of our own is like a natural limb; it alone really belongs to us. This is the fundamental difference between the thinker and the mere man of learning.

Thinking made her throat ache. That was a good reason not to think about seeing a psychiatrist.

The third requirement for success is ingenuity—thinking

Such successes are not quite the result of logical thinking. But they are not the result of mere luck, either.

Rationality is not unnecessary. It serves the chaos of knowledge. It serves feeling. It serves to get from this place to that place. But if you don't honor those places, then the road is meaningless. Too often, that's what happens with the worship of rationality and that circular, academic, analytic thinking. But ultimately, I don't see feel/think as a dichotomy. I see them as a choice of ways and combinations.

When I envision the future, I think of the world I crave for my daughters and my sons. It is thinking for survival of the species- thinking for life.

There is a complexity to life that I often overlook. There is a depth of thinking, there is a richness. I am skating on the surface.

There are no evil thoughts except one; the refusal to think.

I like to think of fire held in a man's hand. Fire, a dangerous force, tamed at his fingertips. I often wonder about the hours when a man sits alone, watching the smoke of a cigarette, thinking. I wonder what great things have come from such hours. When a man thinks, there is a spot of fire alive in his mind--and it is proper that he should have the burning point of a cigarette as his one expression.

every man is free to rise as far as he's able or willing, but the degree to which he thinks determines the degree to which he'll rise.