Quotes About Thinking

reason is our only way of grasping reality—that it's our basic tool of survival. We are free to evade the effort of thinking—to reject reason—but we are not free to avoid the penalty of the abyss we refuse to see.

But only the future holds life. To live in the past is to embrace what is dead. To live life to its fullest, each day must be created anew. As rational, thinking beings, we must use our intellect, not a blind devotion to what has come before, to make rational choices.

What's a philosopher?' said Brutha. Someone who's bright enough to find a job with no heavy lifting,' said a voice in his head.

And Tiffany knew that if a witch started thinking of anyone as just anything, that would be the first step on a well-worn path that could lead to, oh, to poisoned apples, spinning wheels, and a too-small stove... and to pain, and terror, and horror and the darkness.

Sometimes thinking is like talking to another person, but that person is also you.

It's a bad case o' the thinkin' he's caught, missus. When a man starts messin' wi' the readin' and the writin' then he'll come doon with a dose o' the thinkin' soon enough. I'll fetch some o' the lads and we'll hold his heid under water until he stops doin' it, 'tis the only cure. It can kill a man, the thinkin'.

The brain works fast when it thinks it's about to be cut in half.

Hrun the Barbarian, who was practilly an academic by Hub standards in that he could think without moving his lips.

A banker ? Me ? Yes, Mr. Lipwig. But I don't know anything about running a bank! Good. No preconceived ideas. I've robbed banks! Capital! Just reverse your thinking, said Lord Vetinari, beaming. The money should be on the inside .

Things like crowns had a troublesome effect on clever folk; it was best to leave all the reigning to the kind of people whose eyebrows met in the middle when they tried to think. In a funny sort of way, they were much better at it.

It will certainly show what our ancestors would be thinking if they were alive today. People have often speculated about this. Would they approve of modern society, they ask, would they marvel at present-day achievements? And of course this misses a fundamental point. What our ancestors would really be thinking, if they were alive today, is: Why is it so dark in here?

Well, the traveling teachers do come through every few months, said the Baron. Yes, sir, I know, sir, and they're useless, sir. They teach facts, not understanding. It's like teaching people about forests by showing them a saw. I want a proper school, sir, to teach reading and writing, and most of all thinking, sir, so people can find what they're good at, because someone doing what they really like is always an asset to any country, and too often people never find out until it's too late.

That was the thing about thoughts. They thought themselves, and then dropped into your head in the hope that you would think so too.

It makes you wonder if there is anything to astrology after all.' 'Oh, there is,' said Susan. 'Delusion, wishful thinking and gullibility.

He may be deaf and a little hard of thinking, but elderly wizards have very well-trained survival instincts, and they know that when a tall figure in a black robe and the latest in agricultural handtools starts looking thoughtfully at you it is time to act fast.

Amazin'.' he said again. 'He just looks as though he's thinking, right?' 'Er...yes.' 'But he's not actually thinking?' 'Er...no.' 'So...he just gives the impression of thinking but really it's just a show?' 'Er...yes.' Just like everyone else, then really,' said Ridcully

Look, I don't mind summoning some demon and asking it," said the Lecturer in Recent Runes. "That's normal. But building some mechanical contrivance to do your thinking for you, that's … against Nature.

The individual consciousness also has toxins. The hells, hungry ghost, and animal realms are in us. If we want them to appear, they can appear right away. We only need to press a button and Pandora's box will open. If we sit there and allow the negative thinking connected to past experiences to come up, we are eating the toxic matter of consciousness. Many of us sit and think, and the more we think, the more angry, upset and in despair we become.

There's a radio playing in our head, Radio Station NST: Non-Stop Thinking. Our mind is filled with noise, and that's why we can't hear the call of life, the call of love. Our heart is calling us, but we don't hear. We don't have the time to listen to our heart.

Practicing mindfulness means that instead of reacting to whatever stimulus is around us or provokes us, we go back to our breathing, we calm our body, we stop our thinking, and we bring the mind home to the body in the present moment.

A Zen Master uses concepts and words like everyone else; but he is neither conditioned nor captivated by these concepts and these words. The language of Zen always aims at destroying the habits of those who only know how to think by concepts. It tends to provoke crises, whose function it is to bring to fruition the precious moment of Awakening.

My own personal conviction is that if I were writing without thinking about how images or how journalism is creating a world for us, I would not be happy about it.

I travel a lot, so when I arrive in a city, I like to go to good local bookshops and make a selection based on how I'm feeling and what I'm thinking. The book I pick usually seems to have a definite karmic connection!

I think Hadley is to Rice as Scowcroft was to Kissinger; not inclined to think or act independently.