Quotes About Thinking

our perceptions of the external world are habitually clouded by the verbal notions in terms of which we do our thinking. We are for ever attempting to convert things into signs for the more intelligible abstractions of our own invention. But in doing so, we rob these things of a great deal of their native thinghood.

Or consider another field where one can use games to implant an understanding of basic principles. All scientific thinking is in terms of probability. The old eternal verities are merely a high degree of likeliness; the immutable laws of nature are just statistical averages. How does one get these profoundly unobvious notions into children's heads? By playing roulette with them, by spinning coins and drawing lots. By teaching them all kinds of games with cards and boards and dice.

To be enlightened is to be aware, always, of total reality in its immanent otherness—to be aware of it and yet to remain in a condition to survive as an animal, to think and feel as a human being, to resort whenever expedient to systematic reasoning.

Wherever collective memory based on selective use of the past holds sway, everyone thinks alike. When everyone thinks alike, no one thinks at all. A society where no one thinks at all is little more than a frenetic and debauched, if picturesque, village bazaar.

Revelation comes with these misunderstandings. Stuart's life and way of thinking momentarily exposed. Like a break in the hedgerow during the country lane part of a journey. For an instant you glimpse scenery you haven't seen before - fields of poppy and cornflower, trees gnarled in the shape of demons.

Most problems could be diminished by the drinking of tea and the thinking through of things that could be done while tea was being drunk. And even if that did not solve problems, at least it could put them off for a little while, which we sometimes needed to do, we really did.

He tilted his hat back slightly, so that he could see the sky more clearly. It was so empty, so dizzying in its height, so unconcerned by the man who was crossing a field beneath it, and thinking as he did so.

Perhaps trust had to be accompanied by a measure of common sense, and a hefty dose of realism about human nature. But that would need a lot of thinking about, and the tea break did not go on forever.

Mr. Varg?" There was a slight note of impatience in Dr. Svensson's tone. It was all very well for patients to go off into some reverie of their own, but the whole point of these sessions was to disclose, not conceal, and they should articulate what they were thinking, rather than just think it.

Ah!" said the therapist. "That's precisely what you're meant to do, you know. Thinking precedes verbalisation, and verbalisation precedes resolution. And much as I approve of that, what we're trying to do here is to find out what you think without thinking. In other words, we want to find out what's going on in your mind. Because that's what—

In our system leadership is by consent, not command. To lead a President must persuade. Personal contacts and experiences help shape his thinking. They can be critical to his persuasiveness and thus to his leadership.

You're thinking of Eurpoe as Germany and France. I don't. I think that's old Europe.

You're thinking of Europe as Germany and France. I don't. I think that's old Europe.

The marketplace is an institution that teaches self-advancement, private acquisition, and the domination of nature. Its way of thinking is incompatible with the round river. Ecological harmony is a nonmarket value that takes a collective will to achieve.

Systems thinkers see the world as a collection of stocks along with the mechanisms for regulating the levels in the stocks by manipulating flows.

For those who stake their identity on the role of omniscient conqueror, the uncertainty exposed by systems thinking is hard to take.

It was later, after they'd dozed and he'd pulled her into the shower upon waking, that Cooper started on a plan. She laughed at his timing. "I do my best thinking in the shower," he told her, then poured bath soap in his hand and started rubbing her back. "I'm pretty sure I'll think even better if I have something more fun to be washing than my own self." He slipped his hands around to the front, making her squeal, then maybe moan a bit.

While teachers often complain that their students seem to do very little thinking, teachers who simply follow the manual should understand that they are actually contributing to the problem. Students seldom learn to think under the tutelage of teachers who do not think either.

Listen to Livvie, I tell you what's on my mind, not to make you feel bad. I want you to think. Gawd got His special purpose for you, just like He does for every one of us. He done give you a very good mind. The world you have when you grow up is gonna be the one you make. You use your mind and make it better.

If you ask a negative, unanswerable question, you will get a negative, impractical answer. The question you ask determines the focus of your thinking, your focus determines your attitude, and your attitude determines your ability to take action.

Managers are always saying they want their people to think more, yet they do not always encourage them to do that. That is because most managers think they have to have all the answers, rather than most of the questions. If you consistently tell people what to do, you foster the telling culture most organizations display and you stifle their thinking habits.

Starting to think about the viewers "out there" as different from the people inside the show was one of the early signs of how far Saturday Night had begun to stray from its original identification with its audience.

The dangerous temptation of wildlife films is that they can lull us into thinking we can get by without the original models -- that we might not need animals in the flesh.

Allie's job required very deep, very sustained thinking. And cell phones were the ultimate distraction, carefully designed and evolved to become as addictive as possible.