Blank Mind Quotes

• The pages are still blank, but there is a miraculous feeling of the words being there, written in invisible ink and clamoring to become visible.

  Vladimir Nabokov

  Writing, Feelings, Pages

  Vladimir Nabokov (2017). “Lectures on Literature”, p.379, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  63 Copy quote

  Show source

• Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.

  W. H. Murray

  Inspirational, Life, Motivational

  206 Copy quote

• Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless - like water.

  Bruce Lee

  Empty Mind, Water, Meditation

  Bruce Lee (2015). “Bruce Lee The Tao of Gung Fu: A Study in the Way of Chinese Martial Art”, p.138, Tuttle Publishing

  249 Copy quote

  Show source

• The best revenge is the massive success.

  Frank Sinatra

  Inspirational, Motivational, Positive

  30 Copy quote

• Every morning like a scholar at his first class I prepare a blank mind for the day to write upon.

  Bruce Lee

  Morning, Writing, Class

  21 Copy quote

• The void is a mouth crying to be filled, a blank mind aching for thought, a cavity desperate for shape. What is not implies what is.

  Jack Vance

  Mouths, Shapes, Void

  "To Live Forever" by Jack Vance, (Chapter XI, section 1), 1956.

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Let me run over the principal steps. We approached the case, you remember, with an absolutely blank mind, which is always an advantage. We had formed no theories. We were simply there to observe and to draw inferences from our observations.

  Arthur Conan Doyle

  Running, Steps, Remember

  Sherlock Holmes in "The Adventure of the Cardboard Box" (1893). In "The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter" (1893) Holmes tells Doctor Watson, "All things should be seen exactly as they are."

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• You must squeeze out of yourself every sensation, every thought, every image, - mercilessly, without reserve and without remorse: you must search the darkest corners of your heart, the most remote recesses of your brain, - you must search them for the image, for the glamour, for the right expression. And you must do it sincerely, at any cost: you must do it so that at the end of your day's work you should feel exhausted, emptied of every sensation and every thought, with a blank mind and an aching heart, with the notion that there is nothing, - nothing left in you.

  Joseph Conrad

  Heart, Expression, Brain

  Joseph Conrad (2015). “The Selected Letters of Joseph Conrad”, p.41, Cambridge University Press

  41 Copy quote

  Show source

• The difficulty is, all swing thoughts decay, like radium. What burnt up the course on Wednesday has turned to lead on Sunday. Yet it does not do to have a blank mind: the terrible hugeness of the course will rush into the vacuum and the ball will spray like a thing berserk.

  John Updike

  Sunday, Golf, Swings

  5 Copy quote

• She didn't care anymore... and she got no pleasure from the work she did, but she did it. Everything bored her. She found that when she didn't have a notebook it was hard for her to think. The thoughts came slowly, as though they had to squeeze through a tiny door to get to her, whereas when she wrote, they flowed out faster than she could put them down. She sat very stupidly with a blank mind until finall 'I feel different' came slowly to her mind. Yes, she thought, after a long pause. And then, after more time, 'Mean, I feel mean.

  Louise Fitzhugh

  Notebook, Mean, Thinking

  5 Copy quote

• The tourist travels in his own atmosphere like a snail in his shell and stands, as it were, on his own perambulating doorstep to look at the continents of the world. But if you discard all this, and sally forth with a leisurely and blank mind, there is no knowing what may not happen to you.

  Freya Stark

  Knowing, Atmosphere, Tourists

  Freya Stark (2011). “Baghdad Sketches: Journeys Through Iraq”, p.11, Tauris Parke Paperbacks

  7 Copy quote

  Show source