Cognitive Quotes

• There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.

  William Shakespeare

  Inspirational, Positive, Happiness

  'Hamlet' (1601) act 2, sc. 2, l. [259]

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• You're never going to learn something as profoundly as when it's purely out of curiosity

  Christopher Nolan

  Learning, Profound, Curiosity

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• Humans create their cognitive powers by creating the environments in which they exercise those powers

  Edwin Hutchins

  Exercise, Creating, Environment

  Edwin Hutchins (1995). “Cognition in the Wild”, p.169, MIT Press

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• Cognitive and character skills work together as dynamic complements; they are inseparable. Skills beget skills. More motivated children learn more. Those who are more informed usually make wiser decisions.

  James Heckman

  Children, Character, Skills

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• When looking at the brain, it is important to go beyond its structure to its function. This is because often in cognitive disorders, the structure of the brain is intact, but its function is compromised.

  Aditi Shankardass

  Brain, Important, Structure

  "Searching for roots of learning disorders" by Aditi Shankardass, www.cnn.com. July 13, 2010.

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• The brain is a monstrous, beautiful mess. Its billions of nerve cells - called neurons - lie in a tangled web that displays cognitive powers far exceeding any of the silicon machines we have built to mimic it.

  William Allman

  Beautiful, Lying, Cells

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• Wisdom is tolerance of cognitive dissonance.

  Robert Thurman

  Tolerance, Cognitive Dissonance, Dissonance

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• Hope is not an emotion; it's a way of thinking or a cognitive process.

  Brené Brown

  Thinking, Way, Emotion

  Brené Brown (2012). “Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, andLead”, p.239, Penguin

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• For me, the glory of the human animal is cognitive activity.

  Terence McKenna

  Animal, Glory, Humans

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• Emotional function and cognitive function aren't unrelated to each other. They're completely intertwined.

  Amishi Jha

  Emotional, Function, Intertwined

  Source: www.gq.com

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• A slew of cognitive traits predisposes us to faith.

  Pascal Boyer

  Traits

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• The foundations of the world are to be found, not in the cognitive experience of conscious thought, but in the aesthetic experience of everyday life.

  Alfred North Whitehead

  Beauty, Everyday, Foundation

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• It has been an obsession of human beings to create a hierarchy that places the human species on top and lumps all the "other animals" together beneath us. The resulting "speciesism" allows us to look upon animals as less deserving of all manner of rights and considerations than humans. To support this lower status, humans have argued that animals act instinctually; don't have souls; don't feel physical pain like we do; and lack self-consciousness, cognitive intelligence, emotional feelings, morality, and ethics.

  Sharon Gannon

  Pain, Animal, Emotional

  "Sharon Gannon on Veganism". jivamuktiyoga.com. November 16, 2016.

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• Cognitive psychology tells us that the unaided human mind is vulnerable to many fallacies and illusions because of its reliance on its memory for vivid anecdotes rather than systematic statistics.

  Steven Pinker

  Memories, Psychology, Mind

  "Steven Pinker: fighting talk from the prophet of peace". Interview with John Naughton, www.theguardian.com. October 15, 2011.

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• I suspect that a lot of the stress we see around us arises from the cognitive dissonance set up by one side of the brain hearing very plausible spin while the other side knows it just ain't so.

  David Palmer

  Stress, Brain, Cognitive Dissonance

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• I always look at myself knowing that I will have a certain degree of cognitive distortion.

  Sarah Silverman

  Knowing, Degrees, Looks

  "Sarah Silverman Opens Up About Depression, Comedy And Troublemaking". "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross, www.npr.org. October 22, 2015.

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• Chess is a unique cognitive nexus, a place where art and science come together in the human mind and are then refined and improved by experience.

  Garry Kasparov

  Art, Science, Unique

  Garry Kasparov (2010). “How Life Imitates Chess: Making the Right Moves, from the Board to the Boardroom”, p.11, Bloomsbury Publishing USA

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• When it comes to exploring the mind in the framework of cognitive neuroscience, the maximal yield of data comes from integrating what a person experiences - the first person - with what the measurements show - the third person.

  Daniel Goleman

  Yield, Data, Mind

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• The only position that leaves me with no cognitive dissonance is atheism.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Atheist, Atheism, Cognitive Dissonance

  Christopher Hitchens (2007). “The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever”, p.480, Da Capo Press

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• My feeling is that a human being or any complex organism has a system of cognitive structures that develop much in the way the physical organs of the body develop. That is, in their fundamental character they are innate; their basic form is determined by the genetic structure of the organism. Of course, they grow under particular environmental conditions, assuming a specific form that admits of some variation. Much of what is distinctive among human beings is a specific manner in which a variety of shared cognitive structures develop.

  Noam Chomsky

  Character, Feelings, Environmental

  Source: chomsky.info

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• When parents have college savings accounts for their kids, their kids show higher social and cognitive performance.

  Dan Ariely

  Kids, College, Parent

  "Mental depletion complicates financial decisions for the poor". Interview with Kristen Doerer, www.pbs.org. January 19, 2016.

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• Humor is basically a cognitive process. And it's a creative process not only on the part of the cartoonist but on the part of the viewer.

  Robert Mankoff

  Creative, Process, Cartoonist

  Source: www.npr.org

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• In studying language we can discover many basic properties of this cognitive structure, its organization, and also the genetic predispositions that provide the foundation for its development. So in this respect, linguistics, first of all, tries to characterize a major feature of human cognitive organization. And second, I think it may provide a suggestive model for the study of other cognitive systems. And the collection of these systems is one aspect of human nature.

  Noam Chomsky

  Thinking, Organization, Trying

  Source: chomsky.info

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• Of all the systems of the body - neurological, cognitive, special, sensory - the cardiological system is the most sensitive and easily disturbed. The role of society must be to shelter these systems from infection and decay, or else the future of the human race is at stake. Like a summer fruit that is protected from insect invasion, bruising, and rot by the whole mechanism of modern farming; so must we protect the heart.

  Lauren Oliver

  Summer, Heart, Race

  Lauren Oliver (2014). “Delirium: The Complete Collection: Delirium, Hana, Pandemonium, Annabel, Raven, Requiem”, p.47, Harper Collins

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• As the nature deficit grows, another emerging body of scientific evidence indicates that direct exposure to nature is essential for physical and emotional health. For example, new studies suggest that exposure to nature may reduce the symptoms of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), and that it can improve all children's cognitive abilities and resistance to negative stresses and depression.

  Richard Louv

  Children, Stress, Emotional

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