Thinker Quotes - Page 2

• No one can be a great thinker who does not recognize that as a thinker it is his first duty to follow his intellect to whatever conclusions it may lead.

  John Stuart Mill

  May, Firsts, Doe

  John Stuart Mill (2012). “On Liberty”, p.28, Courier Corporation

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• The books that help you most are those which make you think that most. The hardest way of learning is that of easy reading; but a great book that comes from a great thinker is a ship of thought, deep freighted with truth and beauty.

  Pablo Neruda

  Inspirational, Beauty, Book

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• Many a man fails as an original thinker simply because his memory it too good.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Memories, Men, Originality

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• The realm of consciousness is much vaster than thought can grasp. When you no longer believe everything you think, you step out of thought and see clearly that the thinker is not who you are.

  Eckhart Tolle

  Believe, Thinking, Steps

  Eckhart Tolle (2010). “Stillness Speaks”, p.18, New World Library

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• All great artists and thinkers are great workers.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Artist, Great Work, Great Art

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• It’s very hard to have ideas. It’s very hard to put yourself out there, it’s very hard to be vulnerable, but those people who do that are the dreamers, the thinkers and the creators. They are the magic people of the world.

  Amy Poehler

  Inspiring, Dream, Hope

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• No one can stop or control your thought process or your thinking. You can think anything you want. But that doesn't seem to be the point. The thinking process has to be directed into a certain approach... not in accord with certain dogma, philosophy, or concepts. Instead, one has to know the thinker itself.

  Chogyam Trungpa

  Philosophy, Thinking, Want

  Chogyam Trungpa (2010). “The Collected Works of Chogyam Trungpa: Volume Seven: The Art of Calligraphy (Excerpts); Dharma Art; Visual Dharma (Excerpts); Selecte d Poems; Selected Writings”, p.150, Shambhala Publications

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• The paradox is really the pathos of intellectual life and just as only great souls are exposed to passions it is only the great thinker who is exposed to what I call paradoxes, which are nothing else than grandiose thoughts in embryo.

  Soren Kierkegaard

  Life, Passion, Soul

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• The philosopher Descartes believed he had found the most fundamental truth when he made his famous statement: "I think, therefore I am." He had, in fact, given expression to the most basic error: to equate thinking with Being and identity with thinking. The compulsive thinker, which means almost everyone, lives in a state of apparent separateness, in an insanely complex world of continuous problems and conflict, a world that reflects the ever-increasing fragmentation of the mind.

  Eckhart Tolle

  Mean, Thinking, Errors

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• Human consciousness is just about the last surviving mystery... a topic that often leaves even the most sophisticated thinkers tongue-tied and confused. And, as with all of the earlier mysteries, there are many who insist - and hope - that there will never be a demystification of consciousness.

  Daniel Dennett

  Confused, Lasts, Tongue

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• The greatest thinkers in history certainly knew the value of shifting the mind into low gear. Charles Darwin described himself as a slow thinker. Einstein was famous for spending ages staring into space in his office at Princeton University.

  Carl Honore

  Space, Princeton University, Office

  Carl Honoré (2004). “In praise of slow: how a worldwide movement is challenging the cult of speed”, A.A. Knopf Canada

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• One must not think slightingly of the paradoxical…for the paradox is the source of the thinker’s passion, and the thinker without a paradox is like a lover without feeling: a paltry mediocrity.

  Soren Kierkegaard

  Passion, Thinking, Feelings

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• The great creators - the thinkers, the artists, the scientists, the inventors - stood alone against the men of their time. Every great new thought was opposed. Every great new invention was denounced. The first motor was considered foolish. The airplane was considered impossible... But the men of unborrowed vision went ahead. They fought, they suffered and they paid. But they won.

  Ayn Rand

  Airplane, Artist, Men

  Ayn Rand (1999). “Ayn Rand Reader”, p.72, Penguin

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• Out of damp and gloomy days, out of solitude, out of loveless words directed at us, conclusions grow up in us like fungus: one morning they are there, we know not how, and they gaze upon us, morose and gray. Woe to the thinker who is not the gardener but only the soil of the plants that grow in him.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Love, Morning, Growing Up

  Friedrich Nietzsche, Maudemarie Clark, Brian Leiter (1997). “Nietzsche: Daybreak: Thoughts on the Prejudices of Morality”, p.171, Cambridge University Press

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• Some people do not become thinkers simply because their memories are too good.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Memories, Thinking, People

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• Take away paradox from the thinker and you have a professor.

  Soren Kierkegaard

  Inspirational, Life, Teacher

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• We fear death, we shudder at life's instability, we grieve to see the flowers wilt again and again, and the leaves fall, and in our hearts we know that we, too, are transitory and will soon disappear. When artists create pictures and thinkers search for laws and formulate thoughts, it is in order to salvage something from the great dance of death, to make something last longer than we do.

  Hermann Hesse

  Flower, Fall, Heart

  Hermann Hesse (2013). “Narcissus and Goldmund: A Novel”, p.157, Macmillan

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• On the heights it is warmer than people in the valley suppose, especially in winter. The thinker recognizes the full import of this simile.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Winter, People, Valleys

  Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Oscar Levy, Maximilian A. Mügge, Robert Guppy (1911). “The complete works of Friedrich Nietzsche: The first complete and authorized English translation”

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• The thinker without a paradox is like a lover without a feeling: a paltry mediocrity.

  Soren Kierkegaard

  Feelings, Mediocrity, Lovers

  Soren Kierkegaard (2017). “Philosophical Fragments”, p.24, Jovian Press

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• No accurate thinker will judge another person by that which the other person's enemies say about him.

  Napoleon Hill

  Umpires, Judging, Enemy

  Napoleon Hill (2008). “The Law of Success: The Master Wealth-Builder's Complete and Original Lesson Plan forAchieving Your Dreams”, p.212, Penguin

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• My only wish isto transform friends of God into friends of man, believers into thinkers, devotees of prayer into devotees of work, candidates for the hereafter into students of the world, Christians who, by their own procession and admission, are half animal, half angel into persons, into whole persons.

  Ludwig Feuerbach

  Christian, Prayer, Angel

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• A consistent thinker is a thoughtless person, because he conforms to a pattern; he repeats phrases and thinks in a groove.

  Jiddu Krishnamurti

  Love, Life, Truth

  Jiddu Krishnamurti, Susunaga Weeraperuma (1996). “Sayings of J. Krishnamurti”, p.187, Motilal Banarsidass Publ.

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• The revolutionary and critical thinker is in a certain way always outside of his society while of course he is at the same time also in it.

  Erich Fromm

  Way, Revolutionary, Certain

  "Human Nature and Social Theory". Letter by Erich Fromm to Vladimir Dobrenkov, March 10, 1969.

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• It takes me time to realize things; I'm a speedy person but a slow thinker.

  Julie Christie

  Realize Things, Realizing, Take Me

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• You must linger among a limited number of master-thinkers, and digest their works, if you would derive ideas which shall win firm hold in your mind.

  Seneca the Younger

  Winning, Ideas, Numbers

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