Thinker Quotes - Page 27

• I wouldn't say I was a born writer; I'm a born thinker.

  John Lennon

  Born

  "The Beatles Anthology" by The Beatles, (p. 9), 2000.

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• A different conception of society, very different from that which now prevails, is in process of formation. Under the name of Anarchy, a new interpretation of the past and present life of society arises, giving at the same time a forecast as regards its future, both conceived in the same spirit as the above-mentioned interpretation in natural sciences. Anarchy, therefore, appears as a constituent part of the new philosophy, and that is why Anarchists come in contact, on so many points, with the greatest thinkers and poets of the present day.

  Peter Kropotkin

  Philosophy, Past, Names

  "Anarchism: Its Philosophy and Ideal". Lecture by Peter Kropotkin, translated by Harry Lyman Koopman, dwardmac.pitzer.edu. 1898.

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• Yet as I cast my eye over the whole course of science I behold instances of false science, even more pretentious and popular than that of Einstein gradually fading into ineptitude under the searchlight; and I have no doubt that there will arise a new generation who will look with a wonder and amazement, deeper than now accompany Einstein, at our galaxy of thinkers, men of science, popular critics, authoritative professors and witty dramatists, who have been satisfied to waive their common sense in view of Einstein's absurdities.

  Arthur Lynch

  Witty, Eye, Science

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• I've always been a deep thinker. Since I was a kid I was delving into the very depths of why we existed, often driving my parents crazy with unanswerable questions.

  Missy Higgins

  Crazy, Kids, Parent

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• The consistent thinker, the consistently moral man, is either a walking mummy or else, if he has not succeeded in stifling all his vitality, a fanatical monomaniac.

  Aldous Huxley

  Men, Vitality, Ethics

  Aldous Huxley (1956). “The collected works of Aldous Huxley”

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• There is no violent surface indication of the ecstasy which great thinkers alone enjoy. There is nothing dramatic about it, but there is some subtle light in the eye of the inspired one, or some even more subtle quiet emanation which surrounds the inspired thinker, which tells you that you are in the presence of one who has bridged the gap which separates the mundane world from the world of spirit.

  Walter Russell

  Eye, Light, Secret

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• God is a gross answer, an indelicacy against us thinkers- at bottom merely a gross prohibition for us: you shall not think!

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Religious, Thinking, Answers

  Walter Arnold Kaufmann, Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1968). “Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist”

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• I'm quite a neurotic thinker, quite an adrenalized person. But after meditation, I felt this beautiful serenity and selfless connection.

  Russell Brand

  Beautiful, Meditation, Serenity

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• Americans seem sometimes to believe that if you are a thinker you must be a frowning bore, because thinking is so dam serious.

  Jacques Maritain

  Believe, Thinking, Dams

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• No words can express how much the world owes to sorrow. Most of the Psalms were born in the wilderness. Most of the Epistles were written in a prison. The greatest thoughts of the greatest thinkers have all passed through fire. The greatest poets have "learned in suffering what they taught in song." In bonds Bunyan lived the allegory that he afterwards wrote, and we may thank Bedford Jail for the Pilgrim's Progress. Take comfort, afflicted Christian! When God is about to make pre-eminent use of a person, He put them in the fire.

  George MacDonald

  Bible, God, Christian

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• We are shaped by each other. We adjust not to the reality of a world, but to the reality of other thinkers.

  Joseph Chilton Pearce

  Reality, World

  Joseph Chilton Pearce (2002). “The Crack in the Cosmic Egg: New Constructs of Mind and Reality”, p.63, Inner Traditions / Bear & Co

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• The church in all ages and among all peoples has been the consistent enemy of the human race. Everywhere and at all times, it has opposed the liberty of thought and expression. It has been the sworn enemy of investigation and intellectual development. It has denied the existence of facts, the tendency of which was to undermine its power. It has always been carrying fagots to the feet of Philosophy. It has erected the gallows for Genius. It has built the dungeon for Thinkers.

  Robert Green Ingersoll

  Religious, Philosophy, Race

  Robert Green Ingersoll (1907). “The works of Robert G. Ingersoll”, p.4052, Library of Alexandria

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• Know thyself! This is the source of all wisdom, said the great thinkers of the past, and the sentence was written in golden letters on the temple of the gods. To know himself, Linnæus declared to be the essential indisputable distinction of man above all other creatures. I know, indeed, in study nothing more worthy of free and thoughtful man than the study of himself. For if we look for the purpose of our existence, we cannot possibly find it outside ourselves. We are here for our own sake.

  Karl Ernst von Baer

  Science, Thoughtful, Past

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• You don't hurry a thinker, and you don't talk to him when he's thinking. It's just inconsiderate.

  Christopher Moore

  Thinking, Inconsiderate

  Christopher Moore (2009). “Fluke: Or, I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings”, p.40, Harper Collins

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• This nation was built by men who took risks-pioneers who were not afraid of the wilderness, businessmen who were not afraid of failure, scientists who were not afraid of the truth, thinkers who were not afraid of progress, dreamers who were not afraid of action.

  Brooks Atkinson

  Men, Risk, Dreamer

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• I am not very good at statistics. I am also a poor thinker.

  Manmohan Singh

  Motivational, Statistics, Poor

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• I learned to cross the threshold of my studio with reverence, as though I were entering a shrine set apart for me to become co-creator with the Universal Thinker of all things.

  Walter Russell

  Secret, Entering, Shrines

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• Accordingly, France Had Voltaire, and his school of negative thinkers, and England (or rather Scotland) had the profoundest negative thinker on record, David Hume: a man, the peculiarities of whose mind qualified him to detect failure of proof, and want of logical consistency, at a depth which French skeptics, with their comparatively feeble powers of analysis and abstractions stop far short of, and which German subtlety alone could thoroughly appreciate, or hope to rival.

  John Stuart Mill

  Religious, School, Men

  John Stuart Mill (2008). “Utilitarianism and On Liberty: Including 'Essay on Bentham' and Selections from the Writings of Jeremy Bentham and John Austin”, p.55, John Wiley & Sons

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• I've met many thinkers and many cats, but the wisdom of cats is infinitely superior.

  Hippolyte Taine

  Funny, Witty, Cat

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• Instead of 'watching the thinker,' you can also create a gap in the mind stream simply by directing the focus of your attention into the Now. Just become intensely conscious of the present moment. This is a deeply satisfying thing to do. In this way, you draw consciousness away from mind activity and create a gap of no-mind in which you are highly alert and aware but not thinking. This is the essence of meditation.

  Eckhart Tolle

  Thinking, Essence, Focus

  Eckhart Tolle (2001). “Practicing the Power of Now: Essential Teachings, Meditations, and Exercises from the Power of Now”, p.21, New World Library

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• "God", "immortality of the soul", "redemption", "beyond" - Without exception, concepts to which I have never devoted any attention, or time; not even as a child. Perhaps I have never been childlike enough for them?
  I do not by any means know atheism as a result; even less as an event: It is a matter of course with me, from instinct. I am too inquisitive, too questionable, too exuberant to stand for any gross answer. God is a gross answer, an indelicacy against us thinkers - at bottom merely a gross prohibition for us: you shall not think!

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Children, Mean, Thinking

  Friedrich Nietzsche (2009). “Basic Writings of Nietzsche”, p.692, Modern Library

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• The first effect of the mind growing cultivated is that processes once multiple get to be performed in a single act. Lazarus has called this the progressive "condensation" of thought. ... Steps really sink from sight. An advanced thinker sees the relations of his topics is such masses and so instantaneously that when he comes to explain to younger minds it is often hard ... Bowditch, who translated and annotated Laplace's Méchanique Céleste, said that whenever his author prefaced a proposition by the words "it is evident," he knew that many hours of hard study lay before him.

  William James

  Science, Sight, Mind

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• One man has discovered that by running there is no need to meditate, just by running meditation happens. He must be absolutely body oriented. Nobody has ever thought that by running meditation is possible - but I know, I used to love running myself. It happens. If you go on running, if you run fast, thinking stops, because thinking cannot possibly continue when you are running very fast. For thinking an easy chair is needed, that's why we call thinkers armchair philosophers; they sit and relax in a chair, the body completely relaxed, then the whole energy moves into the mind.

  Rajneesh

  Running, Moving, Men

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• The profound thinker always suspects that he is superficial.

  Benjamin Disraeli

  Wisdom, Art, Philosophy

  Benjamin Disraeli (1871). “Collected Edition of the Novels and Tales by the Right Honorable B. Disraeli: Contarini Fleming and The rise of Iskander”, p.276

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• Readers are plentiful; thinkers are rare.

  Harriet Martineau

  Funny Inspirational, Reading, Knowledge

  Harriet Martineau (1837). “Society in America”, p.176

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