Thinker Quotes - Page 31

• A society with too few independent thinkers is vulnerable to control by disturbed and opportunistic leaders. A society which wants to create and maintain a free and democratic social system must create responsible independence of thought among its young.

  John Dewey

  Independent, Leader, Independence

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• Hayek, in my view, is the leading economic thinker of the 20th century.

  Vernon L. Smith

  Views, Hayek, Economic

  "Reflections on Human Action after 50 years". Cato Journal, Vol. 9, No. 2, 1999.

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• Steinitz was a thinker worthy of a seat in the halls of a university. A player, as the world believed he was, he was not; his studious temperament made that impossible; and thus he was conquered by a player and in the end little valued by the world, he died.

  Emanuel Lasker

  Player, World, Littles

  Emanuel Lasker (1960). “Lasker's Manual of Chess”, p.187, Courier Corporation

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• What it felt to me was like the dissolution of my idea of myself. I felt like separateness evaporated. I felt this tremendous sense of oneness. I'm quite an erratic thinker, quite an adrenalized person, but through meditation, I found this beautiful serenity and selfless connection. My tendency towards selfishness, I felt that kind of exposed as a superficial and pointless perspective to have. I felt very relaxed, a sense of oneness. I felt love.

  Russell Brand

  Beautiful, Ideas, Oneness

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• Tabloid discussion of bad children always blames baby-boomer liberals, careerist mothers and fashion-crazed Nathan Barley types who think it's all enormously funny. But the centre-leftish psycho-thinker Oliver James says it's all down to the Thatcher-and-after culture of turbo-capitalism, making people acquisitive and unsatisfied.

  Peter York

  Mother, Fashion, Baby

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• If at times I have thought myself unfortunate, it is because of a confusion, an error. I have mistaken myself for someone else... Who am I really? I am the author of The World as Will and Representation, I am the one who has given an answer to the mystery of Being that will occupy the thinkers of future centuries. That is what I am, and who can dispute it in the years of life that still remain for me?

  Arthur Schopenhauer

  Errors, Years, Confusion

  "The total library : non-fiction 1922-1986". Book by Jorge Luis Borges, 1999.

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• Throughout history, independent minds have carried mankind forward. Whether they identified how to make fire or manufacture tools, develop rational philosophy or create man-glorifying art, pioneer scientific knowledge or invent the electric light, independent thinkers have created the goods on which human life and prosperity depend.

  Andrew Bernstein

  Art, Philosophy, Independent

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• But Zarathustra made it clear in which direction the answer lay; it is towards the artist-psychologist, the intuitional thinker. There are very few such men in the world's literature; the great artists are not thinkers, the great thinkers are seldom artists.

  Colin Wilson

  Artist, Men, Answers

  Colin Wilson (2014). “The Outsider”, p.191, Diversion Books

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• A hero holds purposes appropriate to man and is, therefore, a thinker.

  Andrew Bernstein

  Hero, Men, Purpose

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• They can ta'k our lives but they can never ta'k our freedom!' Now there's a battle cry not designed by a clear thinker

  Terry Pratchett

  Battle, Cry, Clear

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• Every new generation in its hour of dawn, filled with the dreams of youth, its thirsts, intoxications and enthusiasms, thinks itself called upon to impel humanity towards heights unmeasured, believes itself an appointed pathfinder, a thinker of thoughts, a doer of deeds greater than any of those which came before. Every new generation desires beauty, but a beauty all its own.

  Ignacy Jan Paderewski

  Dream, Believe, Thinking

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• I have a bad rote memory, but I tend to learn through my experiences. And then when I went into the markets, and then starting my business as an entrepreneur, that affected my thinking a lot, too, because in order to be successful as both an investor and an entrepreneur, one has to be an independent thinker and bet against the consensus and be right. Because the consensus is built into the price, and if you're not an independent thinker in the markets you won't succeed. And if you're not an independent thinker as an entrepreneur starting out, you're not going to bring anything special.

  Ray Dalio

  Memories, Independent, Successful

  Source: www.omnivoracious.com

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• Since the Greeks the predominant attitude of thinkers towards intellectual activity was to glorify it insofar as (like aesthetic activity) it finds its satisfaction in itself, apart from any attention to the advantages it may procure. Most thinkers would have agreed with Renan's verdict that the man who loves science for its fruits commits the worst of blasphemies against that divinity. The modern clercs have violently torn up this charter. They proclaim the intellectual functions are only respectable to the extent that they are bound up with the pursuit of concrete advantage.

  Julien Benda

  Attitude, Men, Greek

  "Treason of the Intellectuals". Book by Julien Benda, pp. 151-152, 1927.

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• My political philosophy as a libertarian says that government has no business intervening in any consensual private behavior. My professional ethic as a thinker and writer, however, says that self-knowledge is our ultimate responsibility

  Camille Paglia

  Philosophy, Responsibility, Government

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• A just thinker will allow full swing to his scepticism. I dip my pen in the blackest ink, because I am not afraid of falling into my inkpot.... We are of different opinions at different hours, but we always may be said to be at heart on the side of truth.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Fall, Heart, Thinking

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1882). “The Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Comprising His Essays, Lectures, Poems, and Orations...”

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• The fact is, every thinker, every philosopher, the moment he is forced to abandon his one-sided intellectual occupation by practical necessity, immediately returns to the general point of view of mankind.

  Ernst Mach

  Views, Intellectual, Occupation

  Ernst Mach (1959). “The Analysis of Sensations: And the Relation of the Physical to the Psychical”

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• When everybody has access to an avalanche of information, becoming a master thinker is very important in your life-long security.

  Stedman Graham

  Long, Important, Information

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• Maybe sometimes I'm such a thinker, I reevaluate too much. Sometimes when it comes down to it, I really don't need to do anything, I don't really need to change anything. I need to just keep plugging away, working at it.

  Michael Chang

  Change, Needs, Too Much

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• There is a tendency among many shallow thinkers of our day to teach that every human act is a reflex, over which we do not exercise human control. They would rate a generous deed as no more praiseworthy than a wink, a crime as no more voluntary than a sneeze. . . Such a philosophy undercuts all human dignity. . . All of us have the power of choice in action at every moment of our lives.

  Fulton J. Sheen

  Philosophy, Exercise, Choices

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• A thought may be very commendable as a thought, but I value it chiefly as a window through which I can obtain insight on the thinker.

  Alexander Smith

  May, Window, Insight

  Alexander Smith (1863). “Dreamthorp: A Book of Essays Written in the Country”, p.190

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• How could it occur to anyone to demonstrate that God exists unless one has already allowed Himself to ignore Him? A king's existence is demonstrated by way of subjection and submissiveness. Do you want to try and demonstrate that the king exists? Will you do so by offering a string of proofs, a series of arguments? No. If you are serious, you will demonstrate the king's existence by your submission, by the way you live. And so it is with demonstrating God's existence. It is accomplished not by proofs but by worship. Any other way is but a thinker's pious bungling.

  Soren Kierkegaard

  Christian, Kings, Offering

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• If you want to be a sharp thinker, be around sharp people.

  John C. Maxwell

  Inspirational, People, Want

  "Thinking for a Change: 11 Ways Highly Successful People Approach Life and Work". Book by John C. Maxwell, 2003.

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• I think sometimes I should do more carousing, because I don't do much and maybe it would be fun occasionally. It's hard for me to have fun and I'm a serious thinker and a searcher and funny from the front.

  Garry Shandling

  Fun, Thinking, Serious

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• The mark of the superior thinker is his or her ability to accurately predict the consequences of doing or not doing something.

  Brian Tracy

  Mark, Ability, Superiors

  Brian Tracy (2008). “Eat That Frog!: 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time”, p.18, ReadHowYouWant.com

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• Thinking should be like musical meditation. Has any philosopher pursued a thought to its limits the way Bach or Beethoven develop and exhaust a musical theme? Even after having read the most profound thinkers, one still feels the need to begin anew. Only music gives definitive answers.

  Emile M. Cioran

  Music, Thinking, Giving

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