The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitudes. — William James (1842–1910)
For him who has conquered the mind, the mind is the best of friends; but for one who has failed to do so, his very mind will be the greatest enemy. — Bhagavad Gita
Great men accomplish significant deeds through an enduring effort in a consistent direction. When you wish to achieve an important aim, direct your thoughts along a steady, uninterrupted course. — Iching 57
‘The sane man’ is always haunted by the possibility he may go insane because only person who can go insane is one who has a preconception of what sanity is” ~ Martin Shepherd
You can’t solve an emotional problem or heal an emotional wound with logic alone. — Anon
“Memory is the cabinet of imagination, the treasury of reason, the registry of conscience, and the council chamber of thought.” ~ St. Basil
“You cannot teach a man anything; you can only help him to find it within himself.” ~ Galileo
“We are what we think. All that we are arises With our thoughts. With our thoughts, We make our world.” — Buddha
No, no, you’re not thinking; you’re just being logical. — Niels Bohr
“Answers are cheap. Questions are hard to find” — Salman Rushdie.
Not all those who wander are lost. — J.R.R. Tolkien
It often happens that I wake at night and begin to think about a serious problem and decide one must tell the Pope about it. Then I wake up completely and remember that I am the Pope. — Pope John XXIII
“It is better to ask some of the questions than to know all the answers.” — James Thurber
“Whether you think you can or think you can’t, you’re right.” -Henry Ford
[Le coeur a ses raisons, que la raison ne connait point] The heart has it’s reasons, that reason knows not. — Blaise Pascal
To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I confess, absurd in the highest degree. — Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species, John Murray, London, 1859.
The difficulty lies, not in the new ideas, but in escaping the old ones, which ramify, for those brought up as most of us have been, into every corner of our minds. — K. Eric Drexler Engines of Creation: the Coming Era of Nanotechnology, Bantam, New York, 1987, p 231. Keynes, John Maynard
The scale, properly speaking, does not permit the measure of the intelligence, because intellectual qualities are not superposable, and therefore cannot be measured as linear surfaces are measured. — Binet, Alfred (1857–1911), On his intelligence scale
“… when people thought the Earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the Earth was spherical they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the Earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the Earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together.” -Anon
For it is esteemed a kind of dishonour unto learning to descend to inquiry or meditation upon matters mechanical, except they be such as may be thought secrets, rarities, and special subtilities, which humour of vain supercilious arrogancy is justly derided in Plato… But the truth is, they be not the highest instances that give the securest information; as may
well be expressed in the tale… of the philosopher, that while he gazed upwards to the stars fell into the water; for if he had looked down he might have seen the stars in the water, but looking aloft he could not see the water in the stars. So it cometh often to pass, that mean and small things discover great, better than great can discover the small. — Francis Bacon (1561–1626), The Advancement of Learning, J.M. Dent and Son, London, England, 1973, pp 71–72.
The men of experiment are like the ant, they only collect and use; the reasoners resemble spiders, who make cobwebs out of their own substance. But the bee takes the middle course: it gathers its material from the flowers of the garden and field, but transforms and digests it by a power of its own. Not unlike this is the true business of philosophy (science); for it neither relies solely or chiefly on the powers of the mind, nor does it take the matter which it gathers from natural history and mechanical experiments and lay up in the memory whole, as it finds it, but lays it up in the understanding altered and disgested. Therefore, from a closer and purer league between these two faculties, the experimental and the rational (such as has never been made), much may be hoped. — Francis Bacon, Novum Organum, Liberal Arts Press, Inc., New York, p93.
The most ordinary things are to philosophy a source of insoluble puzzles. With infinite ingenuity it constructs a concept of space or time and then finds it absolutely impossible that there be objects in this space or that processes occur during this time… the source of this kind of logic lies in excessive confidence in the so-called laws of thought. — Ludwig Boltzmann(1844–1906). Populaere Schriften Essay 19, Theoretical Physics and Philosophical Problems
Inspiration may be a form of super consciousness, or perhaps sub-consciousness — I wouldn’t know. But I am sure it is the antithesis of self-consciousness. — Composer Aaron Copland
I dream my painting and then I paint my dream. — Vincent van Gogh
Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire; you will what you imagine; and at last you create what you will. — George Bernard Shaw
The Ancient Japanese considered the Go board to be a microcosm of the universe. Although when it is empty it appears to be simple and ordered, in fact, the possibilities of gameplay are endless. They say that no two Go games have ever been alike. Just like snowflakes. So, the Go board actually represents an extremely complex and chaotic universe. — Max Cohen’s mentor Sol Robeson, in pi
Facts without theory are trivia. Theory without facts is bullshit. — Anon
Decision making should be a matter of calculation, not intuition. — Paul Thagard, Philosophy Department, University of Waterloo
Understanding decision making in terms of emotional coherence enables us to appreciate the merits of both intuition and calculation as contributors to effective practical reasoning. — Paul Thagard, Philosophy Department, University of Waterloo
Just because we increase the speed of information doesn’t mean we can increase the speed of decisions. Pondering, reflecting and ruminating are undervalued skills in our culture. — Dale Dauten
A person will worship something, have no doubt about that. We may think our tribute is paid in secret in the dark recesses of our hearts, but it will out. That which dominates our imaginations and our thoughts will determine our lives, and our character. Therefore, it behooves us to be careful what we worship, for what we are worshiping we are becoming. — Ralph Waldo Emerson
Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves. — Carl Jung
The first reason for man’s inner slavery is his ignorance, and above all, his ignorance of himself. Without self-knowledge, without understanding the workings and function of his machine, man cannot be free, he cannot govern himself, and he will always remain a slave, the plaything of forces acting upon
him. This is why in all ancient teachings the first demand at the beginning of the way to liberation was to — Know Thyself. — Gurdjieff
Change your mental imagery, and feelings will take care of themselves. — Mawell Maltz
When an idea imposes itself on the mindful conscious efforts the subject makes in order to counteract it are not merely without the desired effect, but will actually go in the opposite direction and intensify it, with the result that the dominant idea is reinforced. — Charles Baudouin, Swiss-French psychiatrist
Since our attention returns again and again to this point of fascination, we imagine that we are no longer able to divert it from this object. Next, this idea so far materializes that we no longer believe that we are able to become free. Here we have suggestion at work. And now in fact we cannot do anything different. Quite involuntarily we have accomplished a suggestion of powerlessness in ourselves. — Charles Baudouin, Swiss-French psychiatrist
When the will and the imagination are at war, the imagination gains the upper hand without exception. — Emil Cou
We need to become conscious of our self-talk so we can at will choose to replace negative beliefs with positive ones. We have the power to choose an identity we love, but we need to do the work. The process of changing our subconscious beliefs requires awareness, diligence, consistency and repetition. — Anonymous
Most of our self-talk comes unconsciously from our subconscious. Yet every thought that exists in our subconscious got there through a conscious decision to accept that thought. — Anonymous
What concerns me is not the way things are, but rather the way people think things are. — Epictetus.
The meeting of 2 personalities is liken the contact of 2 chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed. — C. G. Jung
Life is a comedy for those who think and a tragedy for those who feel. — Horace Walpole