quotations about thought
The soul of God is poured into the world through the thoughts of men.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
lecture, November 18, 1862
You may glean knowledge by reading, but you must separate the chaff from the wheat by thinking.
JOHN THORNTON
Maxims and Directions for Youth
I am full of thoughts,
A thousand wheels toss my uncertain fears,
There is a storm in my hot boiling brains,
Which rises without wind. A horrid one.
THOMAS DEKKER
The Noble Spanish Soldier
Thought and action are the jailers of Fate -- they imprison, being base; they are also the angels of Freedom -- they liberate being noble.
JAMES ALLEN
As a Man Thinketh
Thought breeds thought; children familiar with great thoughts take as naturally to thinking for themselves as the well-nourished body takes to growing; and we must bear in mind that growth, physical, intellectual, moral, spiritual, is the sole end of education.
CHARLOTTE M. MASON
The Original Home Schooling Series
A man has a right to think lots of things he has no right to say.
EDGAR WATSON HOWE
Country Town Sayings
Thought
Has joys apart, even in blackest woe,
And seizing some fine thread of verity
Knows momentary godhead.
GEORGE ELIOT
The Spanish Gypsy
The delicate thought that cannot find expression,
For ruder speech too fair,
That, like thy petals, trembles in possession,
And scatters on the air.
BRET HARTE
"The Mountain Heart's Ease"
A man of action forced into a state of thought is unhappy until he can get out of it.
JOHN GALSWORTHY
Maid in Waiting
The most dangerous thief is unwholesome thought.
GAUTAMA BUDDHA
The Gospel of Buddha
Great thoughts in crude, unshapely verse set forth lose half their preciousness, and ever must, unless the diamond with its own rich dust be cut and polished, it seems little worth.
THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH
"On Reading---"
Old men tend to forget what thought was like in their youth; they forget the quickness of the mental jump, the daring of the youthful intuition, the agility of the fresh insight. They become accustomed to the more plodding varieties of reason, and because this is more than made up by the accumulation of experience, old men think themselves wiser than the young.
ISAAC ASIMOV
Pebble in the Sky
Man being made a reasonable, and so a thinking creature, there is nothing more worthy of his being, than the right direction and employment of his thoughts; since upon this depends both his usefulness to the public, and his own present and future benefit in all respects.
WILLIAM PENN
Some Fruits of Solitude
What exile from himself can flee?
To zones, though more and more remote,
Still, still pursues, where'er I be,
The blight of life--the demon Thought.
LORD BYRON
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage
In reality, each thought we have carries with it a little spiritual power, a tug toward or away from God. No thought is purely neutral.
JOHN ORTBERG
God Is Closer Than You Think
Yet I doubt not thro' the ages one increasing purpose runs,
And the thoughts of men are widened with the process of the suns.
ALFRED TENNYSON
Locksley Hall
Hold fast, therefore, O circular philosopher, to thy centre, and drive the globe along its orbit by the momentum of thy thought.
AMOS BRONSON ALCOTT
Table Talk
Words are but the shining garments of Thought.
EDWIN LEIBFREED
"The Song of the Soul"
A little mouse of thought appears in the room, and even the mightiest potentates are thrown into panic. They make frantic efforts to bar our thoughts and words; they are afraid of the workings of the human mind.
WINSTON CHURCHILL
radio broadcast, "The Defence of Freedom and Peace (The Lights are Going Out)", October 16, 1938
Though old the thought and oft expressed,
'Tis his at last who says it best.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
For an Autograph