quotations about the mind
Everyone's shut off their minds
So I'll turn on mine
CHESTER BENNINGTON
"Walking in Circles"
The mind is a challenge because it works more like a city than a household, with several networked links resonating at different times and with different subgroups of nodes, such that understanding the behavior of individuals or even of smaller groups won't tell the whole story of what's going on. No approach can capture the whole of what goes on over time in a large city like New York or Rio, even if a city is made of small neighborhoods -- and those neighborhoods, of a few individuals. One may capture certain mass events, like rush hour traffic or festivals, parades or open-air concerts, but not the global behavior of the city.
MARCELO GLEISER
"Science And The Mystery Of The Mind", NPR, November 29, 2017
You can, when you choose, sharpen the pencil of your mind to a very fine point. Specialize, my boy, specialize.
SAMUEL HOPKINS ADAMS
Average Jones
Here in your mind you have complete privacy. Here there's no difference between what is and what could be.
CHUCK PALAHNIUK
Choke
Some minds are so unclothed that they are indecent.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought
A brilliant mind was never as clever as three average minds sniffing after something of interest.
ROBERT REED
"Precious Mental", Asimov's Science Fiction, June 1, 2013
A Man has always the voice of his mind.
PIERRE-ANTOINE BERRYER
attributed, Words of Human Wisdom
It is in our own mind and not in exterior objects that we perceive most things; fools know scarcely anything because they are empty, and their heart is narrow; but great souls find in themselves a number of exterior things; they have no need to read or to travel or to listen or to work to discover the highest truths; they have only to delve into themselves and search, if we may say so, their own thoughts.
LUC DE CLAPIERS, MARQUIS DE VAUVENARGUES
Reflections and Maxims
The heavens and the earth may be captured by the mind's eye.
GAUTAMA BUDDHA
The Gospel of Buddha
Failing to understand the workings of one's own mind is bound to lead to unhappiness.
MARCUS AURELIUS
Meditations
His mind was like the sea itself: troubled, and too deep for the bravest man's descent, throwing up now and again, for the naked eye to wonder at, treasure and debris long forgotten on the bottom--bones and jewels, fantastic shells, jelly that had once been flesh, pearls that had once been eyes. And he was at the mercy of this sea, hanging there with darkness all around him.
JAMES BALDWIN
Go Tell It on the Mountain
There is not an enemy so stout, as to storm and take the fortress of the mind,
Unless its infirmity turn traitor, and Fear unbar the gates.
MARTIN FARQUHAR TUPPER
Proverbial Philosophy
First, then, I say, that the mind, which we often call the intellect, in which is placed the conduct and government of life, is not less an integral part of man himself, than the hand, and foot, and eyes, are portions of the whole animal.
LUCRETIUS
De Rerum Natura
Old minds are like old horses; you must exercise them if you wish to keep them in working order.
JOHN ADAMS
attributed, Looking Toward Sunset: From Sources Old and New, Original and Selected
Empires will fall--dynasties fade away; but the mind of man will survive the destruction of all inanimate matter--its destiny is eternal.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
Who knows the mind has the key to all things else.
AMOS BRONSON ALCOTT
Table Talk
Like the mind, the computer is useful because it produces information. Computers are also functional because they are able to produce a wide variety of responses that mimic human abilities. As the brain has been compared with the computer, the idea that the mind is a mechanical entity has become more plausible. For example, just as the computer operates on electricity, the brain is now described as an object comprised of electronically sensitive cells or neuron networks. Although the nervous system, which is the controlling agent for the body, continues to be shrouded in mystery, many investigators have found it attractive to equate the mind with the brain and to identify both with the computer.
VICENTE BERDAYES
Computers, Human Interaction, and Organizations
Of all the things I've lost, it's my mind I miss the most.
OZZY OSBOURNE
attributed, Foolish Words: The Most Stupid Words Ever Spoken
What shall I compare it to, this fantastic thing I call my Mind? To a waste-paper basket, to a sieve choked with sediment, or to a barrel full of floating froth and refuse? No, what it is really most like is a spider's web, insecurely hung on leaves and twigs, quivering in every wind, and sprinkled with dewdrops and dead flies. And at its centre, pondering forever the Problem of Existence, sits motionless the spider-like and uncanny Soul.
LOGAN PEARSALL SMITH
Trivia
All civilization in a sense exists only in the mind. Gunpowder, textile arts, machinery, laws, telephones are not themselves transmitted from man to man or from generation to generation, at least not permanently. It is the perception, the knowledge and understanding of them, their ideas in the Platonic sense, that are passed along. Everything social can have existence only through mentality.
ALFRED L. KROEBER
The Superorganic