quotations about thought
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 great thought is best dressed in the simplest language.
CHARLES NORDHOFF
attributed, Day's Collacon
Whether thoughts and ideas manifest in a material outcome depends on our transmission of them into perceived reality.
LY DE ANGELES
Tarot Theory and Practice
A man of action forced into a state of thought is unhappy until he can get out of it.
JOHN GALSWORTHY
Maid in Waiting
And a lot of times, the journey of someone who is struggling with mental health issues or with suicidal thoughts is a long, lonely walk.
TERRESA HUMPHRIES-WADSWORTH
"Walking Across Wyoming", Powell Tribune, May 26, 2017
Ah, the mighty men who conquer,
And the men whose words we drink,
Are the men who quit the jangle,
Quit the turmoil and the wrangle
Of the world, and turn their faces
To secluded, silent places,
Where in solitude they think.
EDGAR GUEST
"Think"
I don't believe in thought. Too much thinking.
PHILIP MOELLER
The Roadhouse in Arden
Ideas are the seeds of thought, but they do not produce flowers unless the soil where they are sown is fertile.
LADY BLESSINGTON
attributed, Day's Collacon
Clearness is the ornament of deep thought.
LUC DE CLAPIERS, MARQUIS DE VAUVENARGUES
Reflections and Maxims
Thought is pure energy. Every thought you have, have ever had, and ever will have is creative. The energy of your thought never ever dies. Ever. It leaves your being and heads out into the universe, extending forever. A thought is forever.
NEALE DONALD WALSCH
Conversations with God
They are never alone that are accompanied with noble thoughts.
PHILIP SIDNEY
Arcadia
If we steal thoughts from the moderns, it will be cried down as plagiarism; if from the ancients, it will be cried up as erudition.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon
From thinking proceeds speaking; thence to acting is often but a single step. But how irrevocable and tremendous!
GEORGE WASHINGTON
letter to John Jay, August 1, 1786
Cut off, or cut free, from speech, thought assumes its baroque writerly structures. Speech in a language of which he knows only a few words involves the conscious, patient, awkward, hilarious, and typically unsuccessful translation of thought. This process illuminates the gulf between thought and speech, which is not quite identical to the gulf between inside and outside.
MICHAEL W. CLUNE
"Thought Against Life: Cyrus Console's 'Romanian Notebook'", L.A. Review of Books, May 21, 2017
Thought exists at the farthest remove from the vocalizations of the human animal.
MICHAEL W. CLUNE
"Thought Against Life: Cyrus Console's 'Romanian Notebook'", L.A. Review of Books, May 21, 2017
And yet, as angels in some brighter dreams
Call to the soul when man doth sleep,
So some strange thoughts transcend our wonted themes,
And into glory peep.
HENRY VAUGHN
They are all gone into the World of Light
Upon the cunning loom of thought
We weave our fancies, so and so.
THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH
Cloth of Gold
A thought embodied and embraced in fit words walks the earth a living being.
E. P. WHIPPLE
attributed, Day's Collacon
A man has a right to think lots of things he has no right to say.
EDGAR WATSON HOWE
Country Town Sayings
O for a life of Sensations rather than of Thoughts!
JOHN KEATS
letter to Benjamin Bailey, November 22, 1817