The mark of the superior thinker is his or her ability to accurately predict
the consequences of doing or not doing something. - Brian Tracy
The challenge we face is not producing thoughts, it is producing useful
thoughts. These are thoughts that are capable of analyzing the formidable but fascinating complexity of the world in order
to guide actions to yield the most appropriate or best result. - Michael LeGault
Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known. - Carl Sagan
(1934 - 1996)
Science is a way of thinking much more than it is
a body of knowledge. - Carl Sagan (1934 - 1996)
Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what
nobody has thought. - Albert Szent-Gyorgyi (1893 - 1986), in Irving Good, The Scientist Speculates (1962)
No one can be a great thinker who does not recognize, that as a thinker
it is his first duty to follow his intellect to whatever conclusions it may lead. Truth gains more even by the errors
of one who, with due study and preparation, thinks for himself, than by the true opinions of those who only hold them because
they do not suffer themselves to think. - John Stuart Mill (1806 - 1873) Source: On Liberty and Other Essays (Oxford World's
Classics), Page: 39
There is no expedient to which a man will not go to avoid the labor of thinking.
-Thomas A. Edison (1847 - 1931)
The third-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking
with the majority. The second-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the minority. The first-rate mind is only happy
when it is thinking. -A. A. Milne (1882 - 1956)
The important thing in science is not so much to obtain new facts as to
discover new ways of thinking about them. - Sir William Bragg (1862 - 1942)
If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you
really make them think, they'll hate you. - Don Marquis (1878 - 1937)
Ask yourself a question: Is my attitude worth catching? - Zig Ziglar
A great many people think they are thinking when they are really rearranging
their prejudices. - William James (1842 - 1910)
To do anything in this world worth doing, we must not stand back shivering
and thinking of the cold and danger, but jump in, and scramble through as well as we can. - Sydney Smith (1771 - 1845)
Avoid the crowd. Do your own thinking independently. Be the chess player,
not the chess piece. - Ralph Charell
Truly successful decision making relies on a balance between deliberate
and instinctive thinking. - Malcolm Gladwell, Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, 2005
The spirit of the age is filled with the disdain for thinking. - Albert
Schweitzer (1875 - 1965)
Would you like me to give you a formula for success? It's quite simple,
really. Double your rate of failure. You are thinking of failure as the enemy of success. But it isn't as all. You can be
discouraged by failure - or you can learn from it. So go ahead and make mistakes. Make all you can. Because, remember, that's
where you will find success. - Thomas J. Watson
Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which
we can perform without thinking about them. - Alfred North Whitehead (1861 - 1947), Introduction to Mathematics (1911)
Of course, our failures are a consequence of many factors, but possibly
one of the most important is the fact that society operates on the theory that specialization is the key to success, not realizing
that specialization precludes comprehensive thinking. - R. Buckminster Fuller (1895 - 1983), Operating Manual for Spaceship
Earth, 1963
People get trapped into thinking about just one way of doing things.
- Erik Weihenmayer, Blind Rock Climber
Men cling passionately to old traditions and display intense reluctance
to modify customary modes of behavior, as innovators at all times have found to their cost. The dead-weight of conservatism,
largely a lazy and cowardly distaste for the strenuous and painful activity of real thinking, has undoubtedly retarded human
progress... - V. Gordon Childe, Man Makes Himself, p. 31
Don't think. Thinking is the enemy of creativity. It's self-conscious, and
anything self-conscious is lousy. You can't try to do things. You simply must do things. - Ray Bradbury (1920 - )
Thinking is the enemy of creativity. Don’t think. Feel. - Joseph Curiale
Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge; it is thinking
that makes what we read ours. - John Locke (1632 - 1704)
We must dare to think "unthinkable" thoughts. We must learn to explore all
the options and possibilities that confront us in a complex and rapidly changing world. We must learn to welcome and not to
fear the voices of dissent. We must dare to think about "unthinkable things" because when things become unthinkable, thinking
stops and action becomes mindless. - J. William Fulbright (1905 - 1995), March 27, 1964
Instead of thinking about where you are, think about where you want to be.
It takes twenty years of hard work to become an overnight success. - Diana Rankin
STRATEGY is; A style of thinking, a conscious and deliberate process, an
intensive implementation system, the science of insuring FUTURE SUCCESS. - Pete Johnson
Those who don't like thinking should at least rearrange their prejudices
from time to time. - Luther Burbank, 1849-1926
You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better
than anyone else. - Albert Einstein
The positive thinker sees the invisible, feels the intangible, and achieves
the impossible. - unknown
Once you replace negative thoughts with positive ones, you'll start having
positive results. - Willie Nelson
Instead of thinking about what you're missing, try thinking about what you
have that everyone else is missing. - Darwin P. Kingsley
You have powers you never dreamed of. You can do things you never thought
you could do. There are no limitations in what you can do except the limitations of your own mind. - Darwin P. Kingsley
No problem can withstand the assault of sustained thinking. ~Voltaire
Never be afraid to sit awhile and think. ~Lorraine Hansberry, A Raisin
in the Sun
People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought
which they seldom use. ~Soren Kierkegaard
Begin challenging your own assumptions. Your assumptions are your
windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in awhile, or the light won't come in. ~Alan Alda
Thoughts, like fleas, jump from man to man. But they don't bite everybody.
~Stanislaw Lec, Unkempt Thoughts, 1962
Few minds wear out; more rust out. ~Christian N. Bovee
Men can live without air a few minutes, without water for about two weeks,
without food for about two months - and without a new thought for years on end. ~Kent Ruth
Impartial observers from other planets would consider ours an utterly bizarre
enclave if it were populated by birds, defined as flying animals, that nevertheless rarely or never actually flew. They
would also be perplexed if they encountered in our seas, lakes, rivers, and ponds, creatures defined as swimmers that never
did any swimming. But they would be even more surprised to encounter a species defined as a thinking animal if, in fact,
the creature very rarely indulged in actual thinking. ~Steve Allen
What luck for rulers, that men do not think. ~Adolph Hitler
Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth, more than ruin, more
even than death. Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible, thought is merciless to privilege,
established institutions, and comfortable habit. Thought looks into the pit of hell and is not afraid. Thought
is great and swift and free, the light of the world, and the chief glory of man. ~Bertrand Russell
The greatest challenge to any thinker is stating the problem in a way that
will allow a solution. - Bertrand Russell
All thinking is based, in part, on prior convictions. - George A. Kelly
Inventions have long since reached their limit, and I see no hope for further
development. - Julius Frontinus (Highly respected engineer in Rome, 1st century A.D.)
Daring ideas are like chessmen moved forward; they may be beaten but they
may start a winning game. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Curiosity is one of the most permanent and certain characteristics of a
vigorous mind. - Samuel Johnson
Creative novelty springs largely from the rearrangement of the existing
knowledge, a rearrangement that is itself an addition to knowledge. - J. Kneller
An essential aspect of creativity is not being afraid to fail. - Dr. Edwin
Land
A person who can create ideas worthy of note is a person who has learned
much from others. - Konosuke Matsushita
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers. - Pablo Picasso
The man with a new idea is a crank - until the idea succeeds.
Mark
Twain
Nearly every man who develops an idea works it up to the point where it
looks impossible, and then he gets discouraged. That's not the place to become discouraged. - Thomas Edison
A conclusion is the place where you got tired thinking.
Martin H. Fischer
(1879 - 1962) scientist
Americans seem sometimes to believe that if you are a thinker you must be
a frowning bore, because thinking is so damn serious.
Jacques Maritain (1882 - 1973) French philosopher
In "The Speaker's
Electronic Reference Collection," AApex Software, 1994.
An idea is always a generalization, and generalization is a property of
thinking. To generalize means to think.
Georg Hegel (1770 - 1831) German philosopher
The Philosophy of Right, "Introduction,"
addition 4, 1821.
Courage charms us, because it indicates that a man loves an idea better
than all things in the world, that he is thinking neither of his bed, nor his dinner, nor his money, but will venture all
to put in act the invisible thought of his mind.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 - 1882) US philosopher, poet, essayist Journals,
1909-1914, entry in 1859.
Education is the methodical creation of the habit of thinking.
Ernest
Dimnet (1866 - 1954) French cleric
In "The New Webster's Dictionary of Quotations and Famous Phrases," by Donald Bolander,
1987.
Everything has been said, and we have come too late, now that men have been
living and thinking for seven thousand years and more.
Jean de LaBruyere (1645 - 1696) French philosopher, writer
Characters,
"Of Books," aph. 1, 1688.
If everyone is thinking alike then somebody isn't thinking.
George S.
Patton (1885 - 1945) US army officer, armored-warfare tactician
Most of one's life is one prolonged effort to prevent oneself thinking.
Aldous Huxley (1894 - 1963) English novelist, critic
No way of thinking or doing, however ancient, can be trusted without proof.
Henry David Thoreau (1817 - 1862) US essayist, poet, naturalist
Originality is not seen in single words or even sentences. Originality is
the sum total of a man's thinking or his writing. -Isaac Singer (1904
- 1991) Polish-US novelist, short-story writer
New York Times Magazine, Mar. 12, 1978
Our opinions become fixed at the point where we stop thinking.
Ernest
Renan (1823 - 1892) French philosopher, historian, scholar
In The Ultimate Success Quotations Library, 1997.
The best ideas come as jokes. Make your thinking as funny as possible.
David
Ogilvy (1911 - 1999) US advertising executive
The human mind prefers to be spoon-fed with the thoughts of others, but
deprived of such nourishment it will, reluctantly, begin to think for itself - and such thinking, remember, is original thinking
and may have valuable results.
Agatha Christie (1890 - 1976) English author, dramatist
The Moving Finger, 1942.
The work of an intellectual is not to mould the political will of others;
it is, through the analyses that he does in his own field, to re-examine evidence and assumptions, to shake up habitual ways
of working and thinking . . .
Michel Foucault (1926 - 1984) English historian, philosopher
The Concern for Truth,
interview in Le Magazine Litt‚raire (Paris, May 1984; repr. in Foucault Live, ed. by SylvŠre Lotringer, 1989).
When I am getting ready to reason with a man I spend one-third of my time
thinking about myself and what I am going to say, and two-thirds thinking about him and what he is going to say.
Abraham
Lincoln (1809 - 1865) US president, lawyer
The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new lands but in seeing
with new eyes.
–Marcel Proust
The goal is to transform data into information, and information into insight
- Carly Fiorina
There is nothing so terrible as activity without insight.
- Johann Wolfgang
von Goethe
The purpose of computing is insight, not numbers.
- R. W. Hamming
Insight is the first condition of Art.
- George H. Lewes
Chess
is the art of analysis. - Botvinnik
The good things in life do not come only through the senses. Some of the
most exhilarating experiences we undergo are generated inside our mind, triggered by information that challenges our ability
to think, rather than from the use of sensory skills. - Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Intelligence... is the faculty of making artificial objects, especially
tools to make tools. - Henri-Louis Bergson
Thinking about thinking can be rather confusing. Thinking about thinking
about thinking, can be even more so. - anonymous
Our problems are man-made, therefore they may
be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings. - John F. Kennedy, 1963
Mind is the great lever of all things; human thought
is the process by which human ends are ultimately answered. - Daniel Webster
