The Education of Henry Adams
No one means all he says, and yet very few say all they mean, for words are slippery and thought is viscous.
Amiel Henri Frédéric 1821-1881
For purposes of action nothing is more useful than narrowness of thought combined with energy of will.
Anonymous
Every time a man puts a new idea across he finds ten men who thought of it before he did - but they only thought of it.
Baldwin James 1924-1987
Money, it turned out, was exactly like sex, you thought of nothing else if you didn't have it and thought of other things if you did.
Browning Robert 1812-1889
‘A Death in the Desert'
Stung by the splendour of a sudden thought.
Browning Robert 1812-1889
‘Pictor Ignotus'
Ah, thought which saddens while it soothes!
Cibber Colley 1671-1757
Richard III
Perish the thought!
Coward Noël 1899-1973
I've sometimes thought of marrying - and then
I've thought again.
Disraeli Benjamin 1804-1881
Vivian Grey
Experience is the child of Thought, and Thought is the child of
Action. We cannot learn men from books.
Dryden John 1631-1700
Cymon and Iphigenia
He trudged along unknowing what he sought,
And whistled as he went, for want of thought.
Dürrenmatt Friedrich 1921-1990
What was once thought can never be unthought.
Frost Robert 1874-1963
All thought is a feat of association; having what's in front of you bring
up something in your mind that you almost didn't know you knew.
Frost Robert 1874-1963
A poem begins with a lump in the throat; a homesickness or a lovesickness. It is a reaching-out toward expression; an effort to find fulfillment. A complete poem is one where an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words.
Galsworthy John 1867-1933
A man of action forced into a state of thought is unhappy until he can get out of it.
Gracian Baltasar 1601-1658
‘No' and ‘Yes' are words quickly said, but they need a great
amount of thought before you utter them.
Hand Learned 1872-1961
We shall succeed only so far as we continue that most distasteful of all activity, the intolerable labour of thought.
Hein Piet
If no thought your mind does visit make your speech not too explicit.
Helps Sir Arthur 1813-1875
Reading is sometimes an ingenious device for avoiding thought.
Holmes Oliver Wendell 1809-1894
Every real thought on every real subject knocks the wind out of somebody or other.
Hubbard Kin 1868-1930
Folks that blurt out just what they think wouldn't be so bad if they thought.
Johnson Samuel 1709-1784
Boswell - Life
An odd thought stikes me: we shall receive no letters in the grave.
Kennedy John F. 1917-1963
Too often we ... enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.
Kierkegaard Sören 1813-1855
People hardly ever make use of the freedom they have, for example, freedom
of thought; instead they demand freedom of speech as a compensation.
Krishnamurti Jiddu 1895-1986
Religion is the frozen thought of men out of which they build temples.
Landers Ann 1918-
We wouldn't worry so much about what people thought of us if we knew how seldom they did.
Larkin Philip 1922-1985
‘High Windows'
Rather than words comes the thought of high windows:
The sun-comprehending glass,
And beyond it, the deep blue air, that shows
Nothing, and is nowhere, and is endless.
Lessing G. E. 1729-1781
Minna von Barnhelm
One single grateful thought raised to heaven is the most perfect prayer.
Mao TSE-Tung 1893-1976
Letting a hundred flowers blossom and a hundred schools of thought contend is the policy for promoting progress in the arts and the sciences and a flourishing socialist culture in our land.
Mill John Stuart 1806-1873
Autobiography
No great improvements in the lot of mankind are possible, until a great change takes place in the fundamental constitution of their modes of thought.
Nietzsche Friedrich 1844-1900
Profundity of thought belongs to youth, clarity of thought to old age.
Osler Sir William 1849-1919
Look wise, say nothing, and grunt. Speech was given to conceal thought.
Palmer Samuel 1805-1881
A picture has been said to be something between a thing and a thought.
Patmore Coventry 1823-1896
The Angel in the House
‘I saw you take his kiss!' ‘Tis true!'
‘O modesty!' ‘´Twas strictly kept:
He thought me asleep; at least, I knew
He thought I thought he thought I slept.'
Poe Edgar Allan 1809-1849
„Annabel Lee"
This maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.
Pope Alexander 1688-1744
Eloisa to Abelard
One thought of thee puts all the pomp to flight,
Priests, tapers, temples, swim before my sight.
Pope Alexander 1688-1744
An Essay on Criticism
True wit is nature to advantage dressed,
What oft was thought but ne'er so well
expressed.
Praed W.M. 1802-1839
The Chant of the Brazen Head
I think that nought is worth a thought,
And I'm a fool for thinking.
Raleigh Sir Walter Alexander 1861-1922
‘Wishes of an Elderly Man'
I wish I loved the Human Race;
I wish I loved its silly face;
I wish I liked the way it walks;
I wish I liked the way it talks;
And when I'm introduced to one
I wish I thought What Jolly Fun!
Russell Bertrand 1872-1970
The average man's opinions are much less foolish
than they would be if he thought for himself.
Russell Bertrand 1872-1970
Men fear thought more than they fear anything else on earth - more than ruin, more even than death. Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible; thought is merciless to priviledge, established institutions, and comfortable habits; thought is anarchic and lawless, indifferent to authority, careless of the well-tried wisdom of ages.
Ruskin John 1819-1900
Thought looks into the pit of hell and is not afraid. It sees man, a feeble speck, surrounded by unfathomable depths of silence; yet bears itself proudly, as unmoved as if it were the lord of the universe. Thought is great and swift and free, the light of the world, and the chief glory of man.
Schweitzer Albert 1875-1965
Thought is the strongest thing we have. Work done by true
and profound thought - that is a real force.
Shakespeare William 1564-161
Antony and Cleopatra
A Roman thought hath struck him.
Shakespeare William 1564-1616
Hamlet
Thus conscience doth make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
It sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought.
Shakespeare William 1564-1616
Henry IV, Part 2
Thy wish was father, Harry, to that thought.
Shakespeare William 1564-1616
Macbeth
Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?
Shelley Percy Bysshe 1792-1822
‘Prometheus Unbound'
He gave man speech, and speech created thought,
Which is the measure of the universe.
Stevens Wallace 1879-1955
‘Of Mere Being'
The palm at the end of the mind,
Beyond the last thought, rises ...
A gold-feathered bird
Sings in the palm.
Symons Arthur 1865-1945
Memory
As a perfume doth remain
In the folds where it hath lain,
So the thought of you, remaining
Deeply folded in my brain,
Will not leave me: all things leave me:
You remain.
Szent-Györgyi Albert von 1893-1986
Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought.
Tennyson Alfred Lord 1809-1892
In Memoriam A.H.H.
And Thought leapt out to wed with Thought
Ere Thought could wed itself with Speech.
Tennyson Alfred Lord 1809-1892
‘Ulysses'
This grey spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.
Thomson James 1700-1748
The Seasons ‘Spring'
Delightful task! To rear the tender thought,
To teach the young idea how to shoot.
Voltaire 1694-1778
Dialogues ‘Le Chapon et la poularde'
[Men] use thought only to justify their injustices, and speech only to conceal their thoughts.
Whitehead Alfred North 1861-1974
From the moment of birth we are immersed in action, and can only fitfully guide it by taking thought.
Whyte Lancelot Law
Thought is born of failure.
Wilson Woodrow 1856-1924
The men who act stand nearer to the mass of man than the men who write; and it is in their hands that new thought gets its translation into the crude language of deeds.