quotations about thought
And Thought leapt out to wed with Thought,
Ere Thought could wed itself with Speech.
ALFRED TENNYSON
In Memoriam A.H.H.
Only in thought is man a God; in action and desire we are the slaves of circumstance.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
letter to Lucy Donnely, November 25, 1902
Good thoughts are apt to vanish away if they be not speedily embodied in good actions.
JOHN THORNTON
Maxims and Directions for Youth
A fickle goddess Thought at times--
Try ne'er so hard we catch her not.
We try to think: 'tis all in vain--
Imprisoned never is a thought.
Like lightning flashing through the clouds,
It comes--a light, and then is gone,
A star which falls adown through space,
Again it comes as morning dawn.
ARDELIA COTTON BARTON
"What is Thought?"
It is the compelling power of great thoughts and ideas to engender phrases of equal size.
ARISTOPHANES
The Frogs
His high-erected thoughts look'd down upon
The smiling valley of his fruitful heart.
DANIEL WEBSTER
A Monumental Column
Our thoughts are often worse than we are, just as they are often better than we are.
GEORGE ELIOT
Mr. Gilfil's Love Story
To him whose elastic and vigorous thought keeps pace with the sun, the day is a perpetual morning.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Walden
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
Food for thought gives some folks indigestion.
KEN ALSTAD
Savvy Sayin's
Thought is challenged only by thought.
KHALED AL-FAISAL
Arab News, May 15, 2017
The measure of greatness in a scientific idea is the extent to which it stimulates thought and opens up new lines of research.
PAUL ADRIAN MAURICE DIRAC
attributed, Cosmology of Lemaître
A thought by thought is piled, till some great truth
Is loosened, and the nations echo round,
Shaken to their roots, as do the mountains now.
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
Prometheus Unbound
Give me the storm and tempest of thought and action, rather than the dead calm of ignorance and faith! Banish me from Eden when you will; but first let me eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge!
ROBERT G. INGERSOLL
The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll
Mankind will be enslaved until there is mental grandeur enough to allow each man to have his thought and say. This earth will be a paradise when men can, upon all these questions differ, and yet grasp each other's hands as friends.
ROBERT G. INGERSOLL
Some Mistakes of Moses
With curious art the brain, too finely wrought,
Preys on herself, and is destroyed by thought.
CHARLES CHURCHILL
Epistle to William Hogarth
Second thoughts are the adopted children of experience.
ELIZA COOK
"Diamond Dust", Eliza Cook's Journal, Volume 3
Never know whose thoughts you're chewing.
JAMES JOYCE
Ulysses
If we were all on trial for our thoughts, we would all be hanged.
MARGARET ATWOOD
Alias Grace
Trying to write an inspiring memoir while repressing such thoroughly uninspiring thoughts is a path to madness.
RON CHARLES
"'Woman No. 17' a juice box of suburban satire", Denver Post, May 26, 2017