Quotes About Thinking

Quotes are like prompts. A way of searching, connecting the dots. Other people's thinking has always - both positively and negatively - jumpstarted my thinking. Quotes are also a way of acting out not just a text, and not just thinking, but the making of a text. The construction of thinking. The quotes are part of those constructions and reflections. Thinking through quotes, which to say scouring a range of texts for insight, is one way to outline the process of thinking/feeling through a subject.

Thinking is a wonderful tool if it's applied. Thinking, however, can not become the master. Thinking is a very bad master. If you're dominated by thinking then your life becomes very restricted.

So what is the difference between "power thinking" and "positive" thinking? The distinction is slight but profound. To me, people use positive thinking to pretend that everything is rosy, when they really believe that it's not. With power thinking, we understand that everything is neutral, that nothing has meaning except for the meaning we give it, and that we are going to make up a story and give something it's meaning.

Thinking of Poe, thinking of Mark Twain and Vachel Lindsay, thinking of Jack London and Tom Wolfe, one begins to feel there is almost no way of becoming a creative writer in America without being a loser.

It's a beautiful book [Into the Forest], so for those who are thinking about reading it, they absolutely should. First and foremost, I just devoured it, as a story. At that time, and still, it just encompassed a lot of things that I was thinking about, and that the world is thinking about, with society's relationship to the environment, our personal relationship to it, and how disconnected we are from it, myself included.

I don't dare start thinking in the morning. I don't dare start thinking in the morning. If I thought thoughts in bed, Them thoughts would bust my head-- So I don't dare start thinking in the morning.

There is nothing wrong with thought and it can be used whenever necessary. But in every moment you can choose to follow your thoughts or you can recognize that which is not thinking. Don’t try to stop thinking, let it happen. Just recognize that which is not thinking.

You say that my way of thinking cannot be tolerated? What of it? The man who alters his way of thinking to suit othere is a fool. My way of thinking is the result of my reflections. It is part of my inner being,the way I am made. I do not contradict them, and would not even if I wished to. For my system, which you disapprove of is also my greatest comfort in life, the source of all my happiness -it means more to me than my life itself.

One of the great things about being commander in chief is getting to know our men and women in uniform in a very intimate way, whether it's visiting Walter Reed and seeing our wounded soldiers, or being on a base and talking to families, or interacting with them on missions. They're the best of the best: always thinking about the mission, not thinking about credit, not thinking about who's up front.

I was raised thinking that moral and ethical standards are universals that apply equally to everyone. And these values aren't easily compatible with the kind of religion that posits a Creator. To my way of thinking, an omnipotent being who sets up a universe in which thinking beings proliferate, grow old, and die (usually in agony, alone, and in fear) is a cosmic sadist.

In order to have a hope of creating better answers, we need to deeply understand the logic of the opposing answers. That means thinking about how we think about both models - not just do we like one versus the other. Rather we have to ask: How do I think each model produces the results that it does? Metacognition, thinking about thinking, builds up our capacity to do that and to play with opposing ideas - and new models - in real time.

When I hear people comparing Mike's [Jordan] work to Denzel [Washington] I think it's amazing.. Because Denzel is such an amazing, textured actor. And I think that that comes with Mike too. I'm not thinking about how they look, though; I'm thinking about what they're able to accomplish.

Mayfield said, "You asked what I was thinking. Well, I will tell you. I was thinking that a man like myself, after suffering such a blow as you men have struck on this day, has two distinct paths he might travel in his life. He might walk out into the world with a wounded heart, intent on sharing his mad hatred with every person he passes; or, he might start out anew with an empty heart, and he should take care to fill it up with only proud things from then on, so as to nourish his desolate mind-set and cultivate something positive or new.

When you are thinking something, you have the feeling that the thoughts do nothing except inform you the way things are and then you choose to do something and you do it. That's what people generally assume. But actually, the way you think determines the way you're going to do things. Then you don't notice a result comes back, or you don't see it as a result of what you've done, or even less do you see it as a result of how you were thinking. Is that clear?

Confidence is a reduction of your own interest in whether others are thinking about you and if so, what they're thinking.

Our thinking tends to be hazy, hasty, narrow, or sprawling-causal terms for impulsive. Just like anything else, thinking skills require upkeep. If they aren't nourished, they'll fade away.

I did sit in cinemas as a kid looking at English and American movies thinking, "Wouldn't it be great if the characters were like real people?" And the worst thing is films are constantly advertising themselves, drawing attention to their style of things. But actually I make films that I think are extremely sophisticated and cinematic. But you don't want the audience thinking about the bloody film. You want them to think about what's going on, and believe in it. Be flies on the wall, you know?

We travel because we need to, because distance and difference are the secret tonic of creativity. When we get home, home is still the same. But something in our mind has been changed, and that changes everything. Several new science papers suggest that getting away is an essential habit of effective thinking. When we escape from the place we spend most of our time, the mind is suddenly made aware of all those errant ideas we'd previously suppressed. We start thinking about obscure possibilitiebsthat never would have occurred to us if we'd stayed home.

Thinking - in particular abstract thinking, which most of us are introduced to through the study of mathematics and literature - helps us learn that we can become problem solvers.

When I was a kid, I would watch the grands prix. Everyone dreamt of becoming a race driver, while I only started thinking about it when I was 18 or 19. Only at that age did I seriously start thinking about this job. Before then, I would change ideas from one second to the next.

If you don't have the ability or encouragement to use yourself in a physical way, you could become just another talking head. And talking heads run things. That's part of the reason why we're in such a sad state as a planet, because it's all about thinking, and thinking has led to a lot of aggrandizement - taking over [resources] and figuring out how you can steal and leaving people and the planet in an impoverished state.

Writing is really a way of thinking--not just feeling but thinking about things that are disparate, unresolved, mysterious, problematic or just sweet.

The more successful enterprises are the more they try to replicate, duplicate, codify what makes us great. And suddenly they're inward thinking. They're thinking how can we continue to do what we've done in the past without understanding that what made them successful is to take risks, to change and to adapt and to be responsive. And so in a sense success breeds its own failure. And I think it's true of a lot of successful businesses.

What keeps me up at night? Probably most, thinking about the future for my kids. It sounds kind of funny, but not so much what they're going to do, but how as a parent, how my wife and I as parents, how best we should prepare them for the world. And I know everybody does this, I think everybody stays up at night thinking about the best thing for their kids, and astronauts are no different.

You want to know what I was thinking?...I was thinking that I wished you'd been with me the last couple of days. I mean, I enjoyed getting to know everyone better. We ate lunch together, and the dinner last night was a lot of fun, but it just felt like something was wrong, like I was missing something. It wasn't until I saw you walking up the beach that I realized it was you.

I love thinking about American history, thinking about LA history. I love brooding on crime.

I saw a muskrat come out of a hole in the ice ... While I am looking at him, I am thinking what he is thinking of me. He is a different sort of man, that's all.

When our children are old enough, and if we can afford to, we send them to college, where ... the point is to acquire the skills not of positive thinking but of critical thinking.

If you are going to be successful, you have to start hanging out with the successful people. You need to ask them to share their success strategies with you. Then try them on and see if they fit for you. Experiment with doing what they do, reading what they read, thinking the way they think, and so on. If the new ways of thinking and behaving work, adopt them. If not, drop them, and keep looking and experimenting.

The key to success isn't just thinking about what we are doing but doing something about what we are thinking.

A most important, but also most elusive, aspect of any tool is its influence on the habits of those who train themselves in its use. If the tool is a programming language this influence is, whether we like it or not, an influence on our thinking habits.... A programming language is a tool that has profound influence on our thinking habits.

The ethical rule is from Samuel Johnson who believed that maintenance of easily removable ignorance by a responsible office holder was treacherous malfeasance in meeting moral obligation. The prudential rule is that underlying the old Warner & Swasey advertisement for machine tools: "The man who needs a new machine tool, and hasn't bought it, is already paying for it". The Warner & Swasey rule also applies, I believe, to thinking tools. If you don't have the right thinking tools, you, and the people you seek to help, are already suffering from your easily removable ignorance.

When you reach a certain age, you have fulfilled your childhood dream and whatever your first or second adulthood led you to do. Then you're in your third adulthood, the one that leads to the grave, and you ask yourself, "What will I do between now and then?" Instead of thinking in terms of glamour, you start thinking in terms of reform - your contribution to the world.

I've come to see that you can limit God is different ways. You can limit Him by thinking he can never work in spectacular ways. But you can also limit Him by thinking that only the spectacular is meaningful." - from "Dug Down Deep

Change your thinking. Change your life! Your thoughts create your reality. Practice positive thinking. Act the way you want to be, and soon you will be the way you act.

We need to get rid of all remnants of bureaucracy and bureaucratic thinking, and start thinking like entrepreneurs again.

People get into the habit of entrusting the things they desire to wishful thinking, and subjecting things they don't desire to exhaustive thinking

When I was 17, I made the decision to have a good attitude. I was a junior in high school; the coach said I was going to be the captain of my basketball team. I thought – that surprised me because I wasn’t the best player. John Thomas was better than me, and I was probably second or third best player. And I kept thinking, “Why am I going to be the captain?” I think everybody else was thinking that too. And the coach then answered, “The reason John is going to be the captain is he has the best attitude on the team. He encourages others, he believes we can win, he never gives up.”

If you're thinking about the idea in the shower. If you're thinking about the idea while you're walking your dog, there's probably something to it.

Instead of thinking about work the next day or thinking about what you have to do, if you live in the moment you'll have some of the best times of your life.

People have to understand one thing: at the age of 18 I arrived at a dream club like Manchester United. It was a dream come true. But, even at that moment, I was thinking about playing in England for some years and then going to play in Spain. Even at that time I was thinking that way, and I always gave 100% everything.

It is always the enemy who started it, even if he was not the first to speak out, he was certainly planning it; and if he was not actually planning it, he was thinking of it; and, if he was not thinking of it, he would have thought of it.

Thinking in pictures is, therefore, only a very incomplete form of becoming conscious. In some way, too, it stands nearer to unconscious processes than does thinking in words, and it is unquestionably older than the latter both ontogenetically and phylogenetically.

I was thinking of the Four Seasons, Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, and when I was thinking "Uptown Girl!" I was trying to sing like Frankie Valli. They had a song called "Ragdoll," which was about a poor girl and a rich guy. So I just flipped it around and made it about a rich girl and a poor guy.

In jazz, you listen to what the bass player is doing and what the drummer is doing, what the pianist and the guitarist is doing, and then you play something that compliments that, so you are thinking simultaneously and thinking ahead.

The way you see your future determines your thinking today. You're thinking today determines your performance today. Your performance in the today of your life determines your future.

Part of every misery is, so to speak, the misery's shadow or reflection: the fact that you don't merely suffer but have to keep on thinking about the fact that you suffer. I not only live each endless day in grief, but live each day thinking about living each day in grief.

I am thinking about nothing. I am thinking about nothing. Yes, it's possible to think about nothing. It doesn't always have to be about you.