quotations about the mind
The mind is a chaotic place, turbulent on a whim. And each mind is individually unique, and thus uniquely chaotic.
DUALSHOCKERS STAFF
DualShockers, December 12, 2017
Physical concepts are free creations of the human mind, and are not, however it may seem, uniquely determined by the external world.
ALBERT EINSTEIN
The Evolution of Physics
There are some metaphysical and abstract arguments for the opinion that the mind, the I within, that controls the body, what the Germans call the ego--which is Latin for I--is simple, not complex; that is, one power operating in different ways and doing different things. I am myself inclined to think that the better opinion; but it is not necessary here to go into this question at all, for what we are going to study is not the mind itself, but human nature, that is, the operations of the mind. And there is no doubt that the operations of the mind are complex. There may be, I am inclined to think there is, but one power, which perceives and thinks and feels and wills; but perceiving and thinking and feeling and willing are very different actions, and it is only with the actions that we have to do.
LYMAN ABBOTT
A Study in Human Nature
The force of mind is only as great as its expression; its depth only as deep as its power to expand and lose itself.
GEORG WILHELM FRIEDRICH HEGEL
The Phenomenology of Spirit
'Tis the mind must guide the hand.
MAUD LINDSAY
"The Giant Energy & the Fairy Skill", Mother Stories
The mind is not a hermit's cell, but a place of hospitality and intercourse.
CHARLES HORTON COOLEY
Human Nature and the Social Order
The wise may find in trifles light as atoms in the air, some useful lesson to enrich the mind.
JOHN GODFREY SAXE
"King Solomon and the Bees"
What is troubling us is the tendency to believe that the mind is like a little man within.
LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN
attributed, Zen and the Work of Wittgenstein
It is the mind that maketh good or ill,
That maketh wretch or happy, rich or poor.
EDMUND SPENSER
The Faerie Queene
Mind is the Master power that moulds and makes,
And Man is Mind, and evermore he takes
The tool of Thought, and, shaping what he wills,
Brings forth a thousand joys, a thousand ills: --
He thinks in secret, and it comes to pass:
Environment is but his looking-glass.
JAMES ALLEN
As a Man Thinketh
A mind that is afraid withers away; it cannot function properly.
JIDDU KRISHNAMURTI
On Fear
Truly wonderful the mind of a child is.
YODA
Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones
How wonderful, how very wonderful the operations of time, and the changes of the human mind!
JANE AUSTEN
Mansfield Park
There are minds constructed like the eyes of certain insects, which discern, with admirable distinctness, the most delicate lineaments and finest veins of the leaf which bears them, but are totally unable to take in the ensemble of the plant or shrub. When error has effected an entrance into such minds, it remains there impregnable, because no general view assists them in throwing off the chance impression of the moment.
MADAME SWETCHINE
"Airelles", The Writings of Madame Swetchine
As an orchard when manured produces pleasant trees and luscious fruit, so does a cultivated mind produce pure thoughts and noble actions.
WILLIAM SCOTT DOWNEY
Proverbs
The mind is the pilot. We think of things before the body does them.
WALT DISNEY
attributed, The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation
Babylon in all its desolation is a sight not so awful as that of the human mind in ruins.
SCROPE BERDMORE DAVIES
letter to Thomas Raikes, May, 1835
It is not that science is unable to ever figure out the mind, or that the problem of understanding the mind is that we can't step out of it. The problem is that this kind of approach, focused on local cause and effect mechanics within the brain, on neurons firing across their synaptic connections, is doomed to fail.
MARCELO GLEISER
"Science And The Mystery Of The Mind", NPR, November 29, 2017
In greatest minds' great thoughts earth's passed; betimes
Fatal, foreshape the future.
PHILIP JAMES BAILEY
Universal Hymn
Successful minds work like a gimlet--to a single point.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought