Mind

One should look well to whom his mind he leaves.
~ Sir William Alexander, Earl of Stirling, Julius Caesar (1607).

Proverbs are mental gems gathered in the diamond fields of the mind.
~ William Rounseville (W.R.) Alger

To appreciate and use correctly a valuable maxim requires a genius, a vital appropriating exercise of mind, closely allied to that which first created it.
~ William Rounseville (W.R.) Alger, published in The Atlantic Monthly, vol. 11, issue 64 (February 1863). The Utility and the Futility of Aphorisms

It is not even true to say that the mind cannot conceive infinity -- ..., the real truth is that it can conceive nothing else.
~ William Archer, God and Mr. Wells: A Critical Examination of "God the invisible King" (1917). III. New Myths for Old

Someone with a fresh mind, one not conditioned by upbringing and environment, would doubtless look at science and the powerful reductionism that it inspires as overwhelmingly the better mode of understanding the world, and would doubtless scorn religion as sentimental wishful thinking. Would not that same uncluttered mind also see the attempts to reconcile science and religion by disparaging the reduction of the complex to the simple as attempts guided by muddle-headed sentiment and intellectually dishonest emotion?
~ Peter William (P.W.) Atkins, Essay in Oxford University Press (1995). Nature's Imagination: The Limitless Power of Science

The secret of Mental Concentration lies in the control of the Attention. And the control of the Attention lies in the exercise of the Will.
~ William Walker Atkinson, Practical Mental Influence (1908). Chapter IV: Mental Concentration

I do not suggest that you should not have an open mind, particularly as you approach college. But don't keep your mind so open that your brains fall out.
~ William John Bennett, Gonzaga College High School, Washington DC (1987).

People whose minds are not disciplined by training often tend to notice and remember events that support their views and forget others.
~ William Ian Beardmore (W.I.B.) Beveridge, The Art of Scientific Investigation (1950).

Much as we all glory in the power that is our own, the mind delights quite as naturally to raise its view to power that is above it, and to lose itself in the contemplation of strength and wisdom without bond.
~ William Cullen Bryant, Lectures on Poetry before the New York Athenaeum (April 1825; published in 1884). Lecture II. On the Value and Uses of Poetry

The praise of those who sleep in earth,
The pleasant memory of their worth,
The hope to meet when life is past,
Shall heal the tortured mind at last.
~ William Cullen Bryant, The Living Lost. Stanza 3

Your mind will answer most questions if you learn to relax and wait for the answer.
~ William S. Burroughs, The Naked Lunch (1959).

No wealth is like the quiet mind.
~ William Byrd, from Psalmes, Sonets and Songs of Sadnes and Pietie, Made Into Musicke Of Fiue Parts (1588).

A mind, the more it has of intellectual and moral life, the more it spreads life and power around it. It is an ever-enlarging source of thought and love.
~ William Ellery Channing, from The Works of Wm. Ellery Channing, D.D., Volume II (1835). Discourse on Immortality

Every mind was made for growth, for knowledge; and its nature is sinned against when it is doomed to ignorance.
~ William Ellery Channing, Address Delivered Before The Mercantile Library Company of Philadelphia (1841). The Present Age

It is Mind, after all, which does the work of the world, so that the more there is of mind, the more work will be accomplished.
~ William Ellery Channing (D.D.), Address Introductory to the Franklin Lectures, Boston MA (September 1838). On Self-Culture

A man was not made to shut up his mind in itself; but to give it voice and to exchange it for other minds.
~ William Ellery Channing (D.D.), Address Introductory to the Franklin Lectures, Boston MA (September 1838). On Self-Culture

The great use of intercourse with other minds is to stir up our own, to whet our appetite for truth, to carry our thoughts beyond their old tracks.
~ William Ellery Channing (D.D.), Address Introductory to the Franklin Lectures, Boston MA (September 1838). On Self-Culture

The human mind is aspiring, impatient of inferiority, and eager for preeminence and control.
~ William Ellery Channing, Address to the Congregational Ministers of Massachusetts, Boston MA (1816). First Discourse on War

The mind, in proportion as it is cut off from free communication with nature, with revelation, with God, with itself, loses its life, just as the body droops when debarred from the fresh air and the cheering light of heaven.
~ William Ellery Channing (D.D.), in The Christian Examiner (1829). Remarks on the Character and Writings of Fenelon

The mind was made to act on matter, and it grows by expressing itself in material forms.
~ William Ellery Channing, Annual Oration Delivered Before The American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia PA (18 October 1823). The Importance and Means of A National Literature

I am possesst
With strange Unrest,
My feelings jar.
My heart is war,
A spirit dances in my dreams to-day.
I am too cold, for its strange, sunny play.
~ William Ellery Channing, the younger, from Poems, Second Series (1846). The Restless Mind

The way to invigorate and excite the powers of the mind, is not so much to urge it with a mulitude of motives, as to bring some great subject before its attention.
~ William Benton (W.B.) Clulow, Horæ otiosæ; or, Thoughts, Maxims, and Opinions (1833). Part II. On Mind, Studies, and Intellectual Habits

Happiness, or misery, is in the mind. It is the mind that lives.
~ William Cobbett, A Grammar of the English Language, in a Series of Letters (1818). Letter XXIII. On Putting Sentences Together, and On Figurative Language

It is a mistake to sharpen our minds by narrowing them. It is a mistake to look to the Bible to close a discussion; the Bible seeks to open one.
~ Rev. William Sloane Coffin, Jr., The Courage to Love (1982).

I want my mind to be a sail, susceptible to any breeze
that might be blowing across the lake of consciousness.
~ Billy Collins, The Art of Drowning (1995). Fiftieth Birthday Eve

No well-regulated mind ever draws its inferences in a hurry.
~ (William) Wilkie Collins, No Name (1862). Vol. 1. Chapter VI

In the study of brain functions we rely upon a biased, poorly understood, and frequently unpredictable organ in order to study the properties of another such organ; we have to use a brain to study a brain.
~ William C. Corning, from The Mind: Biological Approaches To Its Functions (1968).

His mind his kingdom, and his will his law.
~ William Cowper, from Poems by William Cowper of the Inner Temple, Esq. (1782). Truth

How fleet is a glance of the mind!
~ William Cowper, Verses Supposed to be Written by Alexander Selkirk (1782).

Minds are never to be sold.
~ William Cowper, in Poems by William Cowper of the Inner Temple, Esq. (1805 edition). The Negro's Complaint (written in 1788).

To dally much with subject mean and low
Proves that the mind is weak, or makes it so.
~ William Cowper, from Poems by William Cowper of the Inner Temple, Esq. (1782). Table Talk (written in 1781)

To polish, furnish and delight the mind.
~ William Cowper, from Poems by William Cowper of the Inner Temple, Esq. (1782). Table Talk (written in 1781)

The noblest minds their virtue prove
By pity, sympathy, and love:
These, these are feelings truly fine,
And prove their owner half divine.
~ William Cowper, from Poems by William Cowper of the Inner Temple, Esq. (1782). The Poet, The Oyster and the Sensitive Plant

Give the mind food, or it will prey on itself.
~ William Danby, Ideas and Realities, or Thoughts on Various Subjects (1827).

The proof of a rational and active mind, is in its extent of thought and power of expression.
~ William Danby, Thoughts on Various Subjects (1831).

To fortify, expand, and elevate the powers of the mind, should be the great business of human life.
~ William Danby, Thoughts, Chiefly on Serious Subjects (1821).

No matter where this body is,
The mind is free to go elsewhere.
~ William Henry (W.H.) Davies, The Bird of Paradise (1914). The Mind's Liberty

I like the mind to be a dustbin of scraps of brilliant fabric, odd gems, worthless but fascinating curiosities, tinsel, quaint bits of carving, and a reasonable amount of healthy dirt. Shake the machine and it goes out of order; shake the dustbin and it adjusts itself beautifully to its new position.
~ (William) Robertson Davies, Tempest-Tost (1951).

Perfect Jewels! Gems resplendent
Gathered from the mines of ages:
Gems of brilliancy transcendent,
Won from poets, seers, and sages.
~ William Denovan, in Perfect Jewels: A Collection Of The Choicest Things In The Literature Of Life, Love And Religion (1884). Perfect Jewels

The mind is nothing less than a garden of inestimable value, which man should strive to cultivate.
~ William Scott Downey, Proverbs, by Rev. William Scott Downey (1851 edition). Chapter XI

It is a wasted mind --
That seeks not in the inner world
Its happiness to find.
~ William Johnson ("W.J.") Fox, Hymns and Anthems (1845). Book II. CXXV

No chains can bind it, and no cell enclose:
Swifter than light, it flies from pole to pole,
And, in a flash, from earth to heaven it goes!
~ William Lloyd Garrison, from Sonnets And Other Poems (1843). Freedom of the Mind (written in 1830)

All thinking for themselves, is what
No man can face with equanimity.
~ William Schwenck (W.S.) Gilbert, Iolanthe (1882 opera). Act 2

[T]o train the mind shall be the first object, and to stock it only the second.
~ William Ewart Gladstone, Inaugural Address, as Rector, On 'The Work of Universities'. University of Edinburgh. Glasgow, Scotland (16 April 1860).

Can we suppress truth? Can we arrest the progress of the enquiring mind? If we can, it will only be done by the most unmitigated despotism. Mind has a perpetual tendency to rise.
~ William Godwin, An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793). Book VIII: Of Property. Chapter VIII. Of the Means of Introducing the Genuine System of Property

It is the characteristic of mind to be capable of improvement.
~ William Godwin, An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793).

Direct your eyesight inward, and you'll find
A thousand regions in your mind
Yet undiscover'd.
~ William Habington, Castara, Part II (1634). To my honoured friend Sir Ed. P. Knight

A judgment is the mental act by which one thing is affirmed or denied of another.
~ Sir William Hamilton, 9th Baronet, in Lectures on Metaphysics and Logic (1858-60). Volume I. Metaphysics. Lecture XI. Outline of Distribution of Mental Phenomena -- Consciousness -- Its Special Conditions

Because of the interconnectedness of all minds, affirming a positive vision may be about the most sophisticated action any one of us can take.
~ Willis Harman, Global Mind Change: The Promise of the 21st Century (1988). Chapter 7: Aspects of the World System Change

Perhaps the only limits to the human mind are those we believe in.
~ Willis Harman, Global Mind Change: The Promise of the 21st Century (1988). Preface

Doctrine once sown strikes deep its root, and respect for antiquity influences all men. Still the die is cast, and my trust is in my love of truth, and the candour of cultivated minds.
~ William Harvey, Exercitatio Anatomica de Motu Cordis et Sanguinis in Animalibus (An Anatomical Exercise on the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals; 1628).

A great mind is one that can forget or look beyond itself.
~ William Hazlitt, in Literary Examiner (London, September - December 1823). Common Places

I like a person who knows his own mind and sticks to it; who sees at once what is to be done in given circumstances and does it.
~ William Hazlitt, Table-Talk, or Original Essays on Men and Manners, 2nd series (1824). On Effeminacy of Character

In exploring new and doubtful tracts of speculation, the mind strikes out true and original views; as a drop of water hesitates at first what direction it will take, but afterwards follows its own course.
~ William Hazlitt, from The Plain Speaker, Volume II (1826). Essay IX. On Novelty and Familiarity

Possession pampers the mind; privation trains and strengthens it.
~ William Hazlitt, in Sketches and Essays (1839). On The Conversation of Lords (written in 1826)

[T]he mind cannot be idle; if it is not taken up with one thing, it attends to another through choice or necessity.
~ William Hazlitt, Characteristics: in the Manner of Rochefoucault's Maxims (1823).

The mind loves to hover on that which is endless, and forever the same.
~ William Hazlitt, Notes of a Journey through France and Italy (1826). Chapter I

The mind of man is like a clock that is always running down, and requires to be as constantly wound up.
~ William Hazlitt, in Sketches and Essays (1839). On Cant and Hypocrisy (written in 1828)

There is an unseemly exposure of the mind, as well as of the body.
~ William Hazlitt, in Sketches and Essays (1839). On Disagreeable People (written in 1827)

You must keep your mind on the objective, not on the obstacle.
~ William Randolph Hearst

Peace is the natural tone of a well-regulated mind at one with itself.
~ Wilhelm von Humboldt, in Letters of William Von Humboldt to a Female Friend, Vol. II (1849 translation). Letter XII. March 5, 1830

The mind a highway is.
~ William Colburn Husted, from The Sea Wind: A Book of Verse (1915). The Highway

The vulgar mind always mistakes the exceptional for the important.
~ William Ralph (Dean) Inge, More Lay Thoughts of a Dean (1931).

Every one knows what attention is. It is the taking possession by the mind, in clear and vivid form, of one out of what seem several simultaneously possible objects or trains of thought. Focalization, concentration, of consciousness are of its essence. It implies withdrawal from some things in order to deal effectively with others.
~ William James, The Principles of Psychology (1890). Vol. 1. Chapter XI: Attention

In the dim background of our mind we know ... what we ought to be doing. ... But somehow we cannot start.
~ William James, The Principles of Psychology (1890). Vol. 1. Chapter XI: Attention

Its own body ... first of all, its friends next, and finally its spiritual dispositions, must be the supremely interesting objects for each human mind.
~ William James, The Principles of Psychology (1890). Vol. 1. Chapter X: The Consciousness of Self

Minds, as we know them, are temporary things.
~ William James, The Principles of Psychology (1890). Vol. 1. Chapter VIII: The Relations of Minds to Other Things

No impression without expression.
~ William James, Talks to Teachers on Psychology: and to Students on Some of Life's Ideals (March 1899). V: The Necessity of Reactions

[O]ur fundamental ways of thinking about things are discoveries of exceedingly remote ancestors, which have been able to preserve themselves throughout the experience of all subsequent time. They form one great stage of equilibrium in the human mind's development, the stage of common sense.
~ William James, from Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking (1907). Lecture V. Pragmatism and Common Sense

Our minds thus grow in spots; and like grease spots, the spots spread. But we let them spread as little as possible; we keep unaltered as much of our old knowledge, as many of our old prejudices and beliefs, as we can. We patch and tinker more than we renew. The novelty soaks in; it stains the ancient mass; but it is also tinged by what absorbs it.
~ William James, from Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking (1907). Lecture V. Pragmatism and Common Sense

We can see that the mind is at every stage a theatre of simultaneous possibilities. Consciousness consists in the comparison of these with each other, the selection of some, and the suppression of others, of the rest, by the reinforcing and inhibiting agency of attention. The highest and most celebrated mental products are filtered from the data chosen by the faculty below that - which mass was in turn sifted from a still larger amount of simpler material, and so on.
~ William James, (1890).

You should never argue with a crazy mind
You oughta know by now.
~ Billy Joel, in The Stranger (1977 album). Movin' Out (Anthony's Song)

The outer mind is 99.999999 percent comatose. It simply does not realize the unconscious forces that dominate or direct the life of the individual
~ W. Brugh Joy

True impulses are intelligent. They show the path we can most successfully follow because they reveal the basic interests of the unconscious mind.
~ William Moulton Marston, CBS Radio Network Broadcast (18 March 1941). Obey That Impulse

Talking is a digestive process which is absolutely essential to the mental constitution of the man who devours many books. A full mind must have talk, or it will grow dyspeptic.
~ William Mathews, from The Great Conversers, And Other Essays (1874). II. Literary Clubs

Like all weak men he laid an exaggerated stress on not changing one's mind.
~ W. Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage (1915).

No affectation of peculiarity can conceal a commonplace mind.
~ W. Somerset Maugham, The Moon and Sixpence (1919). Chapter XLII

If you want peace, stop fighting. If you want peace of mind, stop fighting with your thoughts.
~ Peter McWilliams, Life 101: Everything We Wished We Had Learned about Life in School--But Didn't (August 1994).

When a hundred men stand together, each of them loses his mind and gets another one.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

If you keep your mind sufficiently open, people will throw a lot of rubbish into it.
~ William A. Orton, Everyman Amid the Stereotype

A library represents the mind of its collector, his fancies and foibles, his strength and weakness, his prejudices and preferences. Particularly is this the case if, to the character of a collector, he adds -- or tries to add -- the qualities of a student who wishes to know the books and the lives of the men who wrote them. The friendships of his life, the phases of his growth, the vagaries of his mind, all are represented.
~ William Osler, (1919)

We measure the importance of things, not by what, or according to what they are in truth, but by and according to the space and room which they occupy in our minds.
~ William Paley, in Sermons, on Several Subjects (1808).

At a certain age some people's minds close up; they live on their intellectual fat.
~ William Lyon ("Billy") Phelps

You must cultivate your mind if you wish to achieve enduring happiness. You must furnish your mind with interesting thoughts and ideas. For an empty mind grows bored and cannot endure itself. An empty mind seeks pleasure as a substitute for happiness.
~ William Lyon ("Billy") Phelps, quoted in Light From Many Lamps (1951).

We are all by nature prone to narrow-mindedness.
~ William S. Plumer, Vital Godliness: A Treatise on Experimental and Practical Piety (1864). Chapter XVII. Love to Our Neighbor

The Spiritual Mind does not run contrary to reason but it transcends Intellect; it goes beyond, and senses that which the Intellect cannot grasp. In reading, or hearing, statements of what is claimed to be the truth, accept only that which appeals to this higher reason, and lay aside, temporarily, that which does not so appeal to it.
~ Yogi Ramacharaka (William Walker Atkinson) (written in the early 1900's), in Advanced Course in Yoga Philosophy and Ancient Fundamentals (December 2000).

The noblest exercise of the mind within doors, and most befitting a person of quality, is study.
~ William Ramesey, from The Gentlemans Companion: or, a Character of True Nobility and Gentility (1672).

The situation is one for an open mind.
~ William Halse Rivers (W.H.R.) Rivers, Social Organization (1924).

When, freed from earth, unlimited its powers,
Mind shall with Mind direct communion hold,
And kindred spirits meet to part no more.
~ William Roscoe, in The Poetical Works of William Roscoe (1853). Sonnet, On Parting With His Books

Broad-minded is just another way of saying a fellow's too lazy to form an opinion.
~ Will Rogers

People's minds are changed through observation and not through argument.
~ Will Rogers, quoted in Criswell Freeman The Wisdom of the West (1997).

When a fellow don't have much mind it don't take him long to make it up.
~ Will Rogers

Gossip is the occupation of idle minds; scandal is the occupation of ungenerous ones. ... Spread the reports of goodness in the world; and, if we have no such reports, let us, in heaven's name, keep still. We shall at least do one good thing by doing this.
~ William Mackintire (W.M.) Salter, Personal Morality: Two Lectures Before the Society for Ethical Culture of Chicago (1886). II. The Morality of Daily Life

The true nobility of the mind consists in the humbleness of the mind.
~ William Secker, from The Nonsuch Professor in His Meridian Splendor, or the Singular Actions of Sanctified Christians (1660).

All things are ready, if our minds be so.
~ William Shakespeare, King Henry V. Act IV, scene iii

Do not infest your mind with beating on
The strangeness of this business.
~ William Shakespeare, The Tempest. Act V, scene i

Fast bind, fast find; --
A proverb never stale in thrifty mind.
~ William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice. Act II, scene v

[F]rame your mind to mirth and merriment,
Which bars a thousand harms and lengthens life.
~ William Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew. Induction, scene ii

I, thus neglecting worldly ends, all dedicated
To closeness and the bettering of my mind.
~ William Shakespeare, The Tempest. Act I, scene ii

In my mind's eye.
~ William Shakespeare, Hamlet. Act I, scene ii

Mad call I it; for, to define true madness,
What is't but to be nothing else but mad?
~ William Shakespeare, Hamlet. Act II, scene ii

Our purses shall be proud, our garments poor;
For 'tis the mind that makes the body rich.
~ William Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew. Act IV, scene iii

Sense, sure, you have,
Else you could not have motion.
~ William Shakespeare, Hamlet. Act III, scene iv

There is a fair behaviour in thee, Captain;
And though that nature with a beauteous wall
Doth oft close in pollution, yet of thee
I will believe, thou has a mind that suits
With this thy fair and outward character.
~ William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night. Act I, scene ii

There's no art
To find the mind's construction in the face.
~ William Shakespeare, Macbeth. Act I, scene iv

['T]is but a base ignoble mind
That mounts no higher than a bird can soar.
~ William Shakespeare, King Henry VI, Part II. Act II, scene i

[W]e bring forth weeds when our quick minds lie still.
~ William Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra. Act I, scene ii

A light and trifling mind never takes in great ideas, and never accomplishes anything great or good.
~ William Buell Sprague

Red lights, green lights, stop n' go jive
Headlines, deadlines, jamming your mind.
~ Billy Squier, in Don't Say No (1981 album). Lonely Is The Night

There is one thing over which a person has absolute and inherent control and that is his mental attitude.
~ William (W.) Clement Stone, Success Through a Positive Mental Attitude (1960).

You affect your subconscious mind by verbal repetition.
~ William (W.) Clement Stone

[T]he mind of man is like the Sea, which is neither agreeable to the beholder nor the voyager, in a calm or in a storm; but is so to both, when a little agitated by gentle gales; and so the Mind, when moved by soft and easy Passions and Affections.
~ Sir William Temple, 1st Baronet, from Miscellanea, Part II (1690). Of Poetry

The subconscious part in us is called the subjective mind, because it does not decide and command. It is a subject rather than a ruler. Its nature is to do what it is told, or what really in your heart of hearts you desire.
~ William Thomas Walsh, Scientific Spiritual Healing (1926).

Enthusiasm is that temper of the mind, in which the imagination has got the better of the judgment.
~ William Warburton, Divine Legation of Moses, Volume II (1741). Book V.

Without censorship, things can get terribly confused in the public mind.
~ William C. Westmoreland

As Aristotle said, happiness is not a condition that is produced or stands on its own; rather, it is a frame of mind that accompanies an activity. But another frame of mind comes first. It is a steely determination to do well.
~ George F. Will, Men at Work: The Craft of Baseball (1990).

Shakespeare's Antonio, in The Tempest, says that the idea of "conscience" is meaningless to him, since, unlike a chilblain, he cannot feel it: "I feel not / This deity in my bosom". ... It is often assumed today, especially by post-structuralists, that the mind does not exist as a creative agency; that there is instead a tabula rasa which reflects in miniature the linguistic and social assumptions current in the individual's environment.
~ Meg Harris Williams, Encounter 74, v (1990)

A new world
is only a new mind.
~ William Carlos Williams, The Desert Music (1954). To Daphne and Virginia

Minds like beds always made up,
(more stony than a shore)
unwilling or unable.
~ William Carlos Williams, Paterson (1946).

My state of being has been elevated, because I've been exercising, writing songs. I'm in a better frame of mind these days. It feels great -- it's like I see some light. Things make sense to me again.
~ Brian Wilson, brianwilson.com (2001)

You can be social minded without being a socialist.
~ Charles E. Wilson, Address at Dartmouth College, Hanover NH (5 May 1959).

Human beings live -- literally live, as if life is equated with the mind -- by symbols, particularly words, because the brain is constructed to process information almost exclusively in their terms.
~ Edward Osborne (E.O.) Wilson, Biophilia (1984).

The brain and its satellite glands have now been probed to the point where no particular site remains that can reasonably be supposed to harbor a nonphysical mind.
~ Edward Osborne (E.O.) Wilson, Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge (1998).

The human mind evolved to believe in the gods. It did not evolve to believe in biology.
~ Edward Osborne (E.O.) Wilson, Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge (1998).

Giants exist as a state of mind. They are defined not as an absolute measurement but as a proportionality. ... So giants can be real, even if adults do not choose to classify them as such.
~ Edward Osborne (E.O.) Wilson, Naturalist (1994).

A writer's mind seems to be situated partly in the solar plexus and partly in the head.
~ Ethel Davis Wilson, from Ethel Wilson: Stories, Essays, and Letters (1987). A Cat Among the Falcons (essay first published in Canadian Literature; Autumn 1959)

The way a man's mind runs is the way he's sure to go.
~ Henry B. Wilson

The waist is a terrible thing to mind.
~ Tom Wilson, Ziggy (The dieter's lament)

It will no longer do to fill the ear only with pleasant sounds, or the fancy with fine images. The mind, the understanding must be filled with solid thought.
~ William Wirt, in Memoirs of the Life of William Wirt, Volume II (1849). Chapter XX. Letter to S. Teackle Wallis; 26 January 1833.

[A] mind forever Voyaging through strange seas of Thought, alone.
~ William Wordsworth (on Newton's statue), The Prelude (1850 edition). Book III: Residence at Cambridge

For a multitude of causes unknown to former times are now acting with a combined force to blunt the discriminating powers of the mind, and unfitting it for all voluntary exertion to reduce it to a state of almost savage torpor.
~ William Wordsworth, from Lyrical Ballads with Other Poems, Vol. 2 (1800). Preface

Hard task, vain hope, to analyse the mind,
If each most obvious and particular thought,
Not in a mystical and idle sense,
But in the words of reason deeply weighed,
Hath no beginning.
~ William Wordsworth, The Prelude (1805). Book II: Childhood and School-time (Continued)

In years that bring the philosophic mind.
~ William Wordsworth, from Poems in Two Volumes (1807). Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood, X

Strongest minds
Are often those of whom the noisy world
Hears least.
~ William Wordsworth, The Excursion (1814). Book I: The Wanderer

[T]he human mind is capable of excitement without the application of gross and violent stimulants; and he must have a very faint perception of its beauty and dignity who does not know this.
~ William Wordsworth, from Lyrical Ballads, Vol. 2 (1800). Preface

Our mind is so fortunately equipped that it brings us the most important bases for our thoughts without our having the least knowledge of this work of elaboration. Only the results of it become conscious. This unconscious mind is for us like an unknown being who creates and produces for us, and finally throws the ripe fruits in our lap.
~ Wilhelm Max Wundt, Quoted by Hans Eysenck. The Decline and Fall of the Freudian Empire

The distinguishing characteristics of mind are of a subjective sort; we know them only from the contents of our own consciousness.
~ Wilhelm Max Wundt, Principles Of Physiological Psychology (1873).

Hands, do what you're bid;
Bring the balloon of the mind
That bellies and drags in the wind
Into its narrow shed.
~ William Butler Yeats, from The Wild Swans at Coole (1917). The Balloon of the Mind

People who lean on logic and philosophy and rational exposition end by starving the best part of the mind.
~ William Butler Yeats

We can make our minds so like still water that beings gather about us that they may see, it may be, their own images, and so live for a moment with a clearer, perhaps even with a fiercer life because of our quiet.
~ William Butler Yeats, from The Celtic Twilight (1902 edition). Earth, Fire and Water