Thoughts

A crowd always thinks with its sympathy, never with its reason.
~ William Rounseville (W.R.) Alger

To the soul that thinks, every thought, according to its character, is a tutor, foul or holy.
~ William Rounseville (W.R.) Alger, The School of Life (1881). The Providential Teachers

We will often find compensation if we think more of what life has given us and less about what life has taken away.
~ William Barclay

Probably the main characteristic of the trained thinker is that he does not jump to conclusions based on insufficient evidence as the untrained man is inclined to do.
~ William Ian Beardmore (W.I.B.) Beveridge, The Art of Scientific Investigation (1950).

There is a fairly general, though not universal, agreement that intuitions arise from the subconscious activities of the mind, which has continued to turn over the problem even though perhaps the mind is no longer giving it attention.
~ William Ian Beardmore (W.I.B.) Beveridge, The Art of Scientific Investigation (1950).

One thought fills immensity.
~ William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790-93). Proverbs of Hell

There is a big difference between thinking for yourself and mass thinking. In the hands of the mob, ideas get hollowed out like campaign slogans, to the point where they are completely empty. They appeal, not to the reason of an intelligent observer, but to the lowest common denominator of emotion.
~ Bill Bonner, The Daily Reckoning.

I do not think about things I don't think about.
~ William Jennings Bryan, testimony in Tennessee v. Scopes (20 July 1925).

Any belief in Creators or Purpose is wishful thinking. And when you point out that perhaps all thinking is wishful, reactions of intense irritation give evidence that we are not dealing with logic but with faith.
~ William S. Burroughs, The Adding Machine (1985). On Coincidence

"Primus ego in patriam mecum ... deducam Musas"; for I shall be the first, if I live, to bring the Muse into my country.
~ Willa Sibert Cather, My Ántonia (1918). Book III. Lina Lingard

A thinker is at work all the time.
~ William Ellery Channing (D.D.), in Dr. Channing's Note-book (1887). Thought -- Reason

Love is the parent of thought.
~ William Ellery Channing, in Dr. Channing's Note-book (1887). Love

Thought, thought, is the fundamental distinction of mind, and the great work of life. All that a man does outwardly is but the expression and completion of his inward thought.
~ William Ellery Channing (D.D.), Lectures On The Elevation Of The Labouring Portion Of The Community (1840). Lecture I (delivered in Boston MA; 9 January 1840)

We need connections with great thinkers to make us thinkers too.
~ William Ellery Channing (D.D.), Address Introductory to the Franklin Lectures, Boston MA (September 1838). On Self-Culture

Thought is powerless, except it make something outside of itself: the thought which conquers the world is not contemplative but active.
~ William Kingdon (W.K.) Clifford, (December 1863).

I would rather be the author of one original thought, than conqueror of a hundred battles. Yet moral excellence is so much superior to intellectual, that I ought to esteem one virtue more valuable than a hundred original thoughts.
~ William Benton (W.B.) Clulow, Horæ otiosæ; or, Thoughts, Maxims, and Opinions (1833). Part VI. On Authors, Style, and Literature

Yet I may think -- I may, I must; for thought
Precedes the will to think, and error lives
Ere reason can be born.
~ William Congreve, The Mourning Bride (1697). Act III, scene i

In indolent vacuity of thought.
~ William Cowper, The Task (1785). Book IV. The Winter Evening

Knowledge and Wisdom, far from being one,
Have ofttimes no connexion. Knowledge dwells
In heads replete with thoughts of other men;
Wisdom in minds attentive to their own.
~ William Cowper, The Task (1785). Book VI. The Winter Walk At Noon

When I can find no other occupation, I think; and when I think, I am very apt to do it in rhyme.
~ William Cowper, in The Life of William Cowper (1833). Chapter X

Expression is the clothing of thought: its reception with the world depends as much upon this, as a man's does upon the coat he wears.
~ William Danby, Ideas and Realities, or Thoughts on Various Subjects (1827).

The power of thought is not so much shewn in conceiving ideas, as in combining them.
~ William Danby

Slow seems their speed whose thoughts before them run.
~ Sir William Davenant, Gondibert (1651). Book 2, Canto 3

Our ideals govern us; and what we think, we are; what we most think of, we most resemble.
~ William James ("W.J.") Dawson, The Making of Manhood (1894). Chapter I: The Duty of Right Thinking

This intuition, that there is a fundamental distinction between undirected natural causes on the one hand and intelligent causes on the other, has underlain the design arguments of past centuries.
~ William A. Dembski

Life is given to us not immediately, but elucidated through the objectivation of thought. If the objective conception of life is not to become dubious by the fact that it passes through the operations of thought, the objective validity of thinking will have to be demonstrated.
~ Wilhelm Dilthey, in Gesammelte Schriften, V (Collected Works, Volume V; 1924). The Spiritual World: Introduction To The Philosophy Of Life. First Half: Essays On The Foundation Of The Human Sciences

We need be bold and adventuresome in our thinking to survive.
~ William Orville Douglas (dissenting opinion), Adler v. Board of Education of City of New York, 342 U.S. 485 (1952).

What a man thinks is of no concern to government.
~ William Orville Douglas (concurring opinion), Speiser v. Randall, 357 U.S. 513 (1958).

Amid the clamor of the streets
The fancy often fills
With far-off thoughts; I live again
Among the streams and hills.
~ William A. Dunn, in The Atlantic Monthly (November 1897). Amid The Clamor Of The Streets

We must dare to think about unthinkable things because when things become unthinkable, thinking stops and action becomes mindless.
~ J. William Fulbright, Speech in the U.S. Senate (27 March 1964).

We must dare to think "unthinkable" thoughts. We must learn to explore all the options and possibilities that confront us in a complex and rapidly changing world.
~ J. William Fulbright, Speech in the U.S. Senate (27 March 1964).

My thoughts will be taken up with the future or the past, with what is to come or what has been. Of the present there is necessarily no image.
~ William Godwin, Thoughts on Man, His Nature, Productions and Discoveries (1831). Essay XV. Of Love and Friendship

The happiest and most valuable thoughts of the human mind will sometimes come when they are least sought for, and we least anticipated any such thing.
~ William Godwin, Thoughts on Man, His Nature, Productions and Discoveries (1831). Essay VIII. Of Human Vegetation

We cannot perform our tasks to the best of our power, unless we think well of our own capacity.
~ William Godwin, Thoughts on Man, His Nature, Productions and Discoveries (1831). Essay XIX. Of Self-Complacency

The highest of all logical laws, in other words, the supreme law of thought, is what is called the principle of Contradiction, or more correctly the principle of Non-Contradiction. It is this: A thing cannot be and not be at the same time.
~ Sir William Hamilton, 9th Baronet, in Lectures on Metaphysics and Logic (1858-60). Volume I. Metaphysics. Lecture XXXVIII. The Regulative Faculty

To think is to condition; and conditional limitation is the fundamental law of the possibility of thought.
~ Sir William Hamilton, 9th Baronet, from Discussions on Philosophy and Literature, Education and University Reform (1852).

A thought must tell at once, or not at all.
~ William Hazlitt, Characteristics: in the Manner of Rochefoucault's Maxims (1823). Preface

Let us think what we please of what we really find, but prejudge nothing.
~ William Hazlitt, Notes of a Journey through France and Italy (1826). Chapter I

To think justly, we must understand what others mean; to know the value of our thoughts, we must try their effect on other minds.
~ William Hazlitt, from The Plain Speaker, Volume II (1826). Essay V. On People of Sense

Reflection makes men cowards.
~ William Hazlitt, Characteristics: in the Manner of Rochefoucault's Maxims (1823).

The contemplation of truth and beauty is the proper object for which we were created, which calls forth the most intense desires of the soul, and of which it never tires.
~ William Hazlitt, Sketches Of The Principal Picture-Galleries In England (1824). Mr. Angerstein's Collection

Those who from a constant change and dissipation of outward objects have not a moment's leisure left for their own thoughts, can feel no respect for themselves, and learn little consideration for humanity.
~ William Hazlitt, Characteristics: in the Manner of Rochefoucault's Maxims (1823).

To get others to come into our ways of thinking, we must go over to theirs; and it is necessary to follow, in order to lead.
~ William Hazlitt, in Winterslow, Essays and Characters Written There (1850). A Farewell to Essay-Writing (March 1828)

We never do anything well till we cease to think about the manner of doing it.
~ William Hazlitt, in Sketches and Essays (1839). On Prejudice (written in 1830)

Beware thoughts that come in the night. They aren't turned properly; they come in askew, free of sense and restriction, deriving from the most remote of sources.
~ William Least Heat-Moon, Blue Highways: A Journey into America (1982).

The rise of thought beyond the world of sense, its passage from the finite to the infinite, the leap into the super-sensible which it takes when it snaps asunder the links of the chain of sense, all this transition is thought and nothing but thought.
~ Georg Wilhelm Friedrich (G.W.F.) Hegel, Logic (1816).

Think faith, courage, cheer, confidence, and strength, and by-and-by the habit will be fixed, and natural.
~ (Col.) William C. Hunter, Evening Round-up: More Good Stuff Like Pep (1915). Self Accusation: If You Do This You Will Always Be Miserable

If originality means thinking for oneself, and not thinking differently from other people, a man does not forfeit his claim to it by saying things which have occurred to others.
~ William Ralph (Dean) Inge, Labels & Libels (1929).

Personalize your sympathies; depersonalize you antipathies.
~ William Ralph (Dean) Inge, More Lay Thoughts of a Dean (1931).

A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.
~ William James, Attributed

[A] rule of thinking which would absolutely prevent me from acknowledging certain kinds of truth if those kinds of truth were really there, would be an irrational rule.
~ William James, An Address to the Philosophical Clubs of Yale and Brown Universities (published in the New World; June 1896). The Will to Believe

Let anyone try to cut a thought across the middle and get a look at its section, and he will see how difficult the introspective observation ... is. The rush of the thought is always so headlong that it almost always brings us up at the conclusion before we can arrest it. ... [Introspective analysis] is in fact like seizing a spinning top to catch its motion, or trying to turn up the gas quickly enough to see how the darkness looks.
~ William James, The Principles of Psychology (1890). Vol. 1. Chapter IX. The Stream of Thought

Metaphysics means nothing but an unusually obstinate effort to think clearly.
~ William James, The Principles of Psychology (1890). Vol. 1. Chapter VI: The Mind-Stuff Theory

Reason is only one out of a thousand possibilities in the thinking of each of us. Who can count all the silly fancies, the grotesque suppositions, the utterly irrelevent reflections he makes in the course of a day?
~ William James, The Principles of Psychology (1890). Vol. 1. Chapter XIV: Association

Since you make them evil or good by your own thoughts about them, it is the ruling of your thoughts which proves to be your principal concern.
~ William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902). Lectures IV and V: The Religion of Healthy-Mindedness

The ignoring of data is, in fact, the easiest and most popular mode of obtaining unity in one's thought.
~ William James, in Mind: A Quarterly Review Or Psychology And Philosophy (1879). The Sentiment of Rationality

There is a law in psychology that if you form a picture in your mind of what you would like to be, and you keep and hold that picture there long enough, you will soon become exactly as you have been thinking.
~ William James

To think, in short, is the secret of will, just as it is the secret of memory.
~ William James, Talks to Teachers on Psychology: and to Students on Some of Life's Ideals (1899). XV. The Will

When from our present advanced standpoint we look back upon the past stages of human thought, whether it be scientific thought or theological thought, we are amazed that a universe which appears to us of so vast and mysterious a complication should ever have seemed to anyone so little and plain a thing.
~ William James, in Forum 13: 727-742 (1892). What Psychical Research Has Accomplished

Why may not thought's mission be to increase and elevate, rather than simply to imitate and reduplicate, existence?
~ William James, from The Meaning of Truth: A Sequel To 'Pragmatism' (1909). III. Humanism and Truth

Your thought is obscure -- lightning flashes darting gleams -- but that's the way truth is.
~ William James, in The Letters of William James, Vol. 2 (1920). XII. Letter to Benjamin Paul Blood, 28 April 1897

Man is a slow, sloppy and brilliant thinker; the machine is fast, accurate and stupid.
~ William M. Kelly

Nothing can think, or will now, in which there was not will and thought from all eternity.
~ William Law, An Appeal To all that Doubt, or Disbelieve the Truths of the Gospel (1740).

We've had daunting problems in health care, education, housing, law enforcement, and other critical areas. I believe in the old Cherokee injunction to "be of a good mind." Today it's called positive thinking.
~ Wilma Mankiller

And a great thought shall never die away.
~ William Tidd Matson, from A Summer Evening Reverie, and Other Poems (1857). A Summer Evening Reverie

Common sense appears to be only another name for the thoughtlessness of the unthinking. It is made up of the prejudices of childhood, the idiosyncrasies of individual character and the opinion of newspapers.
~ W. Somerset Maugham

For many, negative thinking is a habit, which over time, becomes an addiction. A lot of people suffer from this disease because negative thinking is addictive to each of the Big Three -- the mind, the body, and the emotions. If one doesn't get you, the others are waiting in the wings.
~ Peter McWilliams

Negative thinking is always expensive -- dragging us down mentally, emotionally, and physically -- hence I refer to any indulgence in it as a luxury.
~ Peter McWilliams, You Can't Afford the Luxury of a Negative Thought (1995). Introduction

Our thoughts create our reality. ... Where we put our focus--our inner and outer vision--is the direction we tend to go.
~ Peter McWilliams, You Can't Afford the Luxury of a Negative Thought (1995). Part One -- The Disease. The Creative Power of Thoughts

Positive thoughts have positive results. Negative thoughts produce negative results.
~ Peter McWilliams, You Can't Afford the Luxury of a Negative Thought (1995).

Every thought is a seed. If you plant crab apples, don't count on harvesting Golden Delicious.
~ Bill Meyer

Television can stir emotions, but it doesn't invite reflection as much as the printed page.
~ Bill Moyers

Once you replace negative thoughts with positive ones, you'll start having positive results.
~ Willie Nelson

How can one become a thinker if he does not spend at least a third of the day without passions, people and books?
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human. Second Sequel: The Wanderer and His Shadow (December 1879).

On the heights it is warmer than people in the valleys suppose, especially in winter. The thinker recognizes the full import of this simile.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human. First Sequel: Mixed Opinions and Maxims (March 1879).

Only those thoughts that come by walking have any value.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, The Twilight of the Idols (1888). Maxims and Missiles

Out of damp and gloomy days, out of solitude, out of loveless words directed at us, conclusions grow up in us like fungus: one morning they are there, we know not how, and they gaze upon us, morose and gray. Woe to the thinker who is not the gardener but only the soil of the plants that grow in him!
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

Sum, ergo cogito: cogito, ergo sum [I am, therefore I think: I think, therefore I am.].
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, The Gay Science (1882).

The thought of suicide is a great source of comfort: with it a calm passage is to be made across many a night.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil (1885-86).

[T]hinking is merely a relation of ... drives [desires, passions] to each other ...
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil (1885-86).

Thoughts are the shadows of our feelings -- always darker, emptier, simpler.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, The Gay Science (1882). Book III

Thoughts that come with doves' footsteps guide the world.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra (1885).

We do not belong to those who only get their thought from books, or at the prompting of books, -- it is our custom to think in the open air, walking, leaping, climbing, or dancing on lonesome mountains by preference, or close to the sea, where even the paths become thoughtful.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

First it must be known that only a spoken word or a conventional sign is an equivocal or univocal term; therefore a mental content or concept is, strictly speaking, neither equivocal nor univocal.
~ William of Occam

Regret is an odd emotion because it comes only upon reflection. Regret lacks immediacy, and so its power seldom influences events when it could some good.
~ William O'Rourke, Idle Hands (1981).

Your morning thoughts may determine your conduct for the day. Optimistic thoughts will make your day bright and productive, while pessimistic thinking will make it dull and wasteful.
~ William M. Peck

Man being made a reasonable, and so a thinking creature, there is nothing more worthy of his being, than the right direction and employment of his thoughts; since upon this, depends both his usefulness to the public, and his own present and future benefit in all respects.
~ William Penn, Some Fruits of Solitude (1693). Part II. Of the Government of Thoughts

Thoughts, even more than overt acts, reveal character.
~ William S. Plumer

Dare I look beneath the shade,
Into where the worlds are made;
Where the suns and stars are wrought?
Shall I meet another Thought?
~ William Brighty Rands, from Lilliput Lectures (1871). The Sky

No man can be a failure if he thinks he's a success;
... If he thinks he is a winner,
Then he is.
~ Robert William Service, Making Good

But now behold,
In the quick forge and working-house of thought.
~ William Shakespeare, King Henry V

Cudgel thy brains no more about it, for your dull ass will not mend his pace with beating.
~ William Shakespeare, Hamlet. Act V, scene i

Flout 'em, and scout 'em; and scout 'em and flout 'em;
Thought is free.
~ William Shakespeare, The Tempest. Act III, scene ii

Give me your favor: my dull brain was wrought
With things forgotten.
~ William Shakespeare, Macbeth. Act I, scene iii

I do begin to have bloody thoughts.
~ William Shakespeare, The Tempest. Act IV, scene i

I would I could not think it: that thought is bounty's foe;
Being free itself, it thinks all others so.
~ William Shakespeare, Timon of Athens

It would be every man's thought; and thou art a blessed fellow to think as every man thinks: never a man's thought in the world keeps the road-way better than thine.
~ William Shakespeare, King Henry IV, Part II. Act II, scene ii

Once more the engine of her thoughts began ...
~ William Shakespeare, Venus and Adonis (1593).

There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.
~ William Shakespeare, Hamlet. Act II, scene ii

Thoughts are but dreams till their effects be tried.
~ William Shakespeare, The Rape of Lucrece

Thy head is as full of quarrels as an egg is full of meat.
~ William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

Two lads that thought there was no more behind
But such a day to-morrow as to-day.
And to be boy eternal.
~ William Shakespeare, The Winter's Tale

Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look;
He thinks too much: such men are dangerous.
~ William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar. Act I, scene ii

Second thoughts oftentimes are the very worst of all thoughts.
~ William Shenstone, in Works in Verse and Prose, Vol. II (1764). Essays on Men, Manners, and Things. Of Men and Manners

The greatest minds, as well as those of a less lofty type, have their happy moments, in which they put forth their best efforts; and a collection of these rare thoughts is, of course, nothing less than a cabinet of intellectual gems.
~ William Buell Sprague, in The World's Laconics: Or, The Best Thoughts of the Best Authors (1853). Introduction

Bondage is subjection to external influences and internal negative thoughts and attitudes.
~ William (W.) Clement Stone

When we direct our thoughts properly, we can control our emotions ...
~ William (W.) Clement Stone

It is the habitual thought which frames itself into our life. Our confidential friends have not so much, to do in shaping our lives as thoughts have which we harbor.
~ John William Teal

Man is a thinking thing, whether he will or no; all he can do is to turn his thoughts the best way.
~ Sir William Temple, 1st Baronet, in The Works of Sir William Temple, Bart., Vol. I (1720). Miscellanea, Part III. Heads, Designed For An Essay Upon The Different Conditions Of Life And Fortune

[W]hatever thoughts any human soul is seeking to live by, deserve the reverence of every other human soul.
~ William Temple (archbishop), The Universality of Christ: A Course of Lectures (1921). Lecture I. The Comparative Method

As there are a thousand thoughts lying within a man that he does not know till he takes up the pen to write, so the heart is a secret even to him (or her) who has it in his own breast.
~ William Makepeace Thackeray, The History of Henry Esmond (1852). Book II. Chapter I: I Am In Prison, And Visited, But Not Consoled There

[T]hem's my sentiments.
~ William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair: A Novel without a Hero (1848). Chapter XXI

(Them's my sentiments, tew.--William McKendree ("Will") Carleton, in Harper's Weekly (3 July 1875). The Schoolmaster's Guests)

Beams from the Spirit-land of thought.
~ William Wallace, in Selections from the Poetical Literature of the West (1841). To The Star Lyra

Thoughts that dive deepest
Rise radiant in clarity.
~ William Watson, from Poems of William Watson (1892). Art Maxims

Shutting off the thought process is not rejuvenating; the mind is like a car battery -- it recharges by running.
~ Bill Watterson, Speech at Kenyon College Commencement, Gambier, Ohio (20 May 1990). Some Thoughts on the Real World by One Who Glimpsed It and Fled

Sometimes when I'm talking, my words can't keep up with my thoughts. I wonder why we think faster than we speak. Probably so we can think twice.
~ Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes (18 March 1995).

I had this sick thought if I shot up the school it would some way show kids that I could stand up for myself.
~ Charles "Andy" Williams (on killing two students and wounding 13 other people), The Associated Press (16 August 2002). School Shooter Sentenced to 50 Years

I am inclined merely to delete it (the mental realm) from biological explanation, because it is an entirely private phenomenon, and biology must deal with the publicly demonstrable. From this quotation, we can construct an argument like this: (1) Mental events are private phenomena. (2) Private phenomena cannot be studied biologically. (3) Therefore, mental events cannot be studied biologically. (4) Cognitive ethology is possible only if mental events can be studied biologically. (5) Therefore, cognitive ethology is not possible.
~ George C. Williams, New York: Oxford University Press (1992). Natural Selection: Domains, Levels, and Challenges

If you don't think too good, don't think too much.
~ Ted Williams

And I talk to them
in my secret mind
out of pure happiness.
~ William Carlos Williams, from Sour Grapes (1921). The Thinker

Attack thoughts toward others are attacks on ourselves.
~ Marianne Williamson, Illuminata: Thoughts, Prayers, Rites of Passage (1994). Part II. Chapter 5. Prayers for Relationships

We are so trained in the thought system of fear and attack that we get to the point where natural thinking -- love -- feels unnatural and unnatural thinking -- fear -- feels natural. It takes real discipline and training to unlearn the thought system of fear.
~ Marianne Williamson

I have had a good many more uplifting thoughts, creative and expansive visions -- while soaking in comfortable baths or drying myself after bracing showers -- in well-equipped American bathrooms that I have ever had in any cathedral.
~ Edmund Wilson, A Piece of My Mind: Reflections at Sixty (1956).

A human sweetness with the thought
Of travelling through the world that lay
Before me in my endless way.
~ William Wordsworth, from Memorials of a Tour in Scotland (1803). VII. Stepping Westward

Ah, what a warning for a thoughtless man,
Could field or grove, could any spot of earth,
Show to his eye an image of the pangs
Which it hath witnessed, -- render back an echo
Of the sad steps by which it hath been trod!
~ William Wordsworth, The Excursion (1814). Book VI: The Churchyard among the Mountains

But hushed be every thought that springs
From out the bitterness of things.
~ William Wordsworth, from Poems in Two Volumes, Volume I (1807). Elegiac Stanzas

[L]ively thoughts
Give birth, full often, to unguarded words.
~ William Wordsworth, The Excursion (1814). Book III: Despondency

Yet sometimes, when the secret cup
Of still and serious thought went round,
It seemed as if he drank it up --
He felt with spirit so profound.
~ William Wordsworth, Matthew (1799)

As life goes on we discover that certain thoughts sustain us in defeat, or give us victory, whether over ourselves or others, and it is these thoughts, tested by passion, that we call convictions.
~ William Butler Yeats, The Trembling of the Veil (1922). Book I. Four Years 1887-1891, XXI

Ecstasy is from the contemplation of things vaster than the individual and imperfectly seen perhaps, by all those that still live.
~ William Butler Yeats, from Dramatis Personae (1936).

God guard me from those thoughts men think
In the mind alone.
~ William Butler Yeats, from A Full Moon in March (1935). A Prayer for Old Age

I'd as soon listen to dried peas in a bladder, as listen to your thoughts.
~ William Butler Yeats, The Hour-Glass (1912 version).

O what fine thought we had because we thought that the worst rogues and rascals had died out.
~ William Butler Yeats, from The Tower (1928). Nineteen Hundred and Nineteen