My dear friend, clear your mind of cant [excessive thought]. You may talk as other people do: you may say to a man, "Sir, I am your most humble servant." You are not his most humble servant. You may say, "These are bad times; it is a melancholy thing to be reserved to such times." You don't mind the times ... You may talk in this manner; it is a mode of talking in Society; but don't think foolishly.
Samuel JohnsonTags: excess language appropriateness cant expression moderation thought
Don't join the book burners. Don't think you're going to conceal faults by concealing evidence that they ever existed. Don't be afraid to go in your library and read every book...
Dwight D. EisenhowerTags: libraries reading books freedom censorship thought
The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind.
William BlakeWhen people will not weed their own minds, they are apt to be overrun by nettles.
Horace WalpoleTags: thinking decisions thought gardening decision clarity
The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, and intolerable...
H.L. MenckenTags: thought government
Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill. Without books, the development of civilization would have been impossible. They are engines of change (as the poet said), windows on the world and lighthouses erected in the sea of time. They are companions, teachers, magicians, bankers of the treasures of the mind. Books are humanity in print.
[Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Vol. 34, No. 2 (Nov. 1980), pp. 16-32]
Tags: books humanity civilization mind literature thought
Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth -- more than ruin, more even than death. Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible, thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habits; thought is anarchic and lawless, indifferent to authority, careless of the well-tried wisdom of the ages. Thought looks into the pit of hell and is not afraid ... Thought is great and swift and free, the light of the world, and the chief glory of man.
Bertrand RussellTags: intelligence strength freedom courage thought freedom-of-thought independence fearlessness defiance free-thinker
A man is not idle because he is absorbed in thought. There is visible labor and there is invisible labor.
Victor HugoThe great enemy of truth is very often not the lie--deliberate, contrived and dishonest--but the myth--persistent, persuasive and unrealistic. Too often we hold fast to the cliches of our forebears. We subject all facts to a prefabricated set of interpretations. We enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.
[Commencement Address at Yale University, June 11 1962]
Tags: truth lies thought opinion myth ideas
Where all think alike, no one thinks very much.
Walter LippmannTags: intelligence thought
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