The spirit of the age is filled with disdain for thinking.
- Albert Schweitzer
Ours is the age that is proud of machines that think and suspicious of men who try.
- H. Mumford Jones
The object of the education of children lies not in communicating the values of the past, but in creating new values of the future.
- John Dewey
The human body consists of the brainium, the borax, and the abominable cavity. The brainium contains the brain. The borax contains the liver and other living things. The abominable cavity contains the bowels, of which there are five: a, e, i, o, and u.
- Fifth grader's essay on the human body
We're in science fiction now. Whoever controls the media - the images - controls the culture.
- Allen Ginsberg
Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public.
- H.L. Mencken
We used to have actresses trying to become stars. Now we have stars trying to become actresses.
- Sir Laurence Olivier
America is the only nation in history that has gone directly from barbarism to decadence without the usual interval of civilization.
- Georges Clemenceau
The world is a tragedy to those who feel, and a comedy to those who think.
- Shakespeare
Mind, n. A mysterious form of matter secreted by the brain.
- Ambrose Bierce
The brain: an enchanted loom where millions of flashing shuttles weave a dissolving pattern, always a meaningful pattern though never an abiding one.
- Sir Charles Sherrington
Brain, n. An apparatus with which we think that we think.
- Ambrose Bierce
I think I am, therefore I am. I think.
- George Carlin, comedian
Our normal waking consciousness is but one special type of consciousness, whilst all about it, parted from it by the flimsiest of screens, there lie potential forms of consciousness entirely different. We may go through life without suspecting their existence; but apply the requisite stimulus, and at a touch they are there in all their completeness.
- William James
Don't forget that everybody, including yourself, has only his own experience to think with.
- Rudolf Flesch
Old age puts more wrinkles in the mind than in the face.
- Montaigne
When the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to treat everything as if it were a nail.
- Abraham Maslow
He who will not reason is a bigot; he who cannot is a fool; he who dares not is a slave.
- William Drummond
What passes for common sense is often stupidity hardened into habit.
- Herman Wouk
Human beings are so constituted as to see what is wrong with a new thing, not what is right. To verify this you only have to submit a new idea to a committee. They will obliterate ninety percent of rightness for the sake of ten percent of wrongness. The possibilities a new idea opens up are not appreciated, because not one person in a thousand has imagination.
- Charles Kettering
When I works, I works hard;
When I sits, I sits loose;
When I thinks, I falls asleep.
- Anonymous
The only motive that guided me was my ardent love of my people.
- Hermann Goering
Many of the luxuries, and many of the so-called comforts of life, are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind.
- Henry David Thoreau
The great masses of the people will more easily fall victims to a great lie than to a small lie.
- Adolph Hitler
In modern war there is nothing sweet nor fitting in your dying. You will die like a dog and for no good reason.
- Ernest Hemingway
Some men are discovered; others are found out.
- Anonymous
Wisdom is instant Foresight with built in Hindsight. - Gerardus
There are two ways to slide easily through life: to believe everything and to doubt everything. Both ways save thinking.
- Alfred Korzybski
Every crowd has a silver lining.
- Phineas T. Barnum
You can fool some of the people all the time, and that's enough to make a profit.
- Anonymous
Honesty is the best policy in the long run, but for the short distance humbug has made pretty good time.
- Josh Billings
Advertising may be defined as the art of arresting human intelligence long enough to get money from it.
- Stephen Leacock
We are discreet sheep; we wait to see how the drove is going, and then we go with the drove. We have two opinions: one private, which we are afraid to express; and another one — the one we use — which we force ourselves to wear to please Mrs. Grundy, until habit makes us comfortable in it, and the custom of defending it presently makes us love it, adore it, and forget how pitifully we come by it.
- Mark Twain
The obscure we see eventually. The completely apparent takes longer.
- E.R. Murrow
Wisdom is merely knowing what to do next.
- Anonymous
The best captain does not plunge headlong
Nor is the best soldier a fellow hot to fight.
The greatest victor wins without a battle . . .
- Lao Tzu
Anger is a wind that blows out the lamp of the mind.
- Arab Proverb
When in doubt, I tell the truth.
- Mark Twain
Anger gets us into trouble. Pride keeps us there.
- Anonymous
When more and more people are thrown out of work, unemployment results.
- Calvin Coolidge
The proper office of a friend is to stick by you when you're in the wrong. Nearly anybody will stick by you when you're in the right. - Mark Twain
Men imagine that their minds have the command of language, but it often happens that language bears rule over their minds. - Francis Bacon
Language, n. The music with which we charm the serpents guarding another's treasure.
- Ambrose Bierce
The individual's whole experience is built upon the plan of his language.
- Henri Delacrois
If dogs could talk, we'd probably have as much trouble getting along with them as we do with people.
- Karel Capek
When a thinker states that any thing is "only" some other thing, he is usually on the brink of a blunder.
- Mary Everest Boole
One should, each day, try to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and if it is possible, speak a few reasonable words.
- Goethe
The greatest discovery of my generation is that human beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds, can change the outer aspects of their lives . . . It is too bad that more people will not accept this tremendous discovery and begin living it.
- William James
Change your thoughts and you change your world.
- Norman Vincent Peale
Change your language and you change your thoughts.
- Karl Albrecht
I am free of all prejudice. I hate everyone equally.
- W.C. Fields
God is Spirit and what we make of this Spirit becomes our Soul - Gerardus
To a mouse, cheese is cheese. That's why mousetraps are effective.
- Wendell Johnson
Love is an ideal thing; marriage is real.
Confusing the real with the ideal never goes unpunished.
- Goethe
If you're going to panic, at least panic intelligently.
- Anonymous
Absurdity, n. A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
- Ambrose Bierce
Most of our so-called reason consists of finding reasons to go on believing as we already do.
- J.H. Robinson
Bigot n. One who is obstinately and zealously attached to an opinion that you do not entertain.
- Ambrose Bierce
Bore, n. A person who talks when you wish him to listen.
- Ambrose Bierce
Conversation, n. A fair for the display of minor mental commodities, each exhibitor being too intent upon the arrangement of his own wares to observe those of his neighbor.
- Ambrose Bierce
Positive, adj. Mistaken at the top of one's voice.
- Ambrose Bierce
Denunciation of the young is a necessary part of the hygiene of older people, and greatly assists in the circulation of their blood.
- Logan P. Smith
A man should never be ashamed to own that he has been in the wrong, which is but saying in other words that he is wiser today than he was yesterday.
- Alexander Pope
I am not ashamed to confess I am ignorant of what I do not know.
- Cicero
Faced with the choice between changing one's mind and proving there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof.
- John Kenneth Galbraith
It ain't what a man don't know that makes him a fool, but what he knows that ain't so.
- Josh Billings
The only man who can change his mind is the man who's got one.
- Edward Noyes Westcott
The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.
- Henry David Thoreau
Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.
- Abraham Lincoln
I had no shoes and I complained, until I met a man who had no feet.
- Anonymous
The three great requirements for a happy life are: something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.
- Joseph Addison
Responsibility, n. A detachable burden easily shifted to the shoulders of God, Fate, Fortune, Luck or one's neighbor. In the days of astrology it was customary to unload it upon a star.
- Ambrose Bierce
In every human heart are a tiger, a pig, an ass and a nightingale. Diversity of character is due to their unequal activity.
- Ambrose Bierce
Not to have edges that catch,
But to remain untangled,
Unblinded,
unconfused,
Is to find balance.
And he who holds balance,
Beyond sway of love or hate,
Beyond reach of profit or loss,
Beyond care of praise or blame,
Has attained the highest post in the world.
- Lao Tzu
Get your facts first, and them you can distort them as much as you please.
- Mark Twain
We don't know one millionth of one percent about anything.
- Thomas Edison
The purpose of your body is to carry your brain around.
- Thomas Edison
History records the names of royal bastards but cannot tell us the origin of wheat.
- Jean Henri Fabre
Life is the art of drawing sufficient conclusions from insufficient premises.
- Samuel Butler
One look is worth a hundred reports.
- Japanese Proverb
I who am blind can give one hint to those who see — one admonition to those who would make full use of the gift of sight: Use your eyes as if tomorrow you would be stricken blind. And the same method can be applied to the other senses. Hear the music of voices, the song of a bird, the mighty strains of on orchestra, as if you would be stricken deaf tomorrow. Touch each object you want to touch as if tomorrow your tactile sense would fail. Smell the perfume of flowers, taste with relish each morsel, as if tomorrow you could never smell and taste again. - Helen Keller
The difference between science and magic rests with the beholder, and his knowledge.
- St. Augustine
Miracle, n. An act or event out of the order of nature and unaccountable, as beating a normal hand of four kings and an ace with four aces and a king.
- Ambrose Bierce
For what a man had rather were true, he more readily believes.
- Francis Bacon
Miracles do not happen in contradiction to nature, but only in contradiction to that which is known about nature. - St. Augustine
Others will tell you to try to prove you are right. I tell you to try to prove you are wrong.
- Louis Pasteur
Opinion has caused more trouble on this little earth than plagues or earthquakes.
- Voltaire
Man is the only animal that blushes — or needs to.
- Mark Twain
O wad some power the giftie gie us,
to see oursels as ithers see us:
It would fra monie a blunder free us,
and foolish notion.
- Robert Burns
Men stumble over the truth from time to time, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing happened.
- Winston Churchill
I kept six honest serving men,
they taught me all I knew;
their names were What and Why and When
and How and Where and Who.
- Rudyard Kipling
Aristotle could have avoided the mistake of thinking that women have fewer teeth than men by the simple device of asking Mrs. Aristotle to open her mouth.
- Bertrand Russell
Man is not rational — merely capable of it. - Johathan Swift
Logic, n. The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of human misunderstanding. - Ambrose Bierce
Let us not dream that reason can ever be popular. Passions, emotions, may be made popular, but reason remains ever the property of the few. - Geothe
A beautiful theory, murdered by a gang of brutal facts.
- Thomas Huxley
I realized that, regardless of persons or topics of discussion, the same tricks and dodges recurred again and again and could easily be recognized.
- Schopenhauer
Faith, n. Belief, without evidence, in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel. - Ambrose Bierce
The men the American people admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth.
- H.L. Mencken
A truth that's told with bad intent
Beats all the lies you can invent.
- William Blake
A good catchword can obscure analysis for fifty years.
- Wendell L. Willkie
Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.
- Albert Einstein
All generalizations are dangerous, even this one.
- Alexander Dumas
General propositions do not decide concrete cases.
- Oliver Wendell Holmes
There are lies, damned lies, and statistics.
- Benjamin Disraeli
When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains — however improbable — must be the truth.
- Sherlock Holmes
The biggest problem in the world could have been solved when it was small . . .
- Lao Tzu
Success comes to those who realize it isn't coming to them, and who go out to get it.
- Anonymous
In the country of the blind, the one-eyed king can still goof up.
- Laurence J. Peter
There are only three important events in a man's life: birth, life, and death. He is not conscious of being born, he dies in pain, and he forgets to live.
- Jean De La Bruyere
The uncreative mind can spot wrong answers, but it takes a very creative mind to spot wrong questions.
- Antony Jay
Don't refuse to go on occasional wild goose chase. That's what wild geese are for.
- Anonymous
Nothing would be done at all if a man waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault with it. - Cardinal Newman
Between two evils, I always choose the one I never tried before.
- Mae West
Those who will not learn from history are obliged to repeat it.
- Anonymous
Change is not always improvement, as the pigeon said when it got out of the net and into the pie.
- C.H. Spurdgeon
There is one thing stronger than all the armies of the world: and that is an idea whose time has come.
- Victor Hugo
Toward no crimes have men shown themselves so cold-bloodedly cruel as in punishing differences in belief.
- James Russell Lowell
Man's mind, stretched to a new idea, never goes back to its original dimension.
- Oliver Wendell Holmes
The true test of any concept is its ability to gain acceptance in the marketplace of ideas.
- Oliver Wendell Holmes
No one with a weak stomach should watch sausage or the law being made.
- Oliver Wendell Holmes
Life is a Celebration of the Creator living as the Created. - Gerardus
Anything one man can imagine, other men can make real. - Jules Verne
You must adjust . . . This is the legend imprinted in every schoolbook, the invisible message on every blackboard. Our schools have become vast factories for the manufacture of robots.
- Robert M. Lindner
Albrecht's Law: Intelligent people, when assembled into an organization, will tend toward collective stupidity. - Karl Albrecht
We trained hard — but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up into teams, we would be reorganized. I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganization, and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency, and demoralization.
- Petronius Arbiter
The first efficiency expert was Simon Legree.
- H.L. Mencken
It takes a very unusual mind to make an analysis of the obvious.
- Alfred North Whitehead
An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all.
- Elbert Hubbard
By working faithfully eight hours a day, you may eventually get to be a boss and work twelve hours a day.
- Robert Frost
Don't put off until tomorrow what you can get someone else to do today.
- Anonymous
It is not who is right, but what is right that is important.
- Thomas Huxley
To make headway, improve your head.
- B.C. Forbes
Habit is habit, and not to be thrown out the window by any man; but rather, coaxed down the stairs one step at a time.
- Mark Twain
Sometimes within the brain's old ghostly house,
I hear, far off, of some forgotten door,
A music and an eerie faint carouse,
And stir of echoes down the creaking floor.
- Archibald Macleish
Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.
- H.G. Wells
I envision a world in which every human being has awakened to the knowledge
that we are the Creative Force in Human Form. When this awareness becomes
realized within all of us, understanding is the result! Everyone will know then that
all of us are One Family, One Being and have One Purpose. Which is to share
our abundance freely and love the Self We Are in Human Form. - Gerardus