MIND QUOTES III

quotations about the mind

Our mind is but a lump of clay
That Fate, grim potter, holds
On sorrow's wheel that rolls away,
And, as he pleases, moulds.

BHARTRHARI

"On Time the Destroyer"

Tags: Bhartrhari


The unconscious is the larger circle which includes within itself the smaller circle of the conscious; everything conscious has its preliminary step in the unconscious, whereas the unconscious may stop with this step and still claim full value as a psychic activity. Properly speaking, the unconscious is the real psychic; its inner nature is just as unknown to us as the reality of the external world, and it is just as imperfectly reported to us through the data of consciousness as is the external world through the indications of our sensory organs.

SIGMUND FREUD

Dream Psychology: Psychoanalysis for Beginners

Tags: Sigmund Freud


The mind commands the body, and it obeys instantly; the mind commands itself, and is resisted.

ST. AUGUSTINE

Confessions

Tags: St. Augustine


The mind
Is so hospitable, taking in everything
Like boarders, and you don't see until
It's all over how little there was to learn
Once the stench of knowledge has dissipated.

JOHN ASHBERY

"Houseboat Days"

Tags: John Ashbery


Good books are to the young mind what the warming sun and the refreshing rain of spring are to the seeds which have lain dormant in the frosts of winter. They are more, for they may save from that which is worse than death, as well as bless with that which is better than life.

HORACE MANN

Thoughts

Tags: Horace Mann


The propensity to excessive simplification is indeed natural to the mind of man, since it is only by abstraction and generalisation, which necessarily imply the neglect of a multitude of particulars, that he can stretch his puny faculties so as to embrace a minute portion of the illimitable vastness of the universe.

JAMES FRAZER

The Golden Bough


The mind delights most in being led through a mystic maze before reaching the open door.

LEWIS F. KORNS

Thoughts

Tags: Lewis F. Korns


It would seem as if, when the mind was once set apart by the natural consequences of the disease, and secluded from the usual occupations of, and customary contact with, other minds, it searched about through all the universe for causes of trouble and anguish. A certain pain probably exists; and even in insanity, man is so far a rational being that he seeks and craves at least the outside and semblance of a reason for a suffering, which is really and truly without reason. Something must be found to justify its anguish to itself.

WALTER BAGEHOT

Literary Studies

Tags: Walter Bagehot


Mind unemployed is mind unenjoyed.

CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE

Intuitions and Summaries of Thought

Tags: Christian Nestell Bovee


This mind of ours, like the earth beneath our feet, teems with exhaustless riches. The conditions of development only are needed.

CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE

Intuitions and Summaries of Thought

Tags: Christian Nestell Bovee


The mind grows by what it feeds on.

JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND

Lessons in Life

Tags: Josiah Gilbert Holland


The mind goes on working no matter how we try to hold it back.

FRANK HERBERT

Dune

Tags: Frank Herbert


The mind self-edits. The mind airbrushes. It's a different thing to be inside a body than outside. From outside, you can look, inspect, compare. From inside there is no comparison.

JEFFREY EUGENIDES

Middlesex

Tags: Jeffrey Eugenides


There is nothing mind can do that cannot be better done in the mind's immobility and thought-free stillness.

SRI AUROBINDO

Essays Divine and Human

Tags: Sri Aurobindo


To see a thing clearly in the mind makes it begin to take form.

HENRY FORD

Theosophist Magazine, February 1930

Tags: Henry Ford


There is not an enemy so stout, as to storm and take the fortress of the mind,
Unless its infirmity turn traitor, and Fear unbar the gates.

MARTIN FARQUHAR TUPPER

Proverbial Philosophy

Tags: Martin Farquhar Tupper


The will ... is the driving force of the mind. If it's injured, the mind falls to pieces.

AUGUST STRINDBERG

The Father

Tags: August Strindberg


Just as iron which is not used grows rusty, and water putrefies and freezes in the cold, so the mind of which no use is made is spoilt.

LEONARDO DA VINCI

Thoughts on Art and Life

Tags: Leonardo da Vinci


Here in your mind you have complete privacy. Here there's no difference between what is and what could be.

CHUCK PALAHNIUK

Choke

Tags: Chuck Palahniuk


For the retiring of the mind within itself is the state which is most susceptible of divine influxions; save that it is accompanied in this case with a fervency and elevation (which the ancients noted by fury), and not with a repose and quiet, as it is in the other.

FRANCIS BACON

The Advancement of Learning

Tags: Francis Bacon