Thought Quotes

500+ Sourced quotes

There is something in the decay of nature that awakens thought, even in the most trifling mind.

Sarah Josepha Hale

The thought in my mind was that I must be a good merchant. If I were a good merchant, the rest would probably take care of itself.

James Cash Penney

When I only begin to read, I forget I'm on this world. It lifts me on wings with high thoughts.

Anzia Yezierska

Nine-tenths of tactics are certain, and taught in books: but the irrational tenth is like the kingfisher flashing across the pool, and that is the test of generals. It can only be ensured by instinct, sharpened by thought practicing the stroke so often that at the crisis it is as natural as a reflex.

Whatever women do they must do twice as well as men to be thought of half as good. Luckily, this is not difficult.

Charlotte Whitton

We cannot observe external things without some degree of Thought; nor can we reflect upon our Thoughts, without being influenced in the course of our reflection by the Things which we have observed.

William Whewell

I had always thought that once you grew up you could do anything you wanted—stay up all night or eat ice-cream straight out of the container.

I've thought lots of times that if we all tried to make other people's paths easy, our own feet would have a smooth even place to walk on.

Happiness is not a possession to be prized, it is a quality of thought, a state of mind.

Daphne du Maurier

I thought of Paris as a beauty spot on the face of the earth, and of London as a big freckle.

James Weldon Johnson

Manual labor to my father was not only good and decent for it's own sake but, as he was given to saying, it straightened out one's thoughts.

Mary Ellen Chase

When a thought takes one's breath away, a lesson on grammar seems an impertinence.

Thomas Wentworth Higginson

The mere thought of investment in human beings is offensive to some among us. Our values and beliefs inhibit us from looking upon human beings as capital goods, except in slavery, and this we abhor... To treat human beings as wealth that can be augmented by investment runs counter to deeply held values. It seems to reduce man once again to a mere material component, something akin to property. And for man to look upon himself as a capital good, even if it did not impair his freedom, may seem to debase him... (But) by investing in themselves, people can enlarge the range of choice available to them. It is one way free men can enhance their welfare.

Theodore Schultz

Freedom of speech and freedom of action are meaningless without freedom to think. And there is no freedom of thought without doubt.

The intellect is a cold thing and a merely intellectual idea will never stimulate thought in the same manner that a spiritual idea does.

She missed him the days when some pretext served to take him away from her, just as one misses the sun on a cloudy day without having thought much about the sun when it was shining.

For years I thought that what was good for our country was good for General Motors, and vice versa. The difference did not exist. Our company is too big. It goes with the welfare of the country. Our contribution to the nation is considerable.

Charles Erwin Wilson

It can even be thought that radium could become very dangerous in criminal hands, and here the question can be raised whether mankind benefits from knowing the secrets of Nature, whether it is ready to profit from it or whether this knowledge will not be harmful for it.

Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve. Thoughts are things! And powerful things at that, when mixed with definiteness of purpose, and burning desire, can be translated into riches. Use auto-suggestion, have faith, imagination and overcome fear and time is your opposite player as in checkerboard.

Okay, maybe I'm not such a shitty writer. But I can't pull my ideas together, Van Houten. My thoughts are stars I can't fathom into constellations.

Fidelity to the subject's thought and to his characteristic way of expressing himself is the sine qua non of journalistic quotation.

Each generation of the church in each setting has the responsibility of communicating the gospel in understandable terms, considering the language and thought-forms of that setting.

Francis Schaeffer

When our thoughts — which bring actions — are filled with hate against anyone, Negro or white, we are in a living hell. That is as real as hell will ever be.

George Washington Carver

You may glory in a team triumphant, but you will fall in love with a team in defeat. Losing after great striving is the story of man, who was born to sorrow, whose sweetest songs tell of saddest thought, and who, if he was a hero, does nothing in life as becomingly as leaving it.

The heart of a human being is no different from the soul of heaven and earth. In your practice always keep in your thoughts the interaction of heaven and earth, water and fire, yin and yang.

Morihei Ueshiba