MIND QUOTES VI

quotations about the mind

What we call a mind is nothing but a heap or collection of different perceptions, united together by certain relations and supposed, though falsely, to be endowed with a perfect simplicity and identity.

DAVID HUME

A Treatise of Human Nature

Tags: David Hume


The mind is a mill which can incessant turn, 'til its mere operation focus the stress inward and the stones grind themselves to dust.

DAVID MAMET

Faustus

Tags: David Mamet


Like the mind, the computer is useful because it produces information. Computers are also functional because they are able to produce a wide variety of responses that mimic human abilities. As the brain has been compared with the computer, the idea that the mind is a mechanical entity has become more plausible. For example, just as the computer operates on electricity, the brain is now described as an object comprised of electronically sensitive cells or neuron networks. Although the nervous system, which is the controlling agent for the body, continues to be shrouded in mystery, many investigators have found it attractive to equate the mind with the brain and to identify both with the computer.

VICENTE BERDAYES

Computers, Human Interaction, and Organizations

Tags: Vicente Berdayes


There are materials enough in every man's mind to make a hell there.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit

Tags: Henry Ward Beecher


The mind is a challenge because it works more like a city than a household, with several networked links resonating at different times and with different subgroups of nodes, such that understanding the behavior of individuals or even of smaller groups won't tell the whole story of what's going on. No approach can capture the whole of what goes on over time in a large city like New York or Rio, even if a city is made of small neighborhoods -- and those neighborhoods, of a few individuals. One may capture certain mass events, like rush hour traffic or festivals, parades or open-air concerts, but not the global behavior of the city.

MARCELO GLEISER

"Science And The Mystery Of The Mind", NPR, November 29, 2017


Biology gives you a brain. Life turns it into a mind.

JEFFREY EUGENIDES

Middlesex

Tags: Jeffrey Eugenides


Who knows the mind has the key to all things else.

AMOS BRONSON ALCOTT

Table Talk

Tags: Amos Bronson Alcott


In the world of mind, as in that of matter, we always occupy a position. He who is continually changing his point of view will see more, and that too more clearly, than one who, statue-like, forever stands upon the same pedestal; however lofty and well-placed that pedestal may be.

ARTHUR HELPS

Thoughts in the Cloister and the Crowd

Tags: Arthur Helps


Persons without minds are like weeds that delight in good earth; they want to be amused by others, all the more because they are dull within.

HONORÉ DE BALZAC

The Vicar of Tours

Tags: Honoré de Balzac


A man should keep his little brain attic stocked with all the furniture that he is likely to use, and the rest he can put away in the lumber-room of his library, where he can get it if he wants it.

SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

Tags: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle


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 greatest business of a man is to improve his mind.

WELLINS CALCOTT

Thoughts Moral and Divine

Tags: Wellins Calcott


In greatest minds' great thoughts earth's passed; betimes
Fatal, foreshape the future.

PHILIP JAMES BAILEY

Universal Hymn

Tags: Philip James Bailey


Just as dogs love to chew bones, the mind loves to get its teeth into problems. That's why it does crossword puzzles and builds atom bombs.

ECKHART TOLLE

The Power of Now

Tags: Eckhart Tolle


As an orchard when manured produces pleasant trees and luscious fruit, so does a cultivated mind produce pure thoughts and noble actions.

WILLIAM SCOTT DOWNEY

Proverbs

Tags: William Scott Downey


It's a good thing to turn your mind upside down now and then, like an hour-glass, to let the particles run the other way.

CHRISTOPHER MORLEY

The Haunted Bookshop

Tags: Christopher Morley


Which came first, the mind or the idea of the mind? Have you never wondered? They arrived together. The mind is an idea.

BERNARD BECKETT

Genesis

Tags: Bernard Beckett


When I think of myself my mind cannot soar to higher things but is like a bird with broken wings.

TERESA OF AVILA

The Interior Castle

Tags: Teresa of Avila


Your unconscious mind is not a sink of horror and depravity. That's a Victorian notion, and a terrifically destructive one. It crippled most of the best minds of the nineteenth century, and hamstrung psychology all through the first half of the twentieth. Don't be afraid of your unconscious mind! It's not a black pit of nightmares. Nothing of the kind! It is the wellspring of health, imagination, creativity. What we call 'evil' is produced by civilization, its constraints and repressions, deforming the spontaneous, free self-expression of the personality. The aim of psychotherapy is precisely this, to remove these groundless fears and nightmares, to bring up what's unconscious into the light of rational consciousness, examine it objectively, and find that there is nothing to fear.

URSULA K. LE GUIN

The Lathe of Heaven

Tags: Ursula K. Le Guin


Truly wonderful the mind of a child is.

YODA

Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones

Tags: Yoda