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Quotations about the Mind
'Tis the great art of life to manage well
The restless mind...
~John Armstrong (1709–1779), The Art of Preserving Health, 1744 [Armstrong, a physician, was known as "The Poet of Health."
Nothing but a devouring flame of thought—
But a naked, eternally restless mind!
~Matthew Arnold (1822–1888), "Empedocles on Etna"
The mind is the most capricious of insects — flitting, fluttering. ~Virginia Woolf
All sorts of bodily diseases are produced by half used minds; for it is the mind that makes the body: that is my secret, and the secret of all the true healers. ~Bernard Shaw
Are the waves of the brain drawn like tides of the ocean by some psychic moon, as yet unexplored? ~Barbara Webster Shenton
Her thoughts were penny candles
In silver candlesticks,
When lit they guttered wildly,
Exposing tawdry wicks.
She gravely salvaged drippings,
Small worlds of wit—and then
She molded them to different shapes
And burned them once again.
~Marion Doyle, "Lines for a Sapient Lady," 1920s
The average man has depths of possibilities that are never reached, inherent capabilities that are never utilized and valuable potentialities that forever lie dormant, undeveloped and even undiscovered in the substratum of his personality... The human mind is composed of many attributes or talents that, instead of being brought forth for use and service, are carefully wrapped in napkins and are hidden away in the archives of cerebral oblivion. ~William Armstrong Fairburn, Mentality and Freedom, 1917
...for an instant, all barriers of sense seem to be pushed noiselessly back, and for one ecstatic moment we pass into the hidden life of the world, and see and hear and feel things... and it all passes so suddenly that if it were not for our streaming eyes and the strange, sweet tremor at the heart, we would say it was but the touch of the wing of some passing dream. ~Rev. James H. Ecob, "Instantaneous Photographs," 1895
Our brains are seventy-year clocks. The Angel of Life winds them up once for all, then closes the case, and gives the key into the hand of the Angel of the Resurrection.
Tic-tac! tic-tac! go the wheels of thought; our will cannot stop them; they cannot stop themselves; sleep cannot still them; madness only makes them go faster; death alone can break into the case, and, seizing the ever-swinging pendulum, which we call the heart, silence at last the clicking of the terrible escapement we have carried so long beneath our wrinkled foreheads.
If we could only get at them, as we lie on our pillows and count the dead beats of thought after thought and image after image jarring through the overtired organ! Will nobody block those wheels, uncouple that pinion, cut the string that holds those weights, blow up the infernal machine with gunpowder? What a passion comes over us sometimes for silence and rest! that this dreadful mechanism, unwinding the endless tapestry of time, embroidered with spectral figures of life and death, could have but one brief holiday!... If anybody would only contrive some kind of a lever that one could thrust in among the works of this horrid automaton and check them, or alter their rate of going, what would the world give for the discovery? ~Oliver Wendell Holmes
The human mind is Nature's keyboard, on which her harmonies and discords are sounded by the touch of invisible fingers. ~James Lendall Basford (1845–1915), "Mind and its Mysteries," Sparks from the Philosopher's Stone, 1882
Yet must I think less wildly: — I have thought
Too long and darkly, till my brain became,
In its own eddy boiling and o'erwrought,
A whirling gulf of phantasy and flame...
~Lord Byron
It's hard to make up your bed while you're still sleeping in it. Hard to make up your mind for the same reason. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com
Calmness of mind is one of the beautiful jewels of wisdom. ~James Allen (1864–1912)
If you will keep your inner mind placid, it will solve ever so many problems for you. ~“A Hundred Thoughts,”
A philosophic mind is not haunted by the ghosts of tradition or superstition, neither does it shrink from the most profound contemplation of the future. ~James Lendall Basford (1845–1915), Sparks from the Philosopher's Stone, 1882
Breakfast, dinner, tea; in extreme cases, breakfast, luncheon, dinner, tea, supper, and a glass of something hot at bedtime. What care we take about feeding the lucky body! Which of us does as much for his mind? And what causes the difference? Is the body so much the more important of the two? By no means: but life depends on the body being fed, whereas we can continue to exist as animals (scarcely as men) though the mind be utterly starved and neglected. ~Lewis Carroll
The mind has shown itself at times
Too much the baked and labeled dough
Divided by accepted multitudes.
Across the stacked partitions of the day—
Across the memoranda, baseball scores,
The stenographic smiles and stock quotations
Smutty wings flash out equivocations...
~Hart Crane (1899–1932), "For the Marriage of Faustus and Helen"
...if so hapless a wretch may be allowed to have any strong points about him — brain excepted. Thank Heaven, my brain is strong and powerful, though it has not stood me in good stead through life, and has more than once betrayed me. I have made other people's fortunes by my brains, but have shipwrecked myself in ignominious strivings after sixpences. ~F. W. Robinson, "The Man Who Married a Voice," Women Are Strange, and Other Stories, 1883
An empty head is not really empty; it is stuffed with rubbish. Hence the difficulty of forcing anything into an empty head. ~Eric Hoffer, Reflections on the Human Condition, 1973
...to-day you are a great writer, a great philosopher, a great poet; a fibre of your brain breaks, and in vain they will bleed you or put ice on your head, to‑morrow you will be only a poor madman. ~Claude Tillier (1801–1844), My Uncle Benjamin: A Humorous, Satirical, and Philosophical Novel, 1843, translated from the French by Benjamin R. Tucker, 1890
The mind is like a trunk: if well-packed, it holds almost every thing; if ill-packed, next to nothing. ~Augustus William Hare and Julius Charles Hare, Guesses at Truth, by Two Brothers, 1827
A thought often makes us hotter than a fire. ~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882), "Drift Wood, A Collection of Essays: Table-Talk," Prose Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 1857
Active minds that think and study,
Like Swift Brooks are seldom Muddy.
~Arthur Guiterman, "Of Brooks," A Poet's Proverbs, 1924
My craving for companionship is so great that I spent half an hour yesterday discussing various matters of biological philosophy with a small shaggy-haired pony who stuck his head over a gate... 'I am one of these thinking beasts who have been afflicting the world and ourselves for the last few hundred thousand years or so. We have got a new thinking and
The mind, as you age,
Is an artist, it seems.
Monet paints your mem'ries,
Picasso your dreams.
~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com
No, no, the mind I love must still have wild places, a tangled orchard where dark damsons drop in the heavy grass, an overgrown little wood, the chance of a snake or two (real snakes), a pool that nobody's fathomed the depth of — and paths threaded with those little flowers planted by the mind. It must also have real hiding places, not artificial ones — not gazebos and mazes. And I have never yet met the cultivated mind that has not had its shrubbery. ~Katherine Mansfield
From Diamond-Dust the Diamond Lustre gains,
And Brains are polished bright by Other Brains.
~Arthur Guiterman, "Of Education," A Poet's Proverbs, 1924
Perhaps God gives us a physical body so that every time we change our mind, we won't be someone else. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com
The Brain – is wider than the Sky –
For – put them side by side –
The one the other will contain
With ease – and You – beside –
The Brain is deeper than the sea –
For – hold them – Blue to Blue –
The one the other will absorb –
As Sponges – Buckets – do –
The Brain is just the weight of God –
For – Heft them – Pound for Pound –
And they will differ – if they do –
As Syllable from Sound –
~Emily Dickinson
I have too much brain for my head; it cannot play at ease in its case. ~Joseph Joubert (1754–1824), translated from French by George H. Calvert, 1866
...the thought like a dagger-thrust crossed his mind... ~George Moore, The Brook Kerith: A Syrian Story, 1916
What a sink of madness is man's mind! ~Octave Mirbeau, "The Mission," The Torture Garden, 1899, translated from the French by Alvah C. Bessie, 1931
No ghost could frighten me as my own thoughts will. ~Mabel Collins, In the Flower of Her Youth, 1883
I am, I realize, muddy-minded. My mind is not comprehensive enough and it is too congested by minor issues and impulsions, to take a clear view of existence. It is encumbered like a crystal trying to form in a magma loaded with irrelevant matter... It is the common lot to be muddy-minded; I am muddy-minded, you are muddy-minded, he is muddy-minded; past, present and future indicative you can conjugate it; nevertheless I believe, that by getting numbers of people to think as hard as they can and state as clearly as they can, and then by bringing their results together, gradually, steadily, a
What monstrosities would walk the streets were some people's faces as unfinished as their minds. ~Eric Hoffer, Reflections on the Human Condition, 1973
What shall I compare it to, this fantastic thing I call my Mind? To a waste-paper basket, to a sieve choked with sediment, or to a barrel full of floating froth and refuse?
No, what it is really most like is a spider's web, insecurely hung on leaves and twigs, quivering in every wind, and sprinkled with dewdrops and dead flies. And at its center, pondering for ever the Problem of Existence, sits motionless the spider-like and uncanny Soul. ~Logan Pearsall Smith, "The Spider," Trivia, 1917
I wish I had the power to break
The sordid bands that bind
Their vile corrosive fetters round
Each narrow human mind.
~Lizzie Marshall Berry (1847–1919), "I Wish," Heart Echoes: Original Miscellaneous and Devotional Poems, 1886
As a man molds and develops his gray matter, he creates himself. ~William Armstrong Fairburn, Mentality and Freedom, 1917
What we are pleased to call our Mind is made up of two parts — our Consciousness and — what I shall call loosely yet sufficingly and without prejudice to Metaphysics — our
Now, what elements does our ocean of
The trees hard-planted in my brain
Are squat and scrubby grown,
With top-boughs slanting all one way,
Steadily wind-blown.
Some are leafed and some are thorned
And some are dry and dead.
It is a prickly thing to feel
Trees twisting in your head.
~Frances M. Frost, "Inward," Blue Harvest, 1931
Even at eighteen, a mentally voracious young woman cannot live entirely upon scenery. ~Vera Brittain, Testament of Youth, 1933
He had run through all the physical sensations of his terror. What he felt now was the sharp, abominable torture of the mind. ~May Sinclair, "If the Dead Knew," Uncanny Stories, 1923
The peculiar weariness and depression of spirits which is felt after a day wasted in turning over a magazine or other light miscellany, different from the state of mind after severe study; because there has been no excitement, no difficulties to be overcome, but the spirits have evaporated insensibly. ~Nathaniel Hawthorne
The immense amount of thought that man has given, during the last few thousand years, to his social arrangements and his destiny, has filled our minds with tangled formulas, and has attached our affection to particular matters. The pomp of preambles and the stress of language stun us. ~John Jay Chapman, Practical Agitation, 1900
The mind of man is often like a house of which he is the landlord; bad tenants are more easily admitted than removed. ~James Lendall Basford (1845–1915), Sparks from the Philosopher's Stone, 1882
I wonder if there is such a thing in nature as a FAT MIND? I really think I have met with one or two: minds which could not keep up with the slowest trot in conversation; could not jump over a logical fence, to save their lives; always got stuck fast in a narrow argument; and, in short, were fit for nothing but to waddle helplessly through the world. ~Lewis Carroll
O the mind, mind has mountains; cliffs of fall
Frightful, sheer, no-man-fathomed. Hold them cheap
May who ne'er hung there. Nor does long our small
Durance deal with that steep or deep. Here! creep,
Wretch, under a comfort serves in a whirlwind: all
Life death does not end and each day dies with sleep.
~Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–1889)
Few minds are sunlike, sources of light in themselves and to others: many more are moons that shine with a borrowed radiance. One may easily distinguish the two: the former are always full; the latter only now and then, when their suns are shining full upon them. ~Augustus William Hare and Julius Charles Hare, Guesses at Truth, by Two Brothers, 1827
You know how men become bone lazy for want of bodily exercise. Well, they become brain lazy for want of mental exercise... ~Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
Webs of strange patterns we weave (each owns)
From colour and soul; and like unto these,
Soul has its tones and semitones,
Mind has its major and minor keys.
~Amy Levy, "In a Minor Key (An Echo from a Larger Lyre)," c.1884
The bright confusion of his mind sometimes charmed and sometimes frightened her. ~Edith Wharton, The Gods Arrive, 1932
Formerly, whenever I went a-fishing in my head for thoughts or fancies, I always caught something; now the fish no longer come like that. They are beginning to be petrified upon the bottom, and I am obliged to hew them out. Occasionally I can only extract them in fragments, like fossil remains, and patch something or other together from them. ~Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–1799), "The Character of a Person of my Acquaintance" [Lichtenberg's unfinished "autopsychography" (Norman Alliston, 1908).
My thoughts seemed to whirl with lightning rapidity, and in a few seconds a whole process of reasoning became formulated. ~Bram Stoker, The Jewel of Seven Stars, 1903
One of the habits of the mind is the invention of horrible imaginings. ~Jorge Luis Borges, "La Biblioteca Total (The Total Library)," 1939
Let mind prevail where muscles fail. ~James Lendall Basford (1845–1915), Seven Seventy Seven Sensations, 1897
Our dearest delights belong to the imagination; and our bitterest griefs are fancies. ~Thomas Clark Henley, A Handful of Paper Shavings, 1861
Aspatria's mind was sensitive and observing; it lived very well on its own ideas. ~Amelia E. Huddleston Barr, A Rose of a Hundred Leaves: A Love Story, 1891 #infj
Indeed, to me the charm of an encyclopaedia is that it knows, and I needn't. My mental lee-scuppers are often awash in facts: I want to reef not only from the blasts of boredom which are inevitable sometimes, but from the gales of new and interesting knowledge: only thus can I keep close-hauled on my mark. One often sees craft with too much canvas: sluggish in helm and liable to upset: modern life is strewn with their wreckage. In short, the place for facts is books, and I shall expect this new Britannica to enable me to forget rather than to remember. I shall expect it to air and elevate my mind, while keeping for me in a convenient place all that mass of exact information which we must carry, either in brain or bookcase. ~Francis Yeats-Brown, "The New Encyclopaedia Britannica," in The Spectator, 1929 September 21st [What beautiful old-time phrasing for "You don't have to know everything; you just need to know where to find it," even if it was a thinly veiled advertisement. And as well, how interesting that some people actually suffered from information overload that long ago.
When the mind's free,
The body's delicate. The tempest in my mind
Doth from my senses take all feeling else
Save what beats there.
~William Shakespeare, King Lear, c.1605
What, then, subdues the stronger body? It is the stronger MIND! ~Andrew Jackson Davis (1826–1910), The Great Harmonia, 1852
Our universe is the utmost compass of our minds. ~H. G. Wells, Mind at the End of Its Tether, 1945
Perhaps already I am dead,
And these perhaps are phantoms vain;—
These motley phantasies that pass
At night through my disordered brain.
Perhaps with ancient heathen shapes,
Old faded gods, this brain is full;
Who, for their most unholy rites,
Have chosen a dead poet's skull...
~Heinrich Heine, translated from German
My
Poets, lovers and madmen have such seething brains! ~Hughes Mearns, The Vinegar Saint, 1920
There are no chaste minds. Minds copulate wherever they meet. ~Eric Hoffer, Reflections on the Human Condition, 1973
We need not be greatly put out if
Sweet are the thoughts that savour of content:
The quiet mind is richer than a crown...
Such sweet content, such minds, such sleep, such bliss,
Beggars enjoy, when princes oft do miss...
Obscurèd life sets down a type of bliss;
A mind content both crown and kingdom is.
~Robert Greene, c.1587
Ever wonder what crime you committed that you are confined to a small enclosure above your sinuses, under permanent skull arrest? ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com
—What should decide one, in choosing a summer residence? —Constitution, first of all. How much snow could you melt in an hour, if you were planted in a hogshead of it? Comfort is essential to enjoyment. All sensitive people should remember that persons in easy circumstances suffer much more from cold in summer—that is, the warm half of the year—than in winter, or the other half. You must cut your climate to your constitution, as much as your clothing to your shape. After this, consult your taste and convenience. But if you would be happy in Berkshire, you must carry mountains in your brain; and if you would enjoy Nahant, you must have an ocean in your soul. Nature plays at dominos with you; you must match her piece, or she will never give it up to you.
—The schoolmistress said, in a rather mischievous way, that she was afraid some minds or souls would be a little crowded, if they took in the Rocky Mountains or the Atlantic.
Have you ever read the little book called "The Stars and the Earth?"—said I.—Have you seen the Declaration of Independence photographed in a surface that a fly's foot would cover? The forms or conditions of Time and Space, as Kant will tell you, are nothing in themselves,—only our way of looking at things. You are right, I think, however, in recognizing the idea of Space as being quite as applicable to minds as to the outer world. Every man of reflection is vaguely conscious of an imperfectly-defined circle which is drawn about his intellect. He has a perfectly clear sense that the fragments of his intellectual circle include the curves of many other minds of which he is cognizant. He often recognizes these as manifestly concentric with his own, but of less radius. On the other hand, when we find a portion of an arc on the outside of our own, we say it intersects ours, but are very slow to confess or to see that it circumscribes it. Every now and then a man's mind is stretched by a new idea or sensation, and never shrinks back to its former dimensions. After looking at the Alps, I felt that my mind had been stretched beyond the limits of elasticity, and fitted so loosely on my old ideas of space that I had to spread these to fit it. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes, "The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table," in The Atlantic Monthly, 1858
Awareness springs from nothing out of nowhere. Everything else starts in my head which is an attic full of junk. ~Barry Fox Stevens (1902–1985), Burst Out Laughing, 1985
In the forest of my brain,
In the blackness of the night,
From the depths where they have lain
Hidden from my inward sight
Creatures strange and creatures gay
Crawl from out the brushwood thick,
Yellow, spotted, striped and gray,
Threading through the darkness quick
In and out, out and in.
Ravening with eyes of fire
Prowl they through the forest dim:
Ceaselessly they stalk, nor tire,
Swift of foot and lithe of limb,
Chasing up and down till morn
Through the pathways of my brain:
As one dies a new one's born,
Flying fresh and chased again
In and out, out and in.
Through the night they kill and tear
In and out the ghostly ways,
Splendid strong and flaming fair
Through the mad bewildering maze,
Till at morning's call they fly
Rustling like a rising breeze
Through the shrub they, cowed, slink by
Creeping softly through the trees
In and out, out and in.
~J. L. Hill, "Unbidden Guests"
There is no sight in the eye, when the mind does not gaze. ~Publilius Syrus, 1st century BCE, from the Latin by D. Lyman, 1856
The eyes are not responsible when the mind does the seeing. ~Publilius Syrus, 1st century BCE, from the Latin by D. Lyman, 1856
Quickness of examination and treatment are just as necessary in illness of the mind as in illness of the body. The plain fact is that no brain trouble is really minor: it may be kept so by early and effective care. Don't brush off recurring mental upsets as being just "nervousness." Don't try to ignore emotional upheavals that leave you feeling ragged and worn. There is nothing more damaging to the attainment of mental health than the idea that mental illness is incurable. That view may have been justified a half century ago, but it is not true today. ~Author unknown, c.1948
Thus still the Potter sang, and still,
By some unconscious act of will,
The melody and even the words
Were intermingled with my thought,
As bits of colored thread are caught
And woven into nests of birds.
~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, "Kéramos"
Oh, dear Father God, I come—
As I always come to Thee—
And, with all my love, I bring
My wholehearted, earnest plea.
Not for wealth nor jewels, rare,
Do I ask of Thee each day,
But for that which I so need
I do ask of Thee; and, pray,
Give Thy richest gift to me:
Give, oh, give me peace of mind!
Nothing else can take its place…
Peace, sweet peace, Lord, let me find!
~Gertrude Tooley Buckingham, "Peace of Mind," 1940s
You wonder sometimes, if it weren't for a false sense of complacency, if you'd ever have any peace of mind at all. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com
What the mind don't know, the heart won't worry about. ~Frances Frost, Uncle Snowball, 1940 [Proverb: "What the eye doesn't see, the heart doesn't grieve over."
In what is called 'circular insanity,' phases of melancholy succeed phases of mania, with no outward cause that we can discover; and often enough to one and the same well person life will present incarnate radiance to‑day and incarnate dreariness to‑morrow, according to the fluctuations of what the older medical books used to call "the concoction of the humors." ~William James, "Is Life Worth Living?," address to the Young Men's Christian Association of Harvard University, May 1895
The toughest battle is Mind. ~Terri Guillemets
There are so many things I do not know,
As over the pathway of life I go!
And the sun rides high and the waters flow,
And I'm still in doubt, for I do not know!
There are so many things to confuse my mind,
As I struggle on through the daily grind!
But I feel that, sometime, I'll surely find
The perfect answer that will ease my mind!
~Gertrude Tooley Buckingham (1880–1971), "So Many Things"
All my life I've wanted, just once, to say something clever without losing my train of thought. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com
In the unhealthy-minded is bred a general sense that things are not as they should be with himself. In the healthy-minded there are no fears, and the sensations that pour in only help to swell the general vital sense of security and readiness for anything that may turn up. ~William James, "The Gospel of Relaxation," 1899 [a little altered
I've got a thing inside my head
That's made of tacks and spools of thread,
And little sticks, and wheels, and springs,
And scissors, and all sorts of things.
Besides, it's like a little trap:
When thoughts come in, I hear it snap!...
It's like Dad's typewriter machine,
With clocks, and such things, in between.
It's something like his cam'ra, too;
And like my paints—red, green, and blue.
It ticks out thoughts and ticks 'em in,
As fast as all the wheels can spin...
~Julian Street, "The Think-box," c.1909
Lovely flowers have overgrown my mind — trying to crowd out the ugly world with beauty. ~Terri Guillemets, "Rewrite the world in a breath," 2002
Some minds are made of blotting-paper: you can write nothing on them distinctly. They swallow the ink, and you find a large spot. ~Augustus William Hare and Julius Charles Hare, Guesses at Truth, by Two Brothers, 1827
To weed this wormwood from your fruitful brain... ~William Shakespeare, Love's Labour's Lost, c.1594 [V, 2, Rosaline]
When people will not weed their own minds, they are apt to be overrun by nettles. ~Horace Walpole, letter to the Countess of Ailesbury, 1779
Weeds are pulled up by the roots to clear the fields for the growing grain. Why should not mental weeds be pulled up by the roots also, and the mind cleared for growth? ~Horace Fletcher, Menticulture, 1895
A man's mind may be likened to a garden, which may be intelligently cultivated or allowed to run wild; but whether cultivated or neglected, it must, and will, bring forth. If no useful seeds are put into it, then an abundance of useless weed-seeds will fall therein, and will continue to produce their kind.
Just as a gardener cultivates his plot... so a man may tend the garden of his mind, weeding out all the wrong, useless, and impure thoughts... [A] man sooner or later discovers that he is the master-gardener of his soul, the director of his life. ~James Allen, "Effect of Thought on Circumstances," As a Man Thinketh, 1908
We must weed our own minds as we would weed our gardens — of overgrown fears, strangling emotions, noxious thoughts, leeching habits, and poisonous beliefs. ~Terri Guillemets, "Constant growing," 2006
A flowerless conscience, drooping amid the ripened weeds of neglect! ~James Lendall Basford (1845–1915), Seven Seventy Seven Sensations, 1897
...certain it is that minds, like bodies, will often fall into a pimpled ill-conditioned state from mere excess of comfort, and like them, are often successfully cured by remedies in themselves very nauseous and unpalatable. ~Charles Dickens, Barnaby Rudge
[M]y theory... there was a crack in Pansay's head and a little bit of the Dark World came through and pressed him to death. ~Rudyard Kipling
I've concluded, after many years, that my mind works by process of elimination. Problem is, it hasn't eliminated anything yet. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com
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