Read through the most famous quotes by topic #think
Those only are happy (I thought) who have their minds fixed on some object other than their own happiness; on the happiness of others, on the improvement of mankind, even on some art or pursuit, followed not as a means, but as itself an ideal end. Aiming thus at something else, they find happiness by the way. The enjoyments of life (such was now my theory) are sufficient to make it a pleasant thing, when they are taken en passant, without being made a principal object. Once make them so, and they are immediately felt to be insufficient. They will not bear a scrutinizing examination. Ask yourself whether you are happy, and you cease to be so. The only chance is to treat, not happiness, but some end external to it, as the purpose of life. Let your self-consciousness, your scrutiny, your self-interrogation, exhaust themselves on that; and if otherwise fortunately circumstanced you will inhale happiness with the air you breathe, without dwelling on it or thinking about it, without either forestalling it in imagination, or putting it to flight by fatal questioning. ↗
The trouble with men is that they have limited minds. That's the trouble with women, too." ["Existence" (1975)] ↗
Girl going past clinging to a young man's arm. Putting up her face like a duck to the moon. Drinking joy. Green in her eyes. Spinal curvature. No chin, mouth like a frog. Young man like a pug. Gazing down at his sweetie with the face of a saint reading the works of God. Hold on, maiden, you've got him. He's your boy. Look out, Puggy, that isn't a maiden you see before you, it's a work of imagination. Nail him, girlie. Nail him to the contract. Fly laddie, fly off with your darling vision before she turns into a frow, who spends all her life thinking of what the neighbours think. ↗
#gulley-jimson #imagination #maidens #pugs #spinal-curvature
See the world anew and write down the bones of it. ↗
#ad-sams #alisha-sams #bones #capturing #creative-thinking-the-world
Oh, gentlemen, perhaps I really regard myself as an intelligent man only because throughout my entire life I've never been able to start or finish anything. Granted, granted I'm a babbler, a harmless, irksome babbler, as we all are. But what's to be done if the sole and express purpose of every intelligent man is babble--that is, a deliberate pouring from empty into void. ↗
#meaning-of-life #philosophical-musings #searching #thinking #intelligence
We can also profit by reading more modern authors who seem at first sight to be merely perversely questioning what every sensible person knows to be true. Such writers do us a great service, of forcing us to question our old beliefs, so that we may freely and intelligently choose what is sound in them and reject the rest, and thus have our minds prepared for seeing new and unfamiliar truths. Most people do not need protection from being shocked. They need to be shocked a great deal more than they are. ↗
[on the Victim Mentality] It takes a great level of intelligence to maintain a thinking process as stupid as this. Because it is such a great undertaking, we take pride in it. It highlights our intellect. Too bad it also highlights our lack of wisdom. For all our twisting, wringing, stretching, and stuffing, we only contort ourselves. ↗
