Politeness, however, acts the lady’s-maid to our thoughts; and they are washed, dressed, curled, rouged, and perfumed, before they are presented to the public.
Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802-1838) English poet and novelist [a/k/a L.E.L.]
Romance and Reality, Vol. 2, ch. 14 (1831)
(Source)
Quotations about:
thoughts
Note not all quotations have been tagged, so Search may find additional quotes on this topic.
Experts in ancient Greek culture say that people back then didn’t see their thoughts as belonging to them. When ancient Greeks had a thought, it occurred to them as a god or goddess giving an order. Apollo was telling them to be brave. Athena was telling them to fall in love.
Now people hear a commercial for sour cream potato chips and rush out to buy them, but now they call this free will.
At least the ancient Greeks were being honest.
More gold has been mined from the brains of men than has ever been taken from the earth.
Napoleon Hill (1883-1970) American author, motivational writer
Think and Grow Rich (1937)
(Source)
In some editions this is given as: "More gold has been mined from the thoughts of men than has ever been taken from the earth."
We’re animals. We’re born like every other mammal and we live our whole lives around disguised animal thoughts.
Barbara Kingsolver (b. 1955) American novelist, essayist, poet
Animal Dreams (1990)
I collected my thoughts. Someday I hope to have them all.
Steven Brust (b. 1955) American writer, systems programmer
Orca [Vlad] (1996)
The more profound the thought, the more burdensome. What is in will out.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
Journal (1836)
What a wee little part of a person’s life are his acts and his words! His real life is led in his head, and is known to none but himself. All day long, and every day, the mill of his brain is grinding, and his thoughts (which are but the mute articulation of his feelings,) not those other things, are his history. His acts and his words are merely the visible thin crust of his world, with its scarred snow summits and its vacant wastes of water — and they are so trifling a part of his bulk! a mere skin enveloping it. The mass of him is hidden — it and its volcanic fires that toss and boil, and never rest, night nor day. These are his life, and they are not written, and cannot be written. Every day would make a whole book of eighty thousand words — three hundred and sixty-five books a year. Biographies are but the clothes and buttons of the man — the biography of the man himself cannot be written.
Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
The Autobiography of Mark Twain, Vol. 1 (2010)
(Source)
A man would do well to carry a pencil in his pocket and write down the thoughts of the moment. Those that come unsought are commonly the most valuable, and should be secured because they seldom return.
Francis Bacon (1561-1626) English philosopher, scientist, author, statesman
(Attributed)
Govern thy Life and Thoughts, as if the whole World were to see the one, and read the other.
Thomas Fuller (1654-1734) English writer, physician
Introductio ad Prudentiam, # 417 (1725)
(Source)
Life does not consist mainly — or even largely — of facts and happenings. It consists mainly of the storm of thoughts that is forever blowing through one’s head.
Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
Autobiography, Part 1, sec. 28 “New York, January 10, 1906” (2003)
Full text.
The secret thoughts of a man run over all things holy, prophane, clean, obscene, grave, and light, without shame, or blame.
Thoughts, like fleas, jump from man to man. But they don’t bite everybody.
Stanislaw Lec (1909-1966) Polish aphorist, poet, satirist
Unkempt Thoughts [Myśli nieuczesane] (1957) [tr. Gałązka (1962)]
(Source)
Don’t join the book burners. Don’t think you are going to conceal thoughts by concealing evidence that they ever existed. Don’t be afraid to go in your library and read every book, as long as that document does not offend your own ideas of decency. That should be the only censorship.
Dwight David Eisenhower (1890-1969) American general, US President (1953-61)
Commencement Speech, Dartmouth College (14 Jun 1953)
