Monday 30 May 2011

Quotes about Thinking

Here's the next section of quotes from my book 1000 Great Quotations for Business, Management & Training.


An updated version of the book is newly available as part of my Almost Free Kindle titles both in the UK and in the USA.




Few people think more than two or three times a year. I’ve made an international reputation for myself by thinking once or twice a week.

George Bernard Shaw, Irish playwright, essayist (1856-1950)




The problems that exist in the world today cannot be solved by the level of thinking that created them.

Albert Einstein, German physicist (1879-1955)



Of one thing we can be sure. The quality of our life in the future will be determined by the quality of our thinking.

Edward de Bono, Maltese psychologist, author (b. 1933)



No one is thinking if everyone is thinking alike.

George S Patton, US general (1885-1945)



Where all think alike, no one thinks very much.

Walter Lippmann, US newspaper commentator, author (1889-1974)



Thought is action in rehearsal.

Sigmund Freud, Austrian founder of psychoanalysis (1856-1939)



Big thinking precedes great achievement.

Wilferd Arlan Peterson, US poet, author (1900-1995)



Ours is a very fast-moving field. You have to be able to step back from it. Many years ago, I decided to take a week every year and absorb myself in thinking many years ahead. I get colleagues to put together what PhD theses I should read, what products I should play with, what memos I should look at. So, it’s been, except for sleeping a little bit, day and night all by myself uninterrupted. Now, because things are moving so fast, I do it twice a year.

Bill Gates, US computer engineer, entrepreneur (b. 1955)



If you make people think they’re thinking, they’ll love you: but if you really make them think, they’ll hate you.

Donald Marquis, US newspaper owner, poet, playwright (1878-1937)



All the problems in the world could be settled easily if men were only willing to think. The trouble is that men very often resort to all sorts of devices in order not to think, because thinking is such hard work.

Thomas J Watson, US businessman, founder of IBM (1874-1956)



People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought which they avoid.

Soren Kierkegaard, Danish philosopher (1813-1855)



Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is the probable reason why so few engage in it.

Henry Ford, US automobile manufacturer, engineer (1863-1947)



Most people would rather die than think: many do.

Bertrand Russell, British philosopher, mathematician (1872-1970)



Few minds wear out; more rust out.

Christian Nestell Bovee, US author, lawyer (1820-1904)



The brain is a wonderful organ. It starts working when you get up in the morning, and doesn’t stop until you get to the office.

Robert Frost, US poet (1874-1963)



Language shapes the way we think, and determines what we can think about.

Benjamin Wharf, US linguist (1897-1941)



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.

Samuel Langhorne Clemens, known as Mark Twain, US author (1835-1910)



All the talk about labour flexibility misses the point. It’s not ways of working that need to become more flexible, it’s ways of thinking.

Simon Caulkin, British journalist



Far from thinking coming after knowledge, knowledge comes on the coat tails of thinking. Therefore, instead of knowledge-centred schools we need thinking-centred schools. This is no luxury, no Utopian vision of erudite and elitist education. These are hard facts about the way learning works.

David Perkins, US psychologist







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