A man cannot think himself out of mental evil; for it is actually the organ of thought that has become diseased, ungovernable, and, as it were, independent. He can only be saved by will or faith. The moment his mere reason moves, it moves in the old circular rut; he will go round and round his logical circle.

Why were there no words that spoke positively about being concerned about the self? Why was there only negative connotation in terms like "selfish", "self-interested", "self-centred", "self-obsessed" and so on? Why was it so much better to be without a self: "selfless", "self-sacrificing", "self-effacing", etc?

The trout fisher, like the landscape painter, haunts the loveliest places of the earth, and haunts them alone. Solitude and his own thoughts—he must be on the best terms with all of these; and he who can take kindly the largest allowance of these is likely to be the kindliest and truest with his fellow men.

Now I know without a shadow of doubt that you can't chase away those images, let alone the visible holes that burrow deep down inside. You can't chase away the reverberations or the memories that stir as night falls or in the early hours. You can't chase away echoing screams, still less echoing silence

My greatest strength is an unfocused mind. This is because while you are all thinking of one idea, I’m thinking of five different ideas. My greatest weakness however is an unfocused mind. This is because while I’m supposed to be thinking about one thing, I’m actually thinking of five other things.

I don’t have a philosophy: I have senses...If I talk about Nature, it’s not because I know what it is,But because I love it, and that’s why I love it,Because when you love you never know what you love,Or why you love, or what love is.Loving is eternal innocence,And the only innocence is not thinking.

If everyone could learn how to read books properly and how to use them as effective tools for daily living, the facilities of colleges could easily go out of existence without any loss to society.' -From a speech by the president of Mount Holyoke College, as reported in the Philadelphia Public Ledger, May 13, 1938

He must have stood there for a long time, making a list of all the terrible things he had done—almost killinng me was one of those thingss—and another list of all the good, heroic, brave things he had not done, and then decided that he was tired. Tired, not just of living, but of existing. Tired of being Al.

Open the door of nature; enter inside; forget yourself; think nothing; be the nature itself and now you are a heron, a river, a rosehip, you are the shadow of a fox, sweet fruit of a tree, you are the silence of a lake! When you forget yourself, when you stop thinking, you become everything, you become the universe itself!

Logiškai mąstė, o paskui elgėsi logiška išvada. Tačiau daugelis iš mūsų, įtariu, daro priešingai: priima instinktyvų sprendimą, paskui kuria priežasčių infrastruktūrą jam pateisinti. O rezultatą pavadina sveiku protu.

Perhaps you still think you ought to think out beforehand and know what you ought to do. To that there is only one answer. You can only know and think about it by actually doing it. You can only learn what obedience is by obeying. It is no use asking questions; for it is only through obedience that you come to learn the truth.

The modern Westerner, persuaded that he has a right to "think for himself" and imagining that he exercises this right, is unwilling to acknowledge that his every thought has been shaped by cultural and historical influences and that his opinions fit, like pieces of jigsaw puzzle, into a pattern which has nothing random about it.

I have often wished myself a beast. I preferred the condition of the meanest reptile to my own. Any thing, no matter what, to get rid of thinking! It was this everlasting thinking of my condition that tormented me. There was no getting rid of it. It was pressed upon me by every object within sight or hearing, animate or inanimate.

I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own -- a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty. Neither can I believe that the individual survives the death of his body, although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotisms.

There’s nothing like a good murder to remind us all how much love there is in the world. That’s what this guy’s probably thinking, as he stands alone and naked—emotionally, not physically—as he’s obviously wearing clothes made for another man, a man like me, a man not afraid to be nude in public.