Cognitive Quotes

• There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.

  William Shakespeare

  Inspirational, Positive, Happiness

  'Hamlet' (1601) act 2, sc. 2, l. [259]

  173 Copy quote

  Show source

• Humans create their cognitive powers by creating the environments in which they exercise those powers

  Edwin Hutchins

  Exercise, Creating, Environment

  Edwin Hutchins (1995). “Cognition in the Wild”, p.169, MIT Press

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• The brain is a monstrous, beautiful mess. Its billions of nerve cells - called neurons - lie in a tangled web that displays cognitive powers far exceeding any of the silicon machines we have built to mimic it.

  William Allman

  Beautiful, Lying, Cells

  44 Copy quote

• You're never going to learn something as profoundly as when it's purely out of curiosity

  Christopher Nolan

  Learning, Profound, Curiosity

  76 Copy quote

• It has been an obsession of human beings to create a hierarchy that places the human species on top and lumps all the "other animals" together beneath us. The resulting "speciesism" allows us to look upon animals as less deserving of all manner of rights and considerations than humans. To support this lower status, humans have argued that animals act instinctually; don't have souls; don't feel physical pain like we do; and lack self-consciousness, cognitive intelligence, emotional feelings, morality, and ethics.

  Sharon Gannon

  Pain, Animal, Emotional

  "Sharon Gannon on Veganism". jivamuktiyoga.com. November 16, 2016.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Cognitive and character skills work together as dynamic complements; they are inseparable. Skills beget skills. More motivated children learn more. Those who are more informed usually make wiser decisions.

  James Heckman

  Children, Character, Skills

  23 Copy quote

• Hope is not an emotion; it's a way of thinking or a cognitive process.

  Brené Brown

  Thinking, Way, Emotion

  Brené Brown (2012). “Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, andLead”, p.239, Penguin

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• Wisdom is tolerance of cognitive dissonance.

  Robert Thurman

  Tolerance, Cognitive Dissonance, Dissonance

  44 Copy quote

• The foundations of the world are to be found, not in the cognitive experience of conscious thought, but in the aesthetic experience of everyday life.

  Alfred North Whitehead

  Beauty, Everyday, Foundation

  4 Copy quote

• A slew of cognitive traits predisposes us to faith.

  Pascal Boyer

  Traits

  5 Copy quote

• Emotional function and cognitive function aren't unrelated to each other. They're completely intertwined.

  Amishi Jha

  Emotional, Function, Intertwined

  Source: www.gq.com

  3 Copy quote

  Show source

• I suspect that a lot of the stress we see around us arises from the cognitive dissonance set up by one side of the brain hearing very plausible spin while the other side knows it just ain't so.

  David Palmer

  Stress, Brain, Cognitive Dissonance

  10 Copy quote

• For me, the glory of the human animal is cognitive activity.

  Terence McKenna

  Animal, Glory, Humans

  3 Copy quote

• Chess is a unique cognitive nexus, a place where art and science come together in the human mind and are then refined and improved by experience.

  Garry Kasparov

  Art, Science, Unique

  Garry Kasparov (2010). “How Life Imitates Chess: Making the Right Moves, from the Board to the Boardroom”, p.11, Bloomsbury Publishing USA

  17 Copy quote

  Show source

• My feeling is that a human being or any complex organism has a system of cognitive structures that develop much in the way the physical organs of the body develop. That is, in their fundamental character they are innate; their basic form is determined by the genetic structure of the organism. Of course, they grow under particular environmental conditions, assuming a specific form that admits of some variation. Much of what is distinctive among human beings is a specific manner in which a variety of shared cognitive structures develop.

  Noam Chomsky

  Character, Feelings, Environmental

  Source: chomsky.info

  3 Copy quote

  Show source

• Humor is basically a cognitive process. And it's a creative process not only on the part of the cartoonist but on the part of the viewer.

  Robert Mankoff

  Creative, Process, Cartoonist

  Source: www.npr.org

  21 Copy quote

  Show source

• Cognitive psychology tells us that the unaided human mind is vulnerable to many fallacies and illusions because of its reliance on its memory for vivid anecdotes rather than systematic statistics.

  Steven Pinker

  Memories, Psychology, Mind

  "Steven Pinker: fighting talk from the prophet of peace". Interview with John Naughton, www.theguardian.com. October 15, 2011.

  16 Copy quote

  Show source

• The only position that leaves me with no cognitive dissonance is atheism.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Atheist, Atheism, Cognitive Dissonance

  Christopher Hitchens (2007). “The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever”, p.480, Da Capo Press

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• Of all the systems of the body - neurological, cognitive, special, sensory - the cardiological system is the most sensitive and easily disturbed. The role of society must be to shelter these systems from infection and decay, or else the future of the human race is at stake. Like a summer fruit that is protected from insect invasion, bruising, and rot by the whole mechanism of modern farming; so must we protect the heart.

  Lauren Oliver

  Summer, Heart, Race

  Lauren Oliver (2014). “Delirium: The Complete Collection: Delirium, Hana, Pandemonium, Annabel, Raven, Requiem”, p.47, Harper Collins

  3 Copy quote

  Show source

• I tend to write first drafts that are incredibly cognitive, very rational, very boring. They come off as justification. Like, 'This is my idea and here's all the reasons that it's right.' It doesn't make for very compelling reading.

  Donald Miller

  Reading, Writing, Ideas

  3 Copy quote

• When it comes to exploring the mind in the framework of cognitive neuroscience, the maximal yield of data comes from integrating what a person experiences - the first person - with what the measurements show - the third person.

  Daniel Goleman

  Yield, Data, Mind

  72 Copy quote

• The fact that we have been able to develop a successful science, which issues in ever more accurate predictions and broader explanations, is the real ground for confidence that we are in a position to gain knowledge of the world around us. At the same time, one might ask how it is that the cognitive equipment we have came about, and here, no doubt, our evolutionary origins are relevant.

  Hilary Kornblith

  Real, Successful, Issues

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

  3 Copy quote

  Show source

• When parents have college savings accounts for their kids, their kids show higher social and cognitive performance.

  Dan Ariely

  Kids, College, Parent

  "Mental depletion complicates financial decisions for the poor". Interview with Kristen Doerer, www.pbs.org. January 19, 2016.

  3 Copy quote

  Show source

• As long as I stared at the clock, at least the world remained in motion. Not a very consequential world, but in motion nonetheless. And as long as I knew the world was still in motion, I knew I existed. Not a very consequential existence, but an existence nonetheless. It struck me as wanting that someone should confirm his own existence only by the hands of an electric wall clock. There had to be a more cognitive means of confirmation. But try as I might, nothing less facile came to mind.

  Haruki Murakami

  Wall, Mean, Hands

  3 Copy quote

• As the nature deficit grows, another emerging body of scientific evidence indicates that direct exposure to nature is essential for physical and emotional health. For example, new studies suggest that exposure to nature may reduce the symptoms of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), and that it can improve all children's cognitive abilities and resistance to negative stresses and depression.

  Richard Louv

  Children, Stress, Emotional

  19 Copy quote