Thinker Quotes - Page 3

• Why should thinkers mock the simple pieties of the people?

  Simon Blackburn

  Simple, People, Should

  Simon Blackburn (1999). “Think: A Compelling Introduction to Philosophy”, p.132, Oxford University Press

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• I'm not on all the time. I like to have fun and be funny, but I'm much more of a thinker.

  Keenen Ivory Wayans

  Fun, Ivory, Comedy

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• There is little doubt that the majority of Mr. Mills supporters in 1865 did not know what his political opinions were, and that they voted for him simply on his reputation as a great thinker.

  Millicent Fawcett

  Political Opinions, Doubt, Littles

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• Aristotle was by far a less able thinker than Plato ... he was completely overwhelmed by Plato.

  Wolfgang Pauli

  Plato, Able, Overwhelmed

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• Since lawyers are thinkers and not feelers, and their moral development is locked into the rigidity of maintaining law and order, they often come across as impersonal, insensitive, amoral, and not particularly human to the clients they serve.

  Thane Rosenbaum

  Law, Moral Development, Order

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• Free thought means fearless thought. It is not deterred by legal penalties, nor by spiritual consequences. Dissent from the Bible does not alarm the true investigator, who takes truth for authority not authority for truth. The thinker who is really free, is independent; he is under no dread; he yields to no menace; he is not dismayed by law, nor custom, nor pulpits, nor society-whose opinion appals so many. He who has the manly passion of free thought, has no fear of anything, save the fear of error.

  George Holyoake

  Spiritual, Passion, Mean

  George Jacob Holyoake (1896). “English Secularism: A Confession of Belief”, p.18, Library of Alexandria

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• The sexiest people are thinkers.

  Vivienne Westwood

  Fashion, People, Sexiest

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• The greater part of mankind may be divided into two classes; that of shallow thinkers who fall short of the truth; and that of abstruse thinkers who go beyond it.

  David Hume

  Fall, Class, Two

  David Hume (2016). “Delphi Complete Works of David Hume (Illustrated)”, p.735, Delphi Classics

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• [T]he influence of the German school is most obvious in relation to the contract theory of the origin of the state and the idea of the function of the state. The theory that the state originates in an agreement between men was assailed by the German thinkers and the historical, organic, evolutionary idea substituted for it.

  Charles Edward Merriam

  School, Men, Ideas

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• Individual heterosexual women came to the movement from relationships where men were cruel, unkind, violent, unfaithful. Many of these men were radical thinkers who participated in movements for social justice, speaking out on behalf of the workers, the poor, speaking out on behalf of racial justice. However when it came to the issue of gender they were as sexist as their conservative cohorts.

  Bell Hooks

  Men, Issues, Justice

  bell hooks (2014). “Feminism Is for Everybody: Passionate Politics”, p.67, Routledge

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• The doctrine of transmigration… was a means of constructing a plausible vindication of the ways of the cosmos to man; … none but very hasty thinkers will reject it on the grounds of inherent absurdity.

  Thomas Huxley

  Mean, Men, Way

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• I think you must remember that a writer is a simple-minded person to begin with and go on that basis. He's not a great mind, he's not a great thinker, he's not a great philosopher, he's a story-teller.

  Erskine Caldwell

  Writing, Thinking, Simple

  Erskine Caldwell (1988). “Conversations with Erskine Caldwell”, p.51, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• The chimpanzee and the human share about 99.5 percent of their evolutionary history, yet most human thinkers regard the chimp as a malformed, irrelevant oddity, while seeing themselves as stepping stones to the Almighty.

  Robert Trivers

  Oddities, Atheism, Stones

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• One cannot demand of a scholar that he show himself a scholar everywhere in society, but the whole tenor of his behavior must none the less betray the thinker, he must always be instructive, his way of judging a thing must even in the smallest matters be such that people can see what it will amount to when, quietly and self-collected, he puts this power to scholarly use.

  Georg C. Lichtenberg

  Power, Self, People

  "Aphorisms". Book by Georg Christoph Lichtenberg. Notebook J 85, 1799.

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• I will spark a generation of thinkers who will question traditional thought until they find the absolute truth.

  Kanye West

  Conceited, Generations, Sparks

  "Kanye West Sounds Off About Himself (Again) In E-mail To Media" by Shaheem Reid, www.mtv.com. January 29, 2009.

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• Reincarnation contains a most comforting explanation of reality by means of which Indian thought surmounts difficulties which baffle the thinkers of Europe.

  Albert Schweitzer

  Mean, Reality, Europe

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• Since the time of the ancient Greeks a democracy has depended on its philosophers and creative artists. It can only flourish by continuous probing, prodding, and questioning of the social conditions under which man exists and tries to better himself. One of the first moves of a dictatorship is to stifle the artists and thinkers who have the ability to stir up dissent from any prescribed dogma which might enslave them. Because the artist can arouse the curiosity and conscience of his community, he becomes a threat to those who have taken power.

  Uta Hagen

  Women, Moving, Taken

  Uta Hagen (1991). “Challenge For The Actor”, p.3, Simon and Schuster

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• The world's greatest thinkers have often been amateurs; for high thinking is the outcome of fine and independent living, and for that a professional chair offers no special opportunities.

  Havelock Ellis

  Independent, Opportunity, Thinking

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• Since my first discussions of ecological problems with Professor John Day around 1950 and since reading Konrad Lorenz's "King Solomon's Ring," I have become increasingly interested in the study of animals for what they might teach us about man, and the study of man as an animal. I have become increasingly disenchanted with what the thinkers of the so-called Age of Enlightenment tell us about the nature of man, and with what the formal religions and doctrinaire political theorists tell us about the same subject.

  Allan McLeod Cormack

  Kings, Reading, Science

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• All of the people in my life whom I consider to be close friends or colleagues are good thinkers.

  John C. Maxwell

  Leadership, People, Close Friends

  John C. Maxwell (2009). “How Successful People Think: Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life”, p.8, Hachette UK

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• Where the good begins.- Where the poor power of the eye can no longer see the evil impulse as such because it has become too subtle, man posits the realm of goodness; and the feeling that we have now entered the realm of goodness excites all those impulses which had been threatened and limited by the evil impulses, like the feeling of security, of comfort, of benevolence. Hence, the duller the eye, the more extensive the good. Hence the eternal cheerfulness of the common people and of children. Hence the gloominess and grief - akin to a bad conscience - of the great thinkers.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Children, Grief, Eye

  Friedrich Nietzsche (2010). “The Gay Science: With a Prelude in Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs”, p.115, Vintage

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• I like to think of myself as a pure rebel;
  A radical thinker on a musical level.

  D-Nice

  Thinking, Hip Hop, Musical

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• It may be important to great thinkers to examine the world, to explain and despise it. But I think it is only important to love the world, not to despise it, not for us to hate each other, but to be able to regard the world and ourselves and all beings with love, admiration and respect.

  Hermann Hesse

  Life, Hate, Hippie

  Hermann Hesse (2015). “Siddhartha: An Indian Tale”, p.110, Om Books International

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• Almost all rich veins of original and striking speculation have been opened by systematic half-thinkers.

  John Stuart Mill

  Intellectual, Intelligence, Veins

  John Stuart Mill (2008). “Utilitarianism and On Liberty: Including 'Essay on Bentham' and Selections from the Writings of Jeremy Bentham and John Austin”, p.67, John Wiley & Sons

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• Every great thinker is someone else's moron.

  Umberto Eco

  Insult, Moron, Great Thinkers

  Umberto Eco (2007). “Foucault's Pendulum”, p.76, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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