Best Thinker Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings Page 4

“Just as the line of astronomical thinkers from Copernicus to Newton had destroyed the old astronomy, in which the earth was the center, and the Almighty sitting above the firmament the agent in moving the heavenly bodies about it with his own hands, so now a race of biological thinkers had destroyed the old idea of a Creator minutely contriving and fashioning all animals to suit the needs and purposes of man.”

Source: A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom: From Creation to the Victory of Scientific and Literary Methods

“It is only the inferior thinker who hastens to explain the singular and the complex by the primitive shortcut of supernaturalism.”

Complexes Thinker Primitive Inferiors Shortcuts

Book:H. P. LOVECRAFT äóñ The Ultimate Horror Collection: 60 Occult & Supernatural Mysteries in One Volume: The Greatest Spine-Chilling and Blood-Curdling Stories of Terror & Macabre: The Call of Cthulhu, The White Ship, The Dunwich Horror, At The Mountains Of Madness, The Whisperer in Darknessäó_

Source: H. P. LOVECRAFT äóñ The Ultimate Horror Collection: 60 Occult & Supernatural Mysteries in One Volume: The Greatest Spine-Chilling and Blood-Curdling Stories of Terror & Macabre: The Call of Cthulhu, The White Ship, The Dunwich Horror, At The Mountains Of Madness, The Whisperer in Darknessäó_

“Since the Greeks the predominant attitude of thinkers towards intellectual activity was to glorify it insofar as (like aesthetic activity) it finds its satisfaction in itself, apart from any attention to the advantages it may procure. Most thinkers would have agreed with Renan's verdict that the man who loves science for its fruits commits the worst of blasphemies against that divinity. The modern clercs have violently torn up this charter. They proclaim the intellectual functions are only respectable to the extent that they are bound up with the pursuit of concrete advantage.”

“Creatures extremely low in the intellectual scale may have conception. All that is required is that they should recognize the same experience again. A polyp would be a conceptual thinker if a feeling of 'Hello! thingumbob again!' ever flitted through its mind.”

Ifs Should Mind May Feelings Would Be Creatures Intellectual Lows Scales Conception Thinker Hello

Book:The Principles of Psychology

Source: The Principles of Psychology

“Kierkegaard was by far the most profound thinker of the last century. Kierkegaard was a saint.”

Lasts Century Profound Saint Thinker

Author:Ludwig Wittgenstein

“I don't believe that we are what we do although many thinkers argue otherwise. I believe that what we do is, very often, a poor approximation of what we are -- an imperfect manifestation of a much better totality. Even the best of us sometimes bite off, as it were, less than we can chew.”

Believe Sometimes Action I Believe Poor Don't Believe Arguing Manifestation Thinker Bites Imperfect Totality Approximation

Author:Donald Barthelme

“Only in the Roman Empire and in Spain under Arab domination has culture been a potent factor. Under the Arab, the standard attained was wholly admirable; to Spain flocked the greatest scientists, thinkers, astronomers, and mathematicians of the world, and side by side there flourished a spirit of sweet human tolerance and a sense of purist chivalry. Then with the advent of Christianity, came the barbarians.”

“Whatever the Thinker thinks, the Prover will prove. And if the Thinker thinks passionately enough, the Prover will prove the thought so conclusively that you will never talk a person out of such a belief, even if it is something as remarkable as the notion that there is a gaseous vertebrate of astronomical heft ("GOD") who will spend all eternity torturing people who do not believe in his religion.”

People Ifs Thinking Believe Persons Enough Belief Prove Eternity Notion Remarkable Thinker Vertebrates

Author:Robert Anton Wilson

“It is also naïve empiricism to provide, in support of some argument, series of eloquent confirmatory quotes by dead authorities. By searching, you can always find someone who made a well-sounding statement that confirms your point of view and, on every topic, it is possible to find another dead thinker who said the exact opposite.”

Wells Made Said Views Support Authority Argument Opposites Series Point Of View Statements Thinker Topics Eloquent Empiricism

Book:The Black Swan: Second Edition: The Impact of the Highly ImprobableFragility

Source: The Black Swan: Second Edition: The Impact of the Highly ImprobableFragility

“Thinkers are not a welcome addition to most social situations.”

Thinking Social Situation Welcome Thinker Thinking Too Much

Author:Terence McKenna

“Why should thinkers mock the simple pieties of the people?”

People Should Simple Thinker Piety Mock

Book:Think: A Compelling Introduction to Philosophy

Source: Think: A Compelling Introduction to Philosophy

“We can applaud the state lottery as a public subsidy of intelligence, for it yields public income that is calculated to lighten the tax burden of us prudent abstainers at the expense of the benighted masses of wishful thinkers.”

States Taxes Mass Burden Income Expenses Yield Thinker Lottery Prudent Subsidies Tax Burden

Author:Willard Van Orman Quine

“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.”

Humans Law Order Moral Development Lawyer Thinker Locked Clients Maintaining Law And Order Rigidity Insensitive Moral Development Feeler

Author:Thane Rosenbaum

“Mr. J.S. Mill speaks, in his celebrated work, "Utilitarianism," of the social feelings as a "powerful natural sentiment," and as "the natural basis of sentiment for utilitarian morality," but on the previous page he says, "if, as is my own belief, the moral feelings are not innate, but acquired, they are not for that reason less natural." It is with hesitation that I venture to differ from so profound a thinker, but it can hardly be disputed that the social feelings are instinctive or innate in the lower animals; and why should they not be so in man?”

Source: The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex

“Our understanding of the thought of the past is liable to be the more adequate, the less the historian is convinced of the superiority of his own point of view, or the more he is prepared to admit the possibility that he may have to learn something, not merely about the thinkers of the past, but from them.”

May Past Understanding Views Possibility Prepared Point Of View Convinced Thinker Historian Superiority Adequate Liable

Book:What is Political Philosophy? And Other Studies

Source: What is Political Philosophy? And Other Studies

“Ownership of thought depends on the thinker not subordinating himself to a 'ruling thought'. This is particularly difficult, argues Stirner, ... for language itself is a network of 'fixed ideas'. Truths emerge only when language is reworked and possessed individually.”

Ideas Language Difficult Depends Arguing Fixed Thinker Possessed Ownership Ruling

Book:Break-Out from the Crystal Palace: The Anarcho-Psychological Critique: Stirner, Nietzsche, Dostoevsky

Source: Break-Out from the Crystal Palace: The Anarcho-Psychological Critique: Stirner, Nietzsche, Dostoevsky

“Man is a conscious, rational thinker and a supra-conscious creator genius.”

Men Genius Conscious Creator Rational Thinker

Author:Pitirim Sorokin

“The Occupy Wall Street collective is confused about what it wants but it wants it now! Some of the loonier demands from its independent thinkers: Striking all existing public and private debt from the books across the "entire planet"; elimination of all international borders; free college education; a guaranteed "living wage" for all regardless of employment; an end to free trade; trillions in additional spending for infrastructure and ecological restoration; and ending the fossil fuel economy.”

“It is doubtful whether our present system of popular education does not retard independent or self thinking as much as it promotes it. All genuine education is self-education. It will incite the individual to think for himself, by rethinking what the race's great thinkers have already thought for him, thus enabling him to go ahead under his own mental steam.”

Thinking Doe Self Individual Race Independent Genuine Thinker Steam Doubtful Self Education Enabling Retard Great Thinkers Rethinking Popular Education

Book:The Field of Philosophy: An Outline of Lectures on Introduction to Philosophy

Source: The Field of Philosophy: An Outline of Lectures on Introduction to Philosophy

“Ceaseless optimism about the future only makes for a greater shock when things go wrong; by fighting to maintain only positive beliefs about the future, the positive thinker ends up being less prepared, and more acutely distressed, when things eventually happen that he can't persuade himself to believe are good.”

Believe Ends Happens Fighting Belief Greater Optimism Prepared Shock Thinker When Things Go Wrong Positive Thinker

Author:Oliver Burkeman

“Thinkers are scarce as gold; but he whose thoughts embrace all his subject, and who pursues it uninterruptedly and fearless of consequences, is a diamond of enormous size.”

Subjects Consequence Gold Embrace Size Enormous Pursue Fearless Thinker Diamond Scarce

Author:Johann Kaspar Lavater

“The intellectual power, honesty, lucidity, courage, and disinterested love of the truth of the most gifted thinkers of the eighteenth century remain to this day without parallel. Their age is one of the best and most hopeful episodes in the life of mankind.”

Age Mankind Century Honesty Intellectual Hopeful This Day Thinker Episodes Gifted Parallels Disinterested Lucidity Disinterested Love

Book:The Power of Ideas

Source: The Power of Ideas

“Two-factor economics makes it clear that our economic problem is not what one-factor (labor-centric) thinkers assert: an inequitable distribution of income. It is an inequitable distribution of productive power, from which an unworkable distribution of income results.”

Two Problem Wisdom Politics Results Economy Clear Economic Economics Labor Income Factors Liberalism Productive Thinker Distribution Economic Problems

Author:Louis O. Kelso

“The world glows all the time. All of the things that you have come to understand aren't. The greatest thinkers in the world see very little compared to the enlightened.”

World Littles Science Buddhism Enlightened Thinker

Author:Frederick Lenz

“An ideology is a complex of ideas or notions which represents itself to the thinker as an absolute truth for the interpretation of the world and his situation within it; it leads the thinker to accomplish an act of self-deception for the purpose of justification, obfuscation and evasion in some sense or other to his advantage.”

“The overriding need is "to develop a new Planetary Humanism" that will seek to preserve human rights and enhance human freedom and dignity and will emphasize our commitment "to humanity as a whole." The underlying ethical principle "is the need to respect the dignity and worth of all persons in the world community." Thinkers as diverse as Peter Singer and Hans Küng also emphasize the need for a new global ethic beyond nationalistic, racial, religious, and ethnic chauvinism.”

“... the atheists, libertines, despisers of religion ... that is to say all those who usually pass under the name of Free-thinkers.”

Names Atheism Atheist Positive Atheism Thinker Libertine Free Thinkers

Book:The Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D. Dean of St. Patrick's, Dublin: Accurately Revised in Six Volumes, Adorned with Copper-plates : with Some Account of the Author's Life and Notes Historical and Explanatory

Source: The Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D. Dean of St. Patrick's, Dublin: Accurately Revised in Six Volumes, Adorned with Copper-plates : with Some Account of the Author's Life and Notes Historical and Explanatory

“I hate the idea of always having to interpret other people's ideas and thoughts and words, because I'm very independent and, I guess, a free thinker.”

People Ideas Hate I Hate Independent Thinker Free Thinkers Thoughts And Words

Author:Elizabeth Taylor

“I'm not a great deductive thinker, but I will admit to having competence in a very wide range of things - not being afraid to try to write about baseball, choral music and dinosaurs in the same week and see connections among them.”

Writing Trying Week Connections Baseball Wide Range Thinker Competence Dinosaurs Being Afraid Choral Music

Author:Stephen Jay Gould

“Brisk talkers are generally slow thinkers.”

Talking Thinker Talkers

Author:Jonathan Swift

“Brisk talkers are usually slow thinkers. There is, indeed, no wild beast more to be dreaded than a communicative man having nothing to communicate. If you are civil to the voluble they will abuse your patience; if brusque, your character.”

Ifs Men Character Talking Abuse Communicate Beast Thinker Talkers Wild Beasts

Author:Jonathan Swift