Thinker Quotes
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Every thinker puts some portion of an apparently stable world in peril and no one can wholly predict what will emerge in its place.
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More Thinker Quotes
An original thinker and able teacher very soon attracts a large class and vice versa.
— Lord Watson, Caird v. Sime (1887), 57 L. J. P. C. 9.
When obstacles or difficulties arise, the positive thinker takes them as creative opportunities. He welcomes the challenge of a tough problem and looks for ways to turn it to advantage.
norman vincent peale— Have a Great Day (1986), p. 2
The greatest challenge to any thinker is stating the problem in a way that will allow a solution.
— Bertrand Russell, as quoted in Crainer's The Ultimate Book of Business Quotations (1997), p. 258.
Jurgen Habermas is widely considered as the most influential thinker in Germany over the past decade. As a philosopher and sociologist he has mastered and creatively articulated an extraordinary range of specialized literature in the social sciences, social theory and the history of ideas in the development of a comprehensive and provocative critical theory of knowledge and human interests. His roots are in the tradition of German thought from Kant to Marx , and he has been associated with the Frankfurt School of critical theorists which pioneered in the study of the relationship of the ideas of Marx and Freud .
— Jack Mezirow (1981). "A critical theory of adult learning and education". in: Adult Education. Vol 32, nr. 1, p.3
The worker must work for the glory of his handiwork, not simply for pay; the thinker must think for truth, not for fame.
w. e. b. dubois— Ch. V: Of the Wings of Atalanta
From Gadamer I learned that to understand a given thinker requires one to presuppose that he is right.
hans-georg gadamer— Krzysztof Michalski, The Flame of Eternity (2013), p. xi
I approach the presentation of Kierkegaard with some trepidation. Next to Nietzsche, or rather, prior to Nietzsche, I consider him to be the most important thinker of our post-Kantian age. With Goethe and Hegel, an epoch had reached its conclusion, and our prevalent way of thinking — that is, the positivistic, natural-scientific one — cannot really be considered as philosophy.
karl jaspers— The Great Philosophers (1962)
I wouldn't say I was a born writer; I'm a born thinker.
John Lennon— p. 9 (The Beatles Anthology (2000))
In poetry there are two giants, rough Homer and fine Shakespere. In music likewise we have two giants, Beethoven, the thinker, and the superthinker Berlioz.
modest mussorgsky— Letter to Vladimir Stassov, October 18, 1872; Oskar von Riesemann (trans. Paul England) Moussorgsky (1929) p. 107.
Kierkegaard was by far the most profound thinker of the last century. Kierkegaard was a saint.
ludwig wittgenstein— As quoted in "Wittgenstein and Kierkegaard on the ethico-religious" by Roe Fremstedal in Ideas in History Vol. 1 (2006)
After Bruno's death, during the first half of the seventeenth century, Descartes seemed about to take the leadership of human thought... in promoting an evolution doctrine as regards the mechanical formation of the solar system... but his constant dread of persecution, both from Catholics and Protestants, led him steadily to veil his thoughts and even to suppress them. ...Since Roger Bacon, perhaps, no great thinker had been so completely abased and thwarted by theological oppression.
roger bacon— Andrew Dickson White, A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom Ch.1, p. 57 (1896)
One thinker no less brilliant than the heresiarch himself, but in the orthodox tradition, advanced a most daring hypothesis. This felicitous supposition declared that there is only one Individual, and that this indivisible Individual is every one of the separate beings in the universe, and that these beings are the instruments and masks of divinity itself.
jorge luis borges— Variant: This happy conjecture affirmed that there is only one subject, that this indivisible subject is every being in the universe and that these beings are the organs and masks of the divinity.
These people were worthy of love and admiration in their blind loyalty, in their blind strength and tenacity. With the exception of one small thing, one tiny little thing, they lacked nothing that the sage and thinker had, and that was the consciousness of the unity of all life.
hermann hesse— p. 90 (Siddhartha (1922))
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.
william james— Ch. 12 (The Principles of Psychology (1890))
Is there a thinker apart from thought?
jiddu krishnamurti— 12th Public Talk, London, UK (28 May 1961)
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 Christoph Lichtenberg— J 85 (Notebook J (1789))
Fellini was a hugely original spirit, a bona fide gagman, the king of contradiction, a well-oiled motor mouth -- in short, anything except a thinker. He needed the interviews and the media because it was during these seeming exercises in vanity that he discovered things about himself. If you pushed him hard enough, he would come up with ideas that surprised even him.
damian pettigrew— On Federico Fellini’s narcissism, in The Los Angeles Times (April 2003)
But the reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand. And the fight we are in here, make no mistake about it, is a fight of individualism versus collectivism.
paul ryan— Speech at a 2005 Atlas Society event (video at Atlas Society blog)
No age or condition is without its heroes . The least incapable general in a nation is its Cæsar, the least imbecile statesman its Solon , the least confused thinker its Socrates , the least commonplace poet its Shakespeare .
George Bernard Shaw— #136. (Maxims for Revolutionists (1903))
The man of genius whether as artist or thinker requires a mass of accidental variations to select from and a rigidly selective process of attention.
boris sidis— p. 98 (The Foundations of Normal and Abnormal Psychology (1914))
Herbert Spencer is little read now. Philosophers do not regard him as a major thinker. Social Darwinism has long been in disrepute.
peter singer— Chapter 3, From Evolution To Ethics?, p. 61
Kierkegaard was by far the most profound thinker of the last century. Kierkegaard was a saint.
— Ludwig Wittgenstein, as quoted in "Wittgenstein and Kierkegaard on the ethico-religious" by Roe Fremstedal in Ideas in History Vol. 1 (2006)
After Bruno's death, during the first half of the seventeenth century, Descartes seemed about to take the leadership of human thought... in promoting an evolution doctrine as regards the mechanical formation of the solar system... but his constant dread of persecution, both from Catholics and Protestants, led him steadily to veil his thoughts and even to suppress them. ...Since Roger Bacon, perhaps, no great thinker had been so completely abased and thwarted by theological oppression.
Andrew Dickson White— Andrew Dickson White, A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom Ch.1, p. 57 (1896)
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.
nassim nicholas taleb— Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Black Swan (2007), p. xxvii, footnote
Enlightenment presented the thinker not as the best man but as the most useful one. Happiness is the most important thing; if thinking is not happiness, it must be judged by its relationship to happiness.
— Allan Bloom, describing Rousseau’s view, in The Closing of the American Mind (New York: 1988), p. 299
Many a man fails to become a thinker for the sole reason that his memory is too good.
friedrich nietzsche— Friedrich Nietzsche, Maxims. (Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations)
Lao-tse may be regarded as the deepest thinker of Chinese antiquity.
— William Howitt, in The History of the Supernatural (1863), p. 321
Truly, if at one time it was difficult to become a Christian, I believe now it becomes more difficult year by year, because it has now become so easy to become one; there is a bit of competition only in becoming a speculative thinker. … The thesis that God has existed in human form, was born, grew up; is certainly the paradox in the strictest sense, the absolute paradox.
— Søren Kierkegaard, in Concluding Unscientific Postscript to the Philosophical Fragments (1846), Part One – The Objective Issue Of The Truth Of Christianity
The dreamer whose dreams are non- utilitarian has no place in this world . In this world the poet is anathema, the thinker a fool , the artist an escapist , the man of vision a criminal .
— Henry Miller, in Quotes by Miller Henry, p.2
