76 Inspiring Thoughtful Quotes

In a world brimming with noise and haste, taking a moment to pause and reflect can be a refreshing escape. Whether you're seeking solace, motivation, or a spark of creativity, the right words can resonate deeply and provide exactly what you need. In this collection of 76 inspiring thoughtful quotes, you'll find wisdom from a diverse array of thinkers, visionaries, and dreamers. These quotes have been carefully chosen to provoke thought, inspire change, and bring about a sense of peace. Dive in and let these words guide you towards a moment of introspection and insight.

1. “My dear friend, clear your mind of cant [excessive thought]. You may talk as other people do: you may say to a man, "Sir, I am your most humble servant." You are not his most humble servant. You may say, "These are bad times; it is a melancholy thing to be reserved to such times." You don't mind the times ... You may talk in this manner; it is a mode of talking in Society; but don't think foolishly.” - Samuel Johnson

2. “Learning without thought is labour lost; thought without learning is perilous.” - Confucius

3. “If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.” - Haruki Murakami

4. “His thoughts were hemmed in. One can only draw curved lines on the terrestrial sphere which, as they extend, forever meet with themselves. At such intersections we always encounter what we have already seen.” - Raymond Queneau

5. “For awhile, I thought that was love.-Gaara” - Masashi Kishimoto

6. “The succession of thoughts appears in time, but the gap between two of them is outside time. The gap itself is normally unobserved. The chance of enlightenment is missed.” - Paul Brunton

7. “Tiny-perhaps." Rovender kept his eyes fixed on the rings. "Insignificant-never, Eva Nine. No living thing is insignificant.” - Tony DiTerlizzi

8. “a Novilíngua diferia da maior parte das outras línguas porque o seu vocabulário ia diminuindo em vez de aumentar todos os anos. Cada redução era um ganho, pois quanto menor a área de escolha, menor a tentação de pensar. Como fim último, esperava-se atingir uma linguagem emitida pela laringe, sem passar pelos centros nervosos superiores. Objectivo esse, francamente admitido no termo de Novilíngua "patofalar", que significava "grasnar como um pato". (...) Desde que as opiniões grasnadas fossem ortodoxas, o termo era perfeitamente laudatório; quando o Times se referia a um dos oradores do Partido caracterizando-o como "duploextrabom patofalante" estava a fazer-lhe um elogio caloroso e extremamente apreciado.” - George Orwell

9. “A tornado of thought is unleashed after each new insight. This in turn results in an earthquake of assumptions. These are natural disasters that re-shape the spirit.” - Vera Nazarian

10. “The key to every man is his thought. Sturdy and defying though he look, he has a helm which he obeys, which is the idea after which all his facts are classified. He can only be reformed by showing him a new idea which commands his own.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

11. “Thinking is learning all over again how to see, directing one's consciousness, making of every image a privileged place.” - Albert Camus

12. “All sins are forgiven once you start making a lot of money.” - Rupaul

13. “We only believe in those thoughts which have been conceived not in the brain but in the whole body.” - Yeats William B.

14. “Not in his speech, not in his thoughts, I see his greatness, only in his actions, in his life.” - Hermann Hesse

15. “So think as if your every thought were to be etched in fire upon the sky for all and everything to see. For so, in truth, it is.” - Mikhail Naimy

16. “Of course genes can’t pull the levers of our behavior directly. But they affect the wiring and workings of the brain, and the brain is the seat of our drives, temperaments and patterns of thought. Each of us is dealt a unique hand of tastes and aptitudes, like curiosity, ambition, empathy, a thirst for novelty or for security, a comfort level with the social or the mechanical or the abstract. Some opportunities we come across click with our constitutions and set us along a path in life.” - Steven Pinker

17. “Accidental sex. He made it sound like I fell down, and there just happened to be an erection in the way.” - Laurell K. Hamilton

18. “The only thing faster than the speed of thought is the speed of forgetfulness. Good thing we have other people to help us remember.” - Vera Nazarian

19. “ABNORMAL, adj. Not conforming to standards in matters of thought and conduct. To be independent is to be abnormal, to be abnormal is to be detested.A striving toward the straiter [sic] resemblance of the Average Man than he hath to himself, whoso attaineth thereto shall have peace, the prospect of death and the hope of Hell.” - Ambrose Bierce

20. “A man is literally what he thinks, his character being the complete sum of all his thoughts.” - James Allen

21. “The thinking brain influences the body’s responses and it makes a neat little loop.” - Brad Warner

22. “On the Bigotry of Culture:: it presented us with culture, with thought as something justified in itself, that is, which requires no justification but is valid by it's own essence, whatever its concrete employment and content maybe. Human life was to put itself at the service of culture because only thus would it become charged with value. From which it would follow that human life, our pure existence was, in itself, a mean and worthless thing.” - José Ortega y Gasset

23. “A thought is a screen, not a mirror; that is why you live in a thought envelope, untouched by Reality.” - Anthony de Mello

24. “Sure it will hurt. But so what? Pain is just a state of mind. You can think your way out of anything, even pain.” - Rodman Philbrick

25. “When two creatures meet, the one that is able to intimidate its opponent is recognized as socially superior, so that a social decision does not always depend on a fight; an encounter in some circumstances may be enough.” - Hediger

26. “Some care is needed in using Descartes' argument. "I think, therefore I am" says rather more than is strictly certain. It might seem as though we are quite sure of being the same person to-day as we were yesterday, and this is no doubt true in some sense. But the real Self is as hard to arrive at as the real table, and does not seem to have that absolute, convincing certainty that belongs to particular experiences.” - Bertrand Russell

27. “For we all of us, grave or light, get our thoughts entangled in metaphors, and act fatally on the strength of them.” - George Eliot

28. “The Wrong we have Done, Thought, or Intended Will wreak its Vengeance onOur SOULS.” - Carl Gustav Jung

29. “Life is difficult.” - M. Scott Peck

30. “The universe is full of men going through the same motions in the same surroundings, but carrying within themselves, and projecting around them, universes as mutually remote as the constellations.” - Emmanuel Mounier

31. “If you put your hand into a fire, does anyone have to tell you to move it? Do you have to decide? No: When your hand starts to burn, it moves. You don’t have to direct it; the hand moves itself. In the same way, once you understand, through inquiry, that an untrue thought causes suffering, you move away from it.” - Byron Katie

32. “A ja myślę, że całe zło tego świata bierze się z myślenia. Zwłaszcza w wykonaniu ludzi całkiem ku temu nie mających predyspozycji. ” - Andrzej Sapkowski

33. “take a strict view of their excrements, and, from the colour, the odour, the taste, the consistence, the crudeness or maturity of digestion, form a judgment of their thoughts and designs; because men are never so serious, thoughtful, and intent, as when they are at stool...” - Jonathan Swift

34. “A word devoid of thought is a dead thing, and a thought unembodied in words remains a shadow.” - Lev S. Vygotsky

35. “Always take all the time to reflect that circumstances permit, but when the time for action has come, stop thinking. (Andrew Jackson)” - Jon Meacham

36. “It was only after two years' work that it occurred to me that I was a writer. I had no particular expectation that the novel would ever be published, because it was sort of a mess. It was only when I found myself writing things I didn't realise I knew that I said, 'I'm a writer now.' The novel had become an incentive to deeper thinking. That's really what writing is—an intense form of thought.” - Don DeLillo

37. “I would not think that philosophy and reason themselves will be man's guide in the foreseeable future; however, they will remain the most beautiful sanctuary they have always been for the select few.” - Albert Einstein

38. “People say sometimes that Beauty is superficial. That may be so. But at least it is not so superficial as Thought is. To me, Beauty is the wonder of wonders. It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances. The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.” - Oscar Wilde

39. “We have to cease to think, if we refuse to do it in the prison house of language; for we cannot reach further than the doubt which asks whether the limit we see is really a limit.” - Friedrich Nietzsche

40. “The aspirations of democracy are based on the notion of an informed citizenry, capable of making wise decisions. The choices we are asked to make become increasingly complex. They require the longer-term thinking and greater tolerance for ambiguity that science fosters. The new economy is predicated on a continuous pipeline of scientific and technological innovation. It can not exist without workers and consumers who are mathematically and scientifically literate. ” - Ann Druyan

41. “A book without words is a mind without thought.” - Catherine Forbes

42. “In silence the three of them looked at the sunset and thought about God.” - Maud Hart Lovelace

43. “No one has free will until they are an adult, and by then the choices that were made for them, have already set them on a course that gives limited freedom in the choices to be made.” - J.D. Stroube

44. “I think to think. Not to be thought-full, or to reach a point of wisdom or acquire a grace of knowledge. I think for the sensuality of thought.” - Ilyas Kassam

45. “To be a philosopher, just reverse everything you have ever been told...and have a sense of humor doing it.” - Criss Jami

46. “They sell courage of a sort in the taverns. And another sort, though not for sale, a man can find in the confessional. Try the alehouses and the churches, Hugh. In either a man can be quiet and think.” - Ellis Peters

47. “Thinking is the most overrated human activity.” - Wendell Berry

48. “I used to think I was the strangest person in the worldbut then I thought, there are so many people in the world, there must be someone just like me who feels bizarre and flawed in the same ways I doI would imagine her, and imagine that she must be out there thinking of me too.well, I hope that if you are out there you read this and know that yes, it’s true I’m here, and I’m just as strange as you.” - Rebecca Katherine Martin

49. “We speak not only to tell other people what we think, but to tell ourselves what we think. Speech is a part of thought.” - Oliver Sacks

50. “The measure of greatness in a scientific idea is the extent to which it stimulates thought and opens up new lines of research.” - Paul Dirac

51. “Not even you can reach me here, Carmen thought.” - Ann Brashares

52. “[T]he concern of man is not his future but his present, not the world but his soul. We must be just, we must strive, we must engage ourselves with the business of the world for our own sake, because through that, and through contemplation in equal measure, our soul is purified and brought closer to the divine. ... Thought and deed conjoined are crucial. ... The attempt must be made; the outcome is irrelevant. Right action is a pale material reflection of the divine, but reflection it is, nonetheless. Define your goal and exert reason to accomplish it by virtuous action; successs or failure is secondary.” - Iain Pears

53. “There is no such thing as self-awareness. Imagine thought retreating into itself to think about itself. It would be easier to imagine a revolver bullet extracting itself from its victim's wound and re-entering the barrel. Yes, it would be easier to imagine the universe's explosion suddenly halting its outflow of energy, so that the galaxies congeal once more, and the millions of light-years of their flight through space are immediately annulled.” - j.m.g. le clezio

54. “The words are meaningless except in terms of feeling. Does anyone act as the result of thought or does feeling stimulate action and sometimes thought implement it.” - John Steinbeck

55. “A boy's will is the wind's will, And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.” - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

56. “Look everywhere. There are miracles and curiosities to fascinate and intrigue for many lifetimes:the intricacies of nature and everything in the world and universe around us from the miniscule to the infinite; physical, chemical and biological functionality; consciousness, intelligence and the ability to learn; evolution, and the imperative for life; beauty and other abstract interpretations; language and other forms of communication; how we make our way here and develop social patterns of culture and meaningfulness;how we organise ourselves and others; moral imperatives; the practicalities of survival and all the embellishments we pile on top; thought, beliefs, logic, intuition, ideas; inventing, creating, information, knowledge; emotions, sensations, experience, behaviour.We are each unique individuals arising from a combination of genetic, inherited, and learned information, all of which can be extremely fallible.Things taught to us when we are young are quite deeply ingrained. Obviously some of it (like don’t stick your finger in a wall socket) is very useful,but some of it is only opinion – an amalgamation of views from people you just happen to have had contact with.A bit later on we have access to lots of other information via books, media, internet etc, but it is important to remember that most of this is still just opinion, and often biased.Even subjects such as history are presented according to the presenter’s or author’s viewpoint, and science is continually changing. Newspapers and TV tend to cover news in the way that is most useful to them (and their funders/advisors), Research is also subject to the decisions of funders and can be distorted by business interests. Pretty much anyone can say what they want on the internet, so our powers of discernment need to be used to a great degree there too.Not one of us can have a completely objective view as we cannot possibly have access to, and filter, all knowledge available, so we must accept that our views are bound to be subjective. Our understanding and responses are all very personal, and our views extremely varied. We tend to make each new thing fit in with the picture we have already started in our heads, but we often have to go back and adjust the picture if we want to be honest about our view of reality as we continually expand it. We are taking in vast amounts of information from others all the time, so need to ensure we are processing that to develop our own true reflection of who we are.” - jay woodman

57. “I want to thank you for the profound joy I've had in the in the thought of you.” - Rosie Alison

58. “What you powerfully holdIn your thought-worldWill make you eitherA street beggarOr a great king.” - Sri Chinmoy

59. “From time to time ponder whether you are unconsciously saying:'Truth is what I happen to be thinking at this moment.” - Idries Shah

60. “...отдыхать "вообще" невозможно. Нужно отдыхать от чего-то. Понимаешь? И если хорошо и отчётливо понять, отчего ты устал, то можно более эффективно отдохнуть.” - Евгений Гришковец

61. “A thought to ponder: If I couldn't use words to speak, what would my life be saying?” - Evinda Lepins

62. “Creativity sparks originality, which then manifests itself into what we call evolution. To depreciate imagination is to depreciate life.” - Al Stone

63. “Indeed, a man is rather being thought than thinking, when a new thought arises in his mind.” - George MacDonald

64. “I was struck by an awful thought, the kind that cannot be taken back once it escapes into the open air of consciousness; it seemed to me that this was not a place you go to live. It was a place you go to die.” - John Green

65. “The deeper thought is, the taller it becomes.” - Dejan Stojanovic

66. “Every thought about death takes a moment of life away.” - Dejan Stojanovic

67. “As far as I am concerned, philosophic questioning is just as likely to make you confused and depressed as it is to improve your condition.” - Christopher Paolini

68. “Speed is not always a constituent to great work, the process of creation should be given time and thought.” - E.A. Bucchianeri

69. “A totalitarian society which succeeded in perpetuating itself would probably set us a schizophrenic system of thought, in which the laws of common sense held good in everyday life and in certain exact sciences, but could be disregarded by the politician, the historian, and the sociologist. Already there are countless people who would think it scandalous to falsify a scientific text-book, but would see nothing wrong in falsifying an historical fact.” - George Orwell

70. “Freedom of thought is best promoted by the gradual illumination of men’s minds which follows from the advance of science.” - Charles Darwin

71. “If you're in a war, instead of throwing a hand grenade at the enemy, throw one of those small pumpkins. Maybe it'll make everyone think how stupid war is, and while they are thinking, you can throw a real grenade at them.” - Jack Handy

72. “Up there in that room, as I see it, is the reading and the thinking-through, a theory of rivers, of trees moving, of falling light. Here on the river, as I lurch against a freshening of the current, is the practice of rivers. In navigating by the glow of the Milky Way, the practice of light. In steadying with a staff, the practice of wood.” - Barry Lopez

73. “Ideas can't die, not because they are conceived by humans, but because time begets them.” - Raheel Farooq

74. “One obvious palliative of the evils of democracy in its present form would be to encourage much more publicity and initiative on the part of civil servants. They ought to have the right, and, on occasion, the duty, to frame Bills in their own names, and set forth publicly the arguments in their favor.” - Bertrand Russell

75. “The revelation of thought takes men out of servitude into freedom.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

76. “Expression is a function of intention and intention emanates from your thought faculty.” - Ifeanyi Enoch Onuoha