Irony is the hygiene of the mind.
—Elizabeth Bibesco (1897–1945) English Poet, Short Story Writer, Novelist
The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend.
—Robertson Davies (1913–95) Canadian Novelist, Playwright, Essayist
The mind’s deepest desire, even in its most elaborate operations, parallels man’s unconscious feeling in the face of his universe: it is an insistence upon familiarity, an appetite for clarity.
—Albert Camus (1913–60) Algerian-born French Philosopher, Dramatist, Essayist, Novelist, Author
Being formless and encased in the body, the mind is a far and lone wanderer. He who can put a curb on it will be free from the bonds of Mara (the Evil One).
—Buddhist Teaching
A mind not to be changed by place or time. The mind is its own place, and in itself Can make a heav’n of hell, a hell of heav’n.
—John Milton (1608–74) English Poet, Civil Servant, Scholar, Debater
Where there is an open mind, there will always be a frontier.
—Dorothea Brande (1893–1948) American Writer, Editor
The human mind will not be confined to any limits.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German Poet
Your world is a living expression of how you are using and have used your mind.
—Earl Nightingale (1921–89) American Motivational Speaker, Author
A mind, like a home, is furnished by its owner, so if one’s life is cold and bare he can blame none but himself.
—Louis L’Amour (1908–88) American Novelist, Short-story Writer
Some minds seem almost to create themselves, springing up under every disadvantage and working their solitary but irresistible way through a thousand obstacles.
—Washington Irving (1783–1859) American Essayist, Biographer, Historian
It stands to the everlasting credit of science that by acting on the human mind it has overcome man’s insecurity before himself and before nature.
—Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born Physicist
A girl with brains ought to do something with them besides think.
—Anita Loos (1888–1981) American Actor, Novelist, Screenwriter
Restless are the body and mind on him whose concentration on the breaths is not yet made complete and cultivated. Calm are the body and mind of him whose concentration on the breaths has been made complete and well-cultivated.
—Buddhist Teaching
The trouble with most people is that they think with their hopes or fears or wishes, rather than their minds.
—William C. Durant (1861–1947) American Industrialist
I was trying to daydream, but my mind kept wandering.
—Steven Wright (b.1955) American Comedian, Actor, Writer
If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, just what does an empty desk mean?
—Unknown
The mind moves in the direction of our currently dominant thoughts
—Earl Nightingale (1921–89) American Motivational Speaker, Author
It is the mind that makes one wise or ignorant, bound or emancipated.
—Ramakrishna Paramahamsa (1836–86) Indian Hindu Philosopher
The Brain is wider than the sky-.
—Emily Dickinson (1830–86) American Poet
The mind conceives with pain, but it brings forth with delight.
—Joseph Joubert (1754–1824) French Writer, Moralist
The mind, like the dyer’s hand, is colored by what it holds.
—Indian Proverb
Little by little, through patience and repeated effort, the mind will become stilled in the Self.
—The Bhagavad Gita Hindu Scripture
I find, by experience, that the mind and the body are more than married, for they are most intimately united; and when one suffers, the other sympathizes.
—Earl of Chesterfield (1694–1773) English Statesman, Man of Letters
As you think so shall you be! Since you cannot physically experience another person, you can only experience them in your mind. Conclusion: All of the other people in your life are simply thoughts in your mind. Not physical beings to you, but thoughts. Your relationships are all in how you think about the other people of your life. Your experience of all those people is only in your mind. Your feelings about your lovers come from your thoughts. For example, they may in fact behave in ways that you find offensive. However, your relationship to them when they behave offensively is not determined by their behavior, it is determined only by how you choose to relate to that behavior. Their actions are theirs, you cannot own them, you cannot be them, you can only process them in your mind.
—Wayne Dyer (1940–2015) American Self-Help Author
Quiet minds can’t be perplexed or frightened, but go on in fortune or misfortune at their own private pace, like a clock during a thunderstorm.
—Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–94) Scottish Novelist
Mind moves matter.
—Virgil (70–19 BCE) Roman Poet
Everything tends to make us believe that there exists a certain point of the mind at which life and death, the real and the imagined, past and future, the communicable and the incommunicable, high and low, cease to be perceived as contradictions.
—Andre Breton (1896–1966) French Poet, Essayist, Critic
Where the Mind is biggest, the Heart, the Senses, Magnanimity, Charity, Tolerance, Kindliness, and the rest of them scarcely have room to breathe.
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English Novelist
The chief purpose of the body is to carry the brain around.
—Thomas Edison (1847–1931) American Inventor, Scientist, Entrepreneur
Texas is not a state—it’s a state of mind.
—John Steinbeck (1902–68) American Novelist, Short Story Writer, Journalist