Much of your pain is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self.
—Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931) Lebanese-born American Philosopher, Poet, Painter, Theologian, Sculptor
What a waste it is to lose one’s mind. Or not to have a mind is being very wasteful. How true that is.
—Dan Quayle (b.1947) American Head of State, Politician, Elected Rep
A well-wishing mind which is well-trained, made unlimited and complete has no limited Karma (action) left.
—Buddhist Teaching
All this sensory input, which begins in the brain, has its effect throughout the body.
—Norman Cousins (1915–90) American Journalist, Author, Academic, Activist
Our brains our seventy year clocks, the angel of life winds them up once and for all, then closes the case, and gives the key into the hands of the angel of resurrection.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–94) American Physician, Essayist
The human head is bigger than the globe. It conceives itself as containing more. It can think and rethink itself and ourselves from any desired point outside the gravitational pull of the earth. It starts by writing one thing and later reads itself as something else. The human head is monstrous.
—Gunter Grass (1927–2015) German Novelist, Poet
Your mind is always consumed with your own misconception. Abstain from associating it with lustful influences.
—Buddhist Teaching
You can have such an open mind that it is too porous to hold a conviction.
—George W. Crane (1901–95) American Psychologist, Physician
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
A well cultivated mind is made up of all the minds of preceding ages; it is only the one single mind educated by all previous time.
—Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle (1657–1757) French Essayist, Polymath, Philosopher
A girl with brains ought to do something with them besides think.
—Anita Loos (1888–1981) American Actor, Novelist, Screenwriter
Give up the belief that mind is, even temporarily, compressed within the skull, and you will quickly become more manly or womanly. You will understand yourself and your Maker better than before.
—Mary Baker Eddy (1821–1910) American Christian Science Religious Leader, Humanitarian, Writer
A misdirected mind causes a worse destruction than a robber or an enemy can do to each other.
—Buddhist Teaching
Your mind is what makes everything else work.
—Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (b.1947) American Basketball Player, Author, Actor
Is there no way out of the mind?
—Sylvia Plath (1932–63) American Poet, Novelist
Our minds are like our stomachs; they are whetted by the change of their food, and variety supplies both with fresh appetite.
—Quintilian (c.35–c.100 CE) Roman Rhetorician, Literary Critic
There is no perfection of the wisdom of one who has a fluctuating mind, does not know the good doctrine and has a shaking faith.
—Buddhist Teaching
There are no limitations to the mind except those we acknowledge.
—Napoleon Hill (1883–1970) American Author, Journalist, Attorney, Lecturer
It’s a damn poor mind that can only think of one way to spell a word.
—Andrew Jackson (1767–1845) American Head of State
A well-directed mind makes a man better than his parents or relatives can do to him.
—Buddhist Teaching
Like a fish taken out of its watery home and thrown onto the land, this mind, when parted with its haunts of sensual enjoyments in order to disregard Mara’s (the Evil One’s) influence, will give a desperate struggle.
—Buddhist Teaching
The brain’s calculations do not require our conscious effort, only our attention and our openness to let the information through. Although the brain absorbs universes of information, little is admitted into normal consciousness.
—Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) American Author, Editor, Orator
Always wavering and flitting, as well as unruly and stubborn is this mind. A wise man can still it just as a Fletcher straightens his arrows.
—Buddhist Teaching
Within you right now is the power to do things you never dreamed possible. This power becomes available to you just as soon as you can change your beliefs.
—Maxwell Maltz (1899–1975) American Surgeon, Motivational Writer
Our minds can work for us or against us at any given moment. We can learn to accept and live with the natural psychological laws that govern us, understanding how to flow with life rather than struggle against it. We can return to our natural state of contentment.
—Richard Carlson (1912–77) American Actor, TV Personality, Film Director, Screenwriter
Out of sight, out of mind. The absent are always in the wrong.
—Common Proverb
I can feel guilty about the past, apprehensive about the future, but only in the present can I act. The ability to be in the present moment is a major component of mental wellness.
—Abraham Maslow (1908–70) American Psychologist, Academic, Humanist
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
When meditation is mastered, the mind is unwavering like the flame of a lamp in a windless place.
—The Bhagavad Gita Hindu Scripture
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
As a mountain of solid rock remains unshaken by the storm, so the wise man remains unmoved by praise or blame.
—Buddhist Teaching
I was trying to daydream, but my mind kept wandering.
—Steven Wright (b.1955) American Comedian, Actor, Writer
The mind is so rarely disturbed, but that the company of friend will restore it to some degree of tranquility and sedateness.
—George Goodman (b.1930) American Economist, Author
Thinking doesn’t seem to help very much. The human brain is too high-powered to have many practical uses in this particular universe.
—Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) American Novelist, Short Story Writer
If we were to ask the brain how it would like to be treated, whether shaken at a random, irregular rate, or in a rhythmic, harmonious fashion, we can be sure that the brain, or for that matter the whole body, would prefer the latter.
—Itzhak Bentov (1923–79) Israeli American Scientist
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
It is the mind that makes one wise or ignorant, bound or emancipated.
—Ramakrishna Paramahamsa (1836–86) Indian Hindu Philosopher
The mind is not a hermit’s cell, but a place of hospitality and intercourse.
—Charles Cooley (1864–1929) American Sociologist
Desire to know why, and how — curiosity, which is a lust of the mind, that a perseverance of delight in the continued and indefatigable generation of knowledge — exceedeth the short vehemence of any carnal pleasure.
—Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) English Political Philosopher
As rain does not break through a well-thatched house, passion will not break through a well-reflecting mind.
—The Dhammapada Buddhist Anthology of Verses
No mind, however loving, could bear to see plainly into all the recesses of another mind.
—Arnold Bennett (1867–1931) British Novelist, Playwright, Critic
This is where you will win the battle — in the playhouse of your mind.
—Maxwell Maltz (1899–1975) American Surgeon, Motivational Writer
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
The direct effect on our mind is achieved by the words, the text, the thought, which arouse consideration. Our will is directly affected by the super-objective, by other objectives, by a through line of action. Our feelings are directly worked upon by tempo-rhythm.
—Constantin Stanislavski (1863–1938) Russian Actor, Theater Personality
The man who acquires the ability to take full possession of his own mind may take possession of anything else to which he is justly entitled.
—Andrew Carnegie (1835–1919) Scottish-American Industrialist
Remember, when life’s path is steep, to keep your mind even.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus) (65–8 BCE) Roman Poet
The human brain must continue to frame the problems for the electronic machine to solve.
—David Sarnoff (1891–1972) American Broadcaster, Businessman
A mind grows by what it feeds on.
—Josiah Gilbert Holland (1819–81) American Editor, Novelist
The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend.
—Robertson Davies (1913–95) Canadian Novelist, Playwright, Essayist
It is the mind that maketh good or ill, that maketh wretch or happy, rich or poor.
—Edmund Spenser (1552–99) English Poet
He who is easily frightened at the sound like a jungle deer, is called the “light-minded”. His ascetic observance is liable to failure.
—Buddhist Teaching
The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.
—H. P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American Science-fiction Writer
While the mind is in doubt it is driven this way and that by a slight impulse.
—Terence (c.195–159 BCE) Roman Comic Dramatist
I can do something else besides stuff a ball through a hoop. My biggest resource is my mind.
—Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (b.1947) American Basketball Player, Author, Actor
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