Perhaps 'tis pretty to force together
Thoughts so all unlike each other;
To mutter and mock a broken charm,
To dally with wrong that does no harm.
In indolent vacuity of thought.
Je pense, done je suis.
I think, therefore I am.
He trudg'd along, unknowing what he sought,
And whistled as he went, for want of thought.
Second thoughts, they say, are best.
Dryden—The Spanish Friar. Act II. Sc. 2.
Euripides—Hippolytus. 438.
| seealso = (See also Alfieri, Butler, Cicero, Henry,
Shenstone, also Ames under Politics)
| topic = Thought
| page = 788
}}
{{Hoyt quote
| num = 6
| text = <poem>For thoughts are so great—aren't they, sir?
They seem to lie upon us like a deep flood.
Our growing thought
Makes growing revelation.
George Eliot—Spanish Gypsy. Bk. II.
The revelation of thought takes men out of
servitude into freedom.
Emerson—Conduct of Life. Fate.
Every thought which genius and piety throw
into the world, alters the world.
Emerson—Essays. Of Politics.
Great men are they who see that spiritual is
stronger than any material force, that thoughts
rule the world.
Emerson—Letters and Social Aims. Progress
of Culture.
Wer kann was Dummes, wer was Kluges denken,
Das nicht die Vorwelt schon gedacht.
Who can think wise or stupid things at all
that were not thought already in the past.
Goethe—Faust. II. 2. 1.
Those who think must govern those that toil.
Thoughts that breathe and words that burn.
Gray—Progress of Poesy. III. 3. L. 4.
| seealso = (See also Cowper under Words)
| topic = Thought
| page = 788
}}
{{Hoyt quote
| num =
| text = <poem>Their own second and sober thoughts.
Matthew Henry—Exposition. Job VI. 29.
| seealso = (See also Dryden)
A thought is often original, though you have uttered it a hundred times.
Holmes—The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table. I. </poem>
Why can't somebody give us a list of things
that everybody thinks and nobody says, and
another list of things that everybody says and
nobody thinks?
Holmes—Professor at the Breakfast Table.
Every man who speaks out loud and clear is
tinting the "Zeitgeist." Every man who expresses what he honestly thinks is true is changing the Spirit of the Times. Thinkers help other people to think, for they formulate what others
are thinking. No person writes or thinks alone
—thought is in the air, but its expresson is
necessary to create a tangible Spirit of the Times.
Elbert Hubbard—Pig-Pen Pete. The Bee.
| author =
| work =
| place =
| note =
| topic = Thought
| page = 788
}}
{{Hoyt quote
| num = 15
| text = That fellow seems to me to possess but one
idea, and that is a wrong one.
Samuel Johnson. Boswell's Life of Johnson. (1770)
| topic = Thought
| page = 788
}}
{{Hoyt quote
| num =
| text = <poem>My thoughts and I were of another world.
Ben Jonson—Every Man Out of His Humour.
Act III. Sc. 3.
Sudden a thought came like a full-blown rose,
Flushing his brow.
Keats—The Eve of St. Agnes. St. 16.
The thoughts that come often unsought, and,
as it were, drop into the mind, are commonly the
most valuable of any we have, and therefore
should be secured, because they seldom return
again.
Locke—Letter to Mr. Sam'l Bold, May 16,
1699.
A thought often makes us hotter than a fire.
| author = Longfellow
| work = DHft-Wood. Table-Talk.
The surest pledge of a deathless name
Is the silent homage of thoughts unspoken.
| author = Longfellow
| work = Herons of Elmwood. St. 9.
My own thoughts
Are my companions.
| author = Longfellow
| work = Masque of Pandora. Pt. III.
Tower of Prometheus on Mount Caucasus.
Thoughts so sudden, that they seem
The revelations of a dream.
All thoughts that mould the age begin
Deep down within the primitive soul.
A penny for your thought.
Lily—Euphues. Swift—Polite Conversation.
Introduction.
Annihilating all that's made
To a green thought in a green shade.
