Bertolt Brecht Quotes

The Bulk of mankind is as well equipped for flying as thinking.

Ours is the age which is proud of machines that think and suspicious of men who try to.

Most people can't think, most of the remainder won't think, and the small fraction who do think mostly can't do it very well.

Some people do not become thinkers simply because their memories are too good.

I'm disappointed in you, Adrian. I'm very disappointed. Reassembling myself was the first trick I learned. It didn't kill Osterman. Did you really think it would kill me? I have walked across the surface of the sun. I have witnessed events so tiny and so fast, they could hardly be said to have occurred at all. But you, Adrian, you're just a man. The world's smartest man poses no more threat to me than does its smartest termite.

He wasn't smart enough to see it, said Jason Bourne. He couldn't think geometrically.

Man cannot always think of matter, however pleasurable it may be.

When I start a new seminar I tell my students that I will undoubtedly contradict myself, and that I will mean both things. But an acceptance of contradiction is no excuse for fuzzy thinking. We do have to use our minds as far as they will take us, yet acknowledge that they cannot take use all the way.

Defects and weakness in men's understandings, as well as other faculties, come from want of a right use of their own minds; I am apt to think, the fault is generally mislaid upon nature, and there is often a complaint of want of parts, when the fault lies in want of a due improvement of them.

There is so much closed-mindedness, there is so much closed-off thought, there is so much bigotry and prejudice within knowledge that it, I think, is stunting the actual intelligence growth of our population. Not our capabilities but our actual intelligence growth because all of the stigma that's attached to people that don't have formal educations as opposed to those who do. But the people that have formal educations have been programmed and indoctrinated in many cases, not in all the disciplines.

There are perhaps 5% of the population that simply can't think. There are another 5% who can, and do. The remaining 90% can think, but don't

The great fault of mankind is that it will not think.

The problem is a lot of people don't think. The general bloke just goes through life, gets a job, gets married and all that, and that's it.

Essentially, the obligation of conservative media is to question what's going on, and say, "Is this something that is the right thing to do? Is it something that's constitutional? Is it something that is even wise to do?" I think that's true regardless of who's in power.

Faith can be interested in results only, for a truth once recognized as such puts an end to the believer's thinking.

The finest minds seem to be formed rather by efforts at original thinking, by endeavours to form new combinations, and to discover new truths, than by passively receiving the impressions of other men's ideas.

These are very serious times, and serious people need to be doing some serious thinking.

Just let them sit in the goddam sun. But the world won't let them because there's nothing more dangerous than letting old farts sit in the sun. They might be thinking. Same thing with kids. Keep 'em busy or they might start thinking.

Patriotism requires less and less of making the eagle scream, but more and more of making him think.

A foolhardy lot, we accepted it all, as we always do, never asked: "What is going to happen to us now, with this invention of print?" In the same way, we never thought to ask, "How will our lives, our way of thinking, be changed by the internet, which has seduced a whole generation with its inanities so that even quite reasonable people will confess that, once they are hooked, it is hard to cut free, and they may find a whole day has passed in blogging etc?"

We need to provide an education which teaches crit­ical thinking and encourages the development of mature moral values.

We must care to think about the unthinkable things, because when things become unthinkable, thinking stops and action becomes mindless.

If you think it's simple, then you have misunderstood the problem.

Good writing is the hardest form of thinking.

A book is valuable not only for what it says but for what it makes you think, or causes you to remember. No matter what you wish to do or become there are books to teach you, help you, guide you.