Octavio Paz Quotes

Speech is external thought, and thought internal speech.

I don't think there is such a thing as an idea without words, because your language is your thought.

Thought and speech are inseparable from each other. Matter and expression are parts of one; style is a thinking out into language.

A man without words is a man without thought.

We do not learn first what to talk about and then what to say about it.

One of the things that writing and speech can do is express what we're thinking one thought at a time.

Man can no more think without words than see without light.

You think, you don't just speak. The lines come off the thoughts.

It is amazing how much a thought expands and refines by being put into speech: I should think it could hardly know itself.

The thought process can never be complete without articulation.

An image is a stop the mind makes between uncertainties.

For me, writing is a concentrated form of thinking.

Language is the mother of thought, not its handmaiden.

Much has been written about the life of the mind.

Suddenly, I don't know what to say. It happens often to me. I know what I want to say, I think about whether it is what I mean, but when the moment comes to speak, I can't say it. - Nana Kleinfrankenheim, Vivre Sa Vie.

Speech is the mirror of the mind.

... writing letters is thinking, just as talking to you is thinking.

Real thinking is possible only in the light of genuine language, no matter how limited, how primitive.

We speak not only to tell other people what we think, but to tell ourselves what we think. Speech is a part of thought.

The best clue to what a person thinks is what he says.

Language is the picture and counterpart of thought.

Language serves not only to express thought but to make possible thoughts which could not exist without it.

The mind is the pilot. We think of things before the body does them.

Words are not brains, you know.

To see is to think, and to think is to see.