Cognitive Engagement Quotes

I am credited with being one of the hardest workers and perhaps I am, if thought is the equivalent of labour, for I have devoted to it almost all of my waking hours. But if work is interpreted to be a definite performance in a specified time according to a rigid rule, then I may be the worst of idlers.

For contemplation is both the highest form of activity (since the intellect is the highest thing in us, and the objects that it apprehends are the highest things that can be known), and also it is the most continuous, because we are more capable of continuous contemplation than we are of any practical activity.

When a story is flying along, and I'm so into it that my 'real' world goes away, it can feel magical. I cease to be, my desk and computer ceases to be, and I am my character in his world. Psychologists call this a 'flow state,' and it's better than publication, money, awards, fame.

Imagination is strong in a man when that particular function of the brain which enables him to observe is roused to activity without any necessary excitement of the sense. Accordingly, we find that imagination is active just in proportion as our sense are not excited by external objects. A long period of solitude, whether in prison or in a sick room; quiet, twilight, darkness-these are the things that promote its activity; and under their influence it comes into play of itself.

I think the reason that I like so many different games is because I like the way my brain works when I'm playing games. It's more fun.

Thinking is the hardest work we can do, and among the most important

... we must read, not only for what we read but for what it makes us think.

Reading gives one something to think about other than one's self.

He liked the mere act of reading, the magic of turning scratches on a page into words inside his head.

A book is less important for what it says than for what it makes you think.

It can get boring. Not the playing the songs necessarily, or doing the clothes. You know, you need stimulus.

Invite the reader to participate by deciphering. Chaos can attract and engage.

When I'm putting some communication out on Twitter or Facebook or Instagram, I think that it's helping me, my brain, you know, because it's always somehow stimulated by people who are sending things to me. And it works both ways. It's great. My brain is very happy about it.

I believe that in games, when you're talking about pitting my wits and my brain against your wits and your brain, that simplicity of the game becomes a dominant factor.

I like to make people think.

I don't think I ever watched a movie without being totally immersed in the story. But at the same time, I had to keep some distance from it. I had to question what the narrative was trying to tell me or was injecting in my brain.

The private reader of listener can become an executant of felt meaning when he learns the poem or the musical passage by heart. To learn by heart is to afford the text or music an indwelling clarity and life-force.

Your curse is that you have chosen a form that requires endless study .... It means you have to read, you have to observe, you have to think, so that when you turn your imagination on, it has the fuel to do its job.

If the topic be highly abstract, show its nature by concrete examples. If it be unfamiliar, trace some point of analogy in it with the known. If it be inhuman, make it figure as part of a story. If it be difficult, couple its acquisition with some prospect of personal gain. Above all things, make sure that it shall run through certain inner changes, since no unvarying object can possibly hold the mental field for long.

It is always the case, with mathematics, that a little direct experience of thinking over things on your own can provide a much deeper understanding than merely reading about them.

I'm twitchy. I think I've got ADD. I find it hard to sit down. I need to be constantly challenged; otherwise, I get very... well, I guess 'bored' is the word.

You see, one of the best things about reading is that you'll always have something to think about when you're not reading.

The process of reading is not a half sleep, but in the highest sense, an exercise, a gymnast's struggle: that the reader is to do something for him or herself, must be on the alert, just construct indeed the poem, argument, history, metaphysical essay--the text furnishing the hints, the clue, the start, the framework.

People who read are not too lazy to turn on the television; they prefer books.

People say Wu-Tang makes you think too much. What's wrong with thinking?