“If we are to use our minds rightly, we must live in an attitude of constant openness and learning.”
— USC philosophy professor Dallas Willard, Renovation of the Heart, p. 110
“Man’s mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions.”
— Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-94), American judge
*“The good Lord gave you a body that can stand most anything. It’s your mind you have to convince.”
— Vince Lombardi (1913-1970), 5-time NFL champion coach including Super Bowls I & II
“If we allow everything access to our mind, we are simply asking to be kept in a state of mental turmoil or bondage. For nothing enters the mind without having an effect for good or evil.”
— USC philosophy professor Dallas Willard, Renovation of the Heart, p. 111
“A closed mind is a sign of hidden doubt.”
— Harold DeWolf (1905-1986), Boston University theology professor
*“When a mind is raised and animated by scenes that engage the heart, then those qualities which would otherwise lay dormant wake into life and form the character of the hero and the statesman.”
— Abigail Adams (1744-1818), Firs Lady, in a letter to her young son, John Quincy Adams, 6th US President
“The needed transformation is very largely a matter of replacing in ourselves those idea systems of evil (and their corresponding cultures) with the idea system that Jesus Christ embodied and taught and with a culture of the kingdom of God.”
— USC philosophy professor Dallas Willard, Renovation of the Heart, p. 98
*“I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forego their use.”
— Galileo Galilei (1564-1642), scientist
“No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear.”
— Edmund Burke (1729-1797), English philosopher
“Your mind will really “talk to you” when you begin to deny fulfillment to your desires, and you will find how subtle and shameless it is.”
— USC philosophy professor Dallas Willard, Renovation of the Heart, p. 156
*“The problem is not only to win souls but to save minds. If you win the whole world and lost the mind of the world, you will soon discover you have not won the world.”
— Charles Malik (1906-1987), President of the UN General Assembly
“The prospering of God’s cause on earth depends upon his people thinking well.”
— USC philosophy professor Dallas Willard, Renovation of the Heart, p. 105
*“During my 87 years I have witnessed a whole succession of technological revolutions. But none of them has done away with the need for character in the individual or the ability to think.”
— Bernard M. Baruch (1870-1965), business-statesman
*“Reading furnishes the mind only with materials for knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours.”
— John Locke (1632-1704), British Enlightenment philosopher
“What was once thought can never be unthought.”
— Friedrich Durrenmatt (1921-1990), Swiss author-playwright
*“Many people would sooner die than think; In fact, they do so.”
— Bertrand Russell (1872-1970), British atheistic philosopher
“What we think is, in the adult person, very much a matter of what we allow ourselves to think, and what we feel is very much a matter of what we allow ourselves to feel. Moreover, what we think is very much a matter of what we wish and seek to think, and what we feel is very much a matter of what we wish and seek to feel. In short, the condition of our mind is very much a matter of the direction in which our will is set.”
— USC philosophy professor Dallas Willard, Renovation of the Heart, p. 142
*“The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.”
— Dorothy Parker, short story writer
“Total victory is the only acceptable goal in a mind-control war because humanity is diminished so long as a single mind remains trapped in superstition [supernatural religion] by programming or choice.”
— Howard Thompson, President, American Atheists
“Attention is riveted on what is tangible, useful, instantly available; the stimulus for deeper thought and reflection may be lacking. Yet human beings have a vital need for time and inner quiet to ponder and examine life and its mysteries… Understanding and wisdom are the fruit of a contemplative eye upon the world, and do not come from a mere accumulation of facts, no matter how interesting.”
— Pope John Paul II (1920-2005)
“A man’s doubts and fears are his worst enemies.”
— William Wrigley Jr. (1861-1932), businessman
*“What is thinking? It is the activity of searching out what must be true, or cannot be true, in the light of the given facts or assumptions.”
— USC philosophy professor Dallas Willard, Renovation of the Heart, p. 104
“Teams do not go physically flat, they go mentally stale.”
— Vince Lombardi (1913-1970), 5-time NFL champion coach including Super Bowls I & II
“When the will is enslaved to a desire, it will in turn enslave the mind.”
— USC philosophy professor Dallas Willard, Renovation of the Heart, p. 154
“If you are ruled by mind you are a king; if by body, a slave.”
— Cato (234-149 BC), Roman statesman-historian
“Human beings are the only creatures who are able to behave irrationally in the name of reason.”
— Ashley Montagu (1905-1999), English anthropologist
“There is no longer a Christian mind.”
— Harry Blamires, opening line in his book, The Christian Mind: How Should a Christian Think (1978)
“Who is the enemy? Who is holding back more rapid movement to the better society that is reasonable and possible with available resources?…Evil, stupidity, apathy, the ‘system’ are not the enemy…The real enemy is fuzzy thinking on the part of good, intelligent, vital people…In short, the enemy is strong natural servants who have the potential to lead but do not lead, or who choose to follow a non-servant.”
— Robert K. Greenleaf (1900-1990), former president of AT&T
“Our minds are deeply spiritual, and so developing our minds must be a spiritual discipline.”
— James Emory White, president of Gordon-Conwell Seminary and author, in A Mind for God
“Mental rehab is way tougher than the physical part… [You think] I’m tired of doing the same thing [exercising] all day. It’s tough, but you’ve got to overcome it.”
— Will Poole, former Miami Dolphin who spent a year on injured reserve recovering from a blown out knee in 2005 (Sun-Sentinel, 8/7/06, D7).
“(God is speaking) I do not communicate by words alone. In fact, rarely do I do so. My most common form of communication is through feeling. Feeling is the language of the soul. If you want to know what’s true for you about something, look to how you’re feeling about it… Hidden in your deepest feelings is your highest truth.”
— New Age promoter Neale Donald Walsch, Conversations with God
“Freedom of speech and freedom of action are meaningless without freedom to think. And there is no freedom of thought without doubt.”
— Bergen Baldwin Evans (1904-1978), Northwestern University professor
“If we would only give, just once, the same amount of reflection to what we want to get out of life that we give to the question of what to do with a two weeks’ vacation, we would be startled at our false standards and the aimless procession of our busy days.”
— Dorothy Canfield Fisher (1837-1958), American author-essayist
“No one who is rightly minded turns from true belief to false.”
— Justin Martyr (100-161), Apostolic Father, Christian apologist
“Mental fight means thinking against the current, not with it… It is our business to puncture gas bags and discover the seeds of truth.”
— Virginia Woolf (1882-1941), British humanist novelist/essayist
“After surveying more than 3700 Brisbane-based 21-year-olds, [Australian researcher Dr. Rosemary Aird] found spirituality and self-focused religions may undermine a person’s mental health. “‘I had a look at two different beliefs — one was a belief in God, associated with traditional religions, and the other was the newer belief in a spiritual or higher power other than God,’ Dr. Aird said. “The research found non-traditional belief was linked with higher rates of anxiety, depression, disturbed and suspicious ways of thinking and anti-social behaviour.”
— Shannon Malloy, “Brisbane Times”, 1/17/08 www.religionnewsblog.com/20414/diy-religion
“A man generally has two reasons for doing a thing. One that sounds good, and a real one.”
— J. P. Morgan (1837-1913), American banker, corporate financier, philanthropist and art collector
“Man, once surrendering his reason, has no remaining guard against absurdities… With such persons, gullibility, which they call faith, takes the helm from the hand of reason and the mind becomes a wreck.”
— President Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)