Top 100 Quotes About Thinking Clearly
#1. How do you convince someone they're not thinking clearly, when they're not thinking clearly? What we're actually saying is no magic, no afterlife, no higher moral authoritative father-figure, no security, and no happy ever after. This is a tough sell.
Phil Plait
#2. When people say things like "don't let this moment pass without acting on gun control," what they're really saying is our arguments are so unpersuasive that they can only succeed when people aren't thinking clearly.
Glenn Reynolds
#3. Thinking clearly and effectively is the greatest asset of any human being.
Harry Lorayne
#4. If I were thinking clearly, Leonard, I would tell you that I wrestle alone in the dark, in the deep dark. And that only I can know, only I can understand my own condition. You live with the threat, you tell me you live with the threat of my extinction. Leonard, I live with it too.
Michael Cunningham
#5. It is hard for people to think clearly because their emotional needs keep getting in the way. The trick is to make thinking clearly an emotional need.
George Hammond
#6. The opposite of thinking clearly is being muddled. To be conscious of being muddled is a horrible experience. To avoid it we may even be tempted to shut our minds and swallow a belief, ready-made, from some expert authority.
Susan Stebbing
#7. Today, if you are not confused, you are not thinking clearly.
Irene Peter
#8. Anyone in the humor business isn't thinking clearly if he doesn't surround himself with idea people. Otherwise, you settle for mediocrity - or you burn yourself out.
Hank Ketcham
#9. The first step to thinking clearly is to question what we think we know about the past.
Peter Thiel
#10. When a man first awakens, it sometimes takes several moments before he starts thinking clearly."
"And here I thought it took several years, perhaps a lifetime for the average man's intellect to kick in.
Karen Marie Moning
#11. When we are thinking clearly, we want nothing to do with sin.
John Kramp
#12. Before sex, a man isn't thinking clearly and a woman is thinking clearly. After sex, it reverses. The man is thinking clearly and a woman isn't.
Sherry Argov
#13. Remember; no matter how desperate the situation seems, time spent
thinking clearly is never time wasted.
Max Brooks
#14. Thinking clearly is a conscious act that writers must force on themselves,
William Zinsser
#15. Gobbledygook may indicate a failure to think clearly, a contempt for one's clients, or more probably a mixture of both. A system that can't or won't communicate is not a safe basis for a democracy.
Michael Shanks
#16. If the word police want to come and get me, they can come and get me. If someone wants to blog about me, fine. The bloggers can come and get me. I clearly say the n-word in public, eight times. I think that's the count.
Neal Brennan
#17. The way to art was not to think too clearly, not to plan things out, but to follow where your heart and emotions led.
Paul Park
#18. I think the fact that Anna Nicole [Smith] clearly did not have a great relationship with her mother made the judge very reluctant to allow the mother to decide where she gets buried.
Dan Abrams
#19. In the principle of equality I very clearly discern two tendencies; one leading the mind of every man to untried thoughts, the other prohibiting him from thinking at all.
Alexis De Tocqueville
#20. Only three flowers? he said, clearly thinking that I should have more, and I smiled nervously. I didn't want a bouquet.
Kim Harrison
#21. It does seem quite ironic to me that the very people who clearly have made no attempt to think for themselves are always the most vocal in demanding respect for their "ideas".
Pat Condell
#22. If you can't write clearly, you probably don't think nearly as well as you think you do.
Kurt Vonnegut
#23. Our whole past experience is continually in our consciousness, though most of it sunk to a great depth of dimness. I think of consciousness as a bottomless lake, whose waters seem transparent, yet into which we can clearly see but a little way.
Charles Sanders Peirce
#24. There needs to be understanding that anger never helps to solve a problem. It destroys our peace of mind and blinds our ability to think clearly. Anger and attachment are emotions that distort our view of reality.
Dalai Lama
#25. Clearly, unless thinking beings inevitably wipe themselves out soon after developing technology, extraterrestrial intelligence could often be millions or billions of years in advance of us. We're the galaxy's noodling newbies.
Seth Shostak
#26. When we read our own writing, we all think it clearly expresses what we mean, because when we read it, we are only reminding ourselves of what we had in mind when we wrote it.
Joseph Williams
#27. I'm just coming out and I'm going to clearly be myself - I write what I feel, I never worry what others think.
Avril Lavigne
#28. As you focus on calming your breathing, your anxiety will quickly reduce and you will start to think clearly again. This is especially important if you feel a panic attack coming on.
Liz Miller
#29. Clearly, what is happening, I think, is there is a kind of global emergence of a new mental order.
Terence McKenna
#31. I think I got interested in singing without being too over-the-top. I was more calmly singing the words - which I thought had really come a long way. I thought they were worth singing clearly.
Hamilton Leithauser
#32. I realized that as a thinking person his advantage lay precisely in his lack of formal education. Nobody told him what to think, and thus he was free to think clearly.
Peter Hessler
#33. 'm a big fan of revenge, I think [Sweeney Todd] it's a story of a man who clearly has obsessions to avenge the horror that happened to him.
Johnny Depp
#34. Fancy computers are engaging in legalized front-running. The profits are clearly coming from the rest of us - our college endowments and our pensions. Why is this legal? What the hell is the government thinking? It's like letting rats into a restaurant.
Charlie Munger
#35. It is hard to think of anything which more tragically and clearly exemplifies the phenomenon of good political intentions achieving the precise opposite of their aim.
A. N. Wilson
#36. Her shift in thinking was clearly conflicted. It must have been difficult to disavow something for which she had a deep love and in which she had been immersed so much of her life.
Karen Swallow Prior
#37. Man is clearly made to think. It is his whole dignity and his whole merit; and his whole duty is to think as he ought. And the order of thought is to begin with ourselves, and with our Author and our end.
Blaise Pascal
#38. Pot enables you to think clearly without any fear or any limits. It's a mind-expander, which is part of why it's illegal and why drugs like Vicodin are legal.
Roseanne Barr
#39. It's because you aren't thinking very clearly tonight."
"I know. Being Drunk is weird."
"Oh my god. I love you so much. Especially when you say stuff like that."
"Like what?"
"Nothing. Never mind. Although I'm dying to know why your shoe is green.
Jessica Sorensen
#40. I have a lot to say about the world, clearly. I can't put together a clear sentence about it all, but through the work I can say what I think.
Meryl Streep
#41. It is in the moment when we are thinking most clearly that we are closest to madness.
Pablo De Santis
#42. I think Chris Roberts is one of them, Will Wright's another, Peter Molyneux is another. They clearly exist, but on the whole, I think that the design talent in our industry is dramatically lower than we need, as an industry. It's a very hard skill to learn.
Richard Garriott
#43. In Soviet thinking the concept of economy of force has little place. Whereas to an Englishman the taking of a sledgehammer to crack a nut is a wrong decision and a sign of mental immaturity ... in Russian eyes the cracking of nuts is clearly what sledgehammers are for.
Max Hastings
#44. To be locked into partisan politics doesn't permit you to think clearly.
Rudy Giuliani
#45. Nobody ever thinks clearly at the airport.
Nicolas Cage
#46. Antiliberals endlessly berate their enemies for "instrumental thinking." But they do not clearly explain the evil of producing better goods at a lower cost.
Stephen Holmes
#47. But as I wrote the book [Louis D. Brandeis: American Prophet], I tried to write it as clearly and directly and passionately as possible just thinking of communicating to readers who might want to learn about this great thinker and be inspired by him as I was.
Jeffrey Rosen
#48. Fear and worry are emotions that cloud the mind from being able to think clearly, to remember what the procedures are to deal with that emergency.
Buzz Aldrin
#49. Whoever loses the capability for inner silence, loses contact to himself and soon won't be able to think clearly any more.
Thomas Metzinger
#50. Politicians and others are stuck in a horrible world where being emotional in any way counts as being unbalanced, and unable to think clearly. For me, emotions are thought.
Hofesh Shechter
#51. Our people do not want barren theories from their democracy. Maury Maverick has expressed very quaintly, but clearly, what they really want when he says: 'We Americans want to talk, pray, think as we please and eat regular'.
Robert H. Jackson
#52. I think that giant American corporations should start asking themselves if the things they make are really, I mean really, better than the ordinary. Clearly people want things that make their lives the way they wish they were.
John Peterman
#53. I'm clearly not frightened of flying because I fly all the time, but every once in a while I do, as we all do, think, What if this plane goes down? And I think, Well, if I'm holding the hand of the person sitting next to me, then I'm holding everyone's hand.
Gloria Steinem
#54. I think we still do have a PR problem in the sense that these institutions portray themselves quite often as a museum without the contemporary wing. For a young cutting-edge person, why would you get into that sort of business, which is very clearly geared towards dead or almost dead people?
Esa-Pekka Salonen
#55. People spend a lifetime thinking about how they would really like to live. I asked my friends and no one seems to know very clearly. To me it's very clear now. I wish my life could have been like the years when I was writing 'Love in the Time of Cholera.'
Gabriel Garcia Marquez
#56. Unless you have read and absorbed the best that can be read and absorbed, you will not think clearly or well.
Harold Bloom
#57. I think the writer's job is to paint the gray because no life is clearly defined.
Andre Dubus
#58. If Recep Tayyip Erdogan cannot placate ISIS, how are we ever gonna be able to? And placate is clearly what John Kerry, who once served in Vietnam, and Barack Hussein O and Hillary Clinton think is the only thing we have to do is placate them. Because we're at fault, see.
Rush Limbaugh
#59. Four things a man must learn to do If he would make his record true; To think without confusion clearly; To love his fellowmen sincerely; To act from honest motives purely; To trust in God and Heav'n securely.
Henry Van Dyke
#60. Success is a moving target. I don't think we ever achieve "it", at least in our own minds. But I do know this, if you think you have achieved your greatest success you clearly have decided to stop pushing yourself.
Mike Michalowicz
#61. I look very different from how people expect me to be ... Clearly they think I'm a great big fat viking.
Kate Winslet
#62. Being mindful is not a matter of thinking more clearly about experience; it is the act of experiencing more clearly, including the arising of thoughts themselves.
Sam Harris
#63. The rainbow mirrors human aims and action. Think, and more clearly wilt thou grasp it, seeing Life is but light in many-hued reflection.
Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
#64. You ask my advice about acting? Speak clearly, don't bump into the furniture and if you must have motivation, think of your pay packet on Friday.
Noel Coward
#65. Writing is thinking. To write well is to think clearly. That's why it's so hard.
(Interview with NEH chairman Bruce Cole, Humanities, July/Aug. 2002, Vol. 23/No. 4)
David McCullough
#66. I was thinking about how disjointedly time seemed to flow in Forks, passing in a blur at times, with single images standing out more clearly than others. And then, at other times, every second was significant, etched in my mind. I knew exactly what caused the difference, and it disturbed me.
Stephenie Meyer
#67. Sometimes you need to distance yourself to see things clearly.
John Spence
#68. The French have a penchant for absolutism, for thinking that things are all one way or all another, which is why their politics are marked by a general inability to compromise and why they tend to hold their personal opinions until the bitter end, even after they have clearly lost an argument.
Mark Zero
#69. The easiest books are generally the best; for, whatever author is obscure and difficult in his own language, certainly does not think clearly.
Bill Vaughan
#70. The money was good while it lasted. The best part was clearly that it changed my view of what's possible, as far as thinking how you can have an impact on a national level.
Andrew Shue
#71. I think that's necessary in photography. We try to simplify the chaos that's out there - and that's true of the natural world as well as the mad-made world. Clearly, it's easier in the mad-made world because it has already been structured.
Bruce Barnbaum
#72. When you're first thinking through an idea, it's important not to get bogged down in complexity. Thinking simply and clearly is hard to do.
Richard Branson
#73. I always think out a problem as clearly as possible, and then act on it. My theory has always been to get started. The moment I get an idea I act upon it. If only people would act on more of their ideas, I am convinced they would lead more interesting lives.
Dorothy Draper
#74. Sometimes the truth is so deep that it takes someone with the same depth to see it, while others can't see past the level they have never moved from.
Shannon L. Alder
#75. I think, clearly, we got to work closely with China to resolve the serious problems we have, and I worry about Putin and his military adventurism in the Crimea and the Ukraine.
Bernie Sanders
#76. The way I would characterize what you said about me is I do try to say what I think as clearly as I can without first thinking, "Uh-oh, which way is the wind blowing and are people going to like this?"
Christy Clark
#77. Donald Trump accused Huma Abedin of sharing state secrets with her husband. I think Trump clearly lacks a sense of Huma.
Michael R. Burch
#78. I think it's the responsibility of every human being, not just those who wear the identity of poet, activist, voter, religious person ... it's the responsibility of every person. Our responsibility is to use our intelligence as clearly and coherently as we possibly can.
John Trudell
#79. The history of intellectual growth and discovery clearly demonstrates the need for unfettered freedom, the right to think the unthinkable, discuss the unmentionable, and challenge the unchallengeable.
C. Vann Woodward
#80. I think it's very important for the American president to mean what he says. That's why I understand that the enemy could misread what I say. That's why I try to be as clearly as I can.
George W. Bush
#81. I think there is clearly a connection between free time and procrastination. The more you have of the former, all things being equal, the more likely you are to procrastinate.
James Surowiecki
#82. The one thing I don't understand is when people make comments who are clearly not fans of mine. I think, why are you here? Why are you wasting your time? It's fascinating.
Madonna Ciccone
#83. I think people have good ideas on this. Clearly, we need to secure the border. Coming here legally needs to be a lot easier than coming here illegally.
Jeb Bush
#84. I write poems from dreams pretty frequently. It's limiting to think the poem has to come from a sensical lyric "I" stating things clearly or dramatically. This whole course is trying to say there are millions of ways to approach writing a poem.
Matthea Harvey
#85. Tohru(thinking): There is an umeboshi
on your back.
Tohru (outloud): Maybe the reason people get jealous of eachother is because they can clearly see the umeboshi on other people's backs. I can see them too. I can see them perfectly. There is an amazing umeboshi on your back, Kyo-kun.
Natsuki Takaya
#86. I think the years I have spent in prison have been the most formative and important in my life because of the discipline, the sensations, but chiefly the opportunity to think clearly, to try to understand things.
Jawaharlal Nehru
#87. A terrific, stimulating book ... Ramalingam clearly and engagingly shows how the use of complex adaptive systems thinking can significantly strengthen and enhance the impacts and effectiveness of global foreign aid.
Jerry Sabloff
#88. I think when you embrace celibacy other elements of the relationship have to come forth. There isn't an opportunity for you to be blinded by your sexual desires there is an opportunity to see things more clearly.
Edwina Findley
#89. You can't learn to play the piano without playing the piano, you can't learn to write without writing, and, in many ways, you can't learn to think without thinking. Writing is thinking. To write well is to think clearly. That's why it's so hard.
David McCullough
#90. You know, fans who think we were made for each other and describe it in excruciating detail. You get peculiar things and beautiful things. But either way they're clearly thinking about you, which is nice.
Michael Bolton
#91. I feel fuzzy, like there's something slowing my thinking. It's horrifying, this fuzziness, because right now is when I have to be sharp, to think more clearly than ever before. I'm scared. I think this is what it feels like to go mad: to not know whether you can trust your own thoughts.
Steven Schlozman
#92. Eddie sees the big picture. He's clearly got a vision of how to make this thing the big event. And he never stops working. The minute [the tournament] is completed, he'll be thinking about next year.
Susan Collins
#93. I don't remember what I was saying, but I remember thinking I was incredibly smart and wishing I could always speak that clearly and cleverly.
Marshall Thornton
#95. A person of faith who shares conservative values and who says very clearly that climate change is real - and here's why we have to care about it - I think that we "unicorns" do pose a threat to people who want to muddy the waters and keep others in the dark.
Katharine Hayhoe
#96. to my father's amazement, was an ancient but clearly recognizable painting of Marco Polo, who must have visited Huai'an during his thirteenth-century travels about China. The priest asked my father to donate a picture of Jesus for his collection, and, after thinking about it, Daddy did.
Katherine Paterson
#97. I think it was the occasion of the final psychological break with Great Britain, in a way that had clearly not happened to that date, especially in New England and to som degree in the South.
Charles R. Morris
#99. We must suffer. Our five sense are dulled by inordinate pleasure. Penance makes them keen, gives them back their natural vitality, and more. Penance clears the eye of conscience and of reason. It helps think clearly, judge sanely. It strengthens the action of our will.
Thomas Merton
#100. Real education is about getting people involved in thinking for themselves- and that's a tricky business to know how to do well, but clearly it requires that whatever it is you're looking at has to somehow catch people's interest and make them want to think, and make them want to pursue and explore.
Noam Chomsky
