Western Thought Quotes

#1. Awakening of Western thought will not be complete until that thought steps outside itself and comes to an understanding with the search for a world-view as this manifests itself in the
thought of mankind as a whole.

Albert Schweitzer

#2. It seems to me that the binary opposition that is so much embedded in Western thought and language makes it nearly impossible to project a complex response.

Bell Hooks

#3. The right to freedom of expression is justified first of all as the right of an individual purely in his capacity as an individual. It derives from the widely accepted premise of Western thought that the proper end of man is the realization of his character and potentialities as a human being.

Thomas I. Emerson

#4. Always be suspicious of conclusions that reinforce uncritical hope and follow comforting traditions of Western thought.

Stephen Jay Gould

#5. All our Western thought is founded on this repulsive pretence that pain is the proper price of any good thing.

Rebecca West

#6. How significant is Aristotle? Well, I wouldn't want to exaggerate, so let me put it this way: Abandoning Aristotelianism, as the founders of modern philosophy did, was the single greatest mistake ever made in the entire history of Western thought.

Edward Feser

#7. I have assimilated Western thought and its clarity, but, in fact, I am solidly rooted in the passive Eastern nature and remain rebellious to any action.

Leonid Feodorov

#8. The world dominion of western thought, forms of organisation, technology and military force is not God-given, nor eternal, nor greatly appreciated by the rest of the world.

James Buchan

#9. The influence (for good or ill) of Plato's work is immeasurable. Western thought, one might say, has been Platonic or anti-Platonic, but hardly ever non-Platonic.

Karl Popper

#10. If in Nietzsche's thinking the prior tradition of Western thought is gathered and completed in a decisive respect, then the confrontation with Nietzsche becomes one with all Western thought hitherto.

Martin Heidegger

#11. Modern Western thought will pass into history and be incorporated in it, will have its influence and its place, just as our body will pass into the composition of grass, of sheep, of cutlets, and of men.

Alexander Herzen

#12. There's a long tradition in Western thought that humans are not shackled by biology, whereas animals are pure instinct machines.

Frans De Waal

#13. Modern science developed in the context of western religious thought, was nurtured in universities first established for religious reasons, and owes some of its greatest discoveries and advances to scientists who themselves were deeply religious.

Kenneth R. Miller

#14. In stark contrast with the views of the Greek philosophers and with those of the rest of western intellectuals to the present day, Chinese Taoist thought always defended individual liberty and laissez-faire while attacking the systematic and coercive use of violence typical of government.

Jesus Huerta De Soto

#15. (When asked what he thought of Western civilization): 'I think it would be a good idea.

Mahatma Gandhi

#16. What happened in the Western world was that Plato ceased to be the way people thought. Aristotle was rediscovered, and the modern, educated world moved toward Aristotelian thinking.

John Shelby Spong

#17. She shot him a look she thought he might still remember, the same one a rattler gives right before it strikes.

B. J. Daniels

#18. I grew up in a very small town, but it happened to be in western Massachusetts, where there were a lot of gay people. I remember my aunt going to a gay wedding when I was 11, and I thought it was the coolest thing.

Elizabeth Banks

#19. Remember what I told you about family secrets." People will kill to keep them, she thought now as she looked at Marianne McGraw. The woman's rocking didn't change as Nikki stepped deeper into the room.

B. J. Daniels

#20. I decided to write Westerns because there was a terrific market for Westerns in the '50s. There were a lot of pulp magazines, like 'Dime Western' and '10 Story Western' that were still being published. The better ones paid two cents a word. And I thought, 'I like Westerns.'

Elmore Leonard

#21. Brick stood silhouetted against the frozen lake through this front window. "Be careful. It sounds like you've got at least one killer out there. Someone who thought they'd gotten away with murder. It's easier to kill after the first time, they say.

B. J. Daniels

#22. I've always thought of the western as American storytelling at its best.

Kiefer Sutherland

#23. To read in the service of any ideology is not to read at all. The mind's dialogue with itself is not primarily a social reality. All that the Western canon can bring one is the proper use of one's own solitude.

Harold Bloom

#24. Butch: Now after we ... wait a minute ...
Sundance: What?
Butch: You didn't see Lefors out there?
Sundance: Lefors ? No.
Butch: Good. For a minute there I thought we were in trouble.

William Goldman

#25. I thought it went without saying that when the Soviet Union collapsed and the eastern states opened up, we would be plagued by a new kind of criminality in Sweden and Western Europe. And that is what happened.

Henning Mankell

#26. I thought you would at least help me retrieve my horse."
He stopped and mumbled under his breath, "If your horse has any sense he'll keep going.

B. J. Daniels

#27. The vending machine lacked the willpower of the Western elevator, and it dutifully spat out several chocolate bars and a packet of salt and vinegar chips. I gave you more money than that, thought William, and the vending machine gave him some more.

Kit Abbey

#28. When Gandhi was asked what he thought of Western civilization, he famously replied that "it would be a very good idea.

Yanis Varoufakis

#29. I had to confront my fears and master my every demonic thought about inferiority, insecurity, or the fear of being black, young, and gifted in this Western culture.

Lauryn Hill

#30. Who would have thought God would send a bad man and a sheriff just to save Prince?

Debra Holland

#31. The man could kiss. She'd thought his kisses were irresistible all those years ago when she'd been young and naive. Now, as an adult, she knew she'd never be able to resist him or his kiss.

Cat Johnson

#32. And then you realize one day that you can't remember her scent and nothing smells like her anymore. You can't remember how she feels or the sound of her voice. You haven't thought of her every second of every day. Then--then you feel more alone than on the day you lost her.

Desiree Banks

#33. Her head started spinning, thinking about a date with Rhett O'Donnell.
I need to go fishing and clear my mind, she thought. I've always been in love with Tanner, and now Rhett is in the picture. I had trouble handling one secret cowboy. Two is one cowboy too many.

Carolyn Brown

#34. Getting over her had been impossible. A day hadn't gone by that he hadn't thought of her, yearned for her. Sometimes he felt as if he couldn't breathe if he didn't see her again. He'd had to come back to make things right no matter how it ended.

B. J. Daniels

#35. My wife thought I deserved it, but I always thought the Nobel a Western prize.

Naguib Mahfouz

#36. Scientists have always thought that because mammoths roamed such a huge territory - from Western Europe to Central North America - that North American woolly mammoths were a sideshow of no particular significance to the evolution of the species.

Hendrik Poinar

#37. Our [Western] science has cut itself off from an adequate understanding of the Subject of Cognizance, of the mind. This is precisely the point where our present way of thinking needs to be amended, perhaps by a bit of blood-transfusion from Eastern thought.

Erwin Schrodinger

#38. I thought Clint Eastwood was cool in all the western movies, but I'm not gonna drive somewhere he's at and stand in line to see him. I told Missy, my wife, 'The only person I'd stand in line for is God Almighty. You made the universe? All right, I'll get in line!'

Jase Robertson

#39. I couldn't even see that woman because I have blinders on when you are around, and every single thought in my head is about you.

Carolyn Brown

#40. She'd done things to him he thought only happened to characters in country-western songs, laying waste to his car, his dogs, driving him from his home, and making an outlaw of him. It was almost funny.

Joe Hill

#41. One of the great virtues of Confucianism was its suppleness. Western political thought tended to be rather brittle; as soon as the state became corrupt, everything ceased to make sense. Confucianism always retained its equilibrium, like a cork that could float as well in spring water or raw sewage.

Neal Stephenson

#42. I had a salad. If I were to say that today's tomatoes were an index of the decline of Western man I should be thought a crank but nations do not, I think, ascend on such tomatoes.

Russell Hoban

#43. It had not been a very cheerful journey, not the least for the western excursion into Outlander territory, where a stubborn and pompous old man had refused to listen to the truth; but Corlath had expected what he found and-she thought-saw no use in being discouraged.

Robin McKinley

#44. Western society has many flaws, and it is good for an educated person to have thought some of these through, even at the expense of losing a lecture or two to tear gas.

Robert B. Laughlin

#45. There was always something immensely comic to her in the thought of living elsewhere than New York. She could not regard as serious proposals that she share a western residence.

Dorothy Parker

#46. Both the nationalists and the communists disapproved of jazz and feared it. They thought it would weaken people's resolve to fight off the invasion. And most Americans know, China did ban all Western music for about 30 years, starting in 1949. This is where it started.

Nicole Mones

#47. But look, I was born in 1956, the peak year for births in US history. I think I'm very representative of many of the thought processes my generation have been through and, by and large, people of my age have had their imprint planted on the consciousness of western society for a long time.

Tom Hanks

#48. She always thought of Aaron as special not less. He was God's gift to her, and she wouldn't trade him for the world.

Tamara Hoffa

#49. Would he love the house as much if his cat burglar didn't come back for the painting? He pushed that thought away, telling himself he was in the market for a house long before he'd laid eyes on the dark-clad figure running along the rooftop. Long before the kiss.

B. J. Daniels

#50. The problem is to appreciate differences in the basic premises of thought and in the very methods of thinking, and these are so often overlooked that our interpretations of Chinese philosophy are apt to be a projection of characteristically Western ideas into Chinese terminology.

Alan W. Watts

#51. When he adopted Western methods, it was in a purely utilitarian spirit. He gave no thought to the principles on which our civilisation is based. It was the finished product he was after and not the process.

Homer B. Hulbert

#52. I had always thought that the 'good,' and the 'bad' and the 'violent' did not exist in any absolute, essential sense. It seemed to me interesting to demystify these adjectives in the setting of a Western. An assassin can display a sublime altruism while a good man can kill with total indifference.

Sergio Leone

#53. The International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilization (ISTAC) ... to establish a superior library reflecting the religious and intellectual traditions both of the Islamic and Western civilizations.

Syed Muhammad Naquib Al-Attas

#54. Western parents worry a lot about their children's self-esteem. But as a parent, one of the worst things you can do for your child's self-esteem is to let them give up. On the flip side, there's nothing better for building confidence than learning you can do something you thought you couldn't.

Amy Chua

#55. Rabindranath Tagore put it gently to a Western audience in New York in 1930: 'A great portion of the world suffers from your civilisation.' Mahatma Gandhi was blunter: asked what he thought of Western civilization, he replied, 'It would be a good idea'. 'The

Shashi Tharoor

#56. This process of cutting a potential wife from the herd was proving far more difficult than he'd thought.

Debra Holland

#57. Five months later, he still wasn't over it. After seeing so many guys dumped during deployments - and now having experienced it himself - he'd banished any thought of women from his mind.

Victoria Vane

#58. I believe in courtesy. It is the way we avoid hurting people's feelings. She thought that maybe, just maybe, western civilization was in decline because people did not take time to take tea at four o'clock.

E.L. Konigsburg

#59. If we fail to appreciate the soul that Easternism gives us, then what we have is a disconnected, Greco-Roman, Western, egocentric, compartmentalized, reductionist, fragmented, linear thought process that counts on cleverness.

Joel Salatin

#60. I'm resourceful," she called after him.
Resourceful, he thought, rinsing his hands with the ladle she'd left in the bucket. "A euphemism commonly used by successful criminals," he called out to her.
"If I were so successful," she called back, "I wouldn't be talking to you.

Roxanne Snopek

#61. A lot of people thought of me as a threat to Western civilization.

John Milius

#62. She warned herself to let it go. But that meant letting the painting go. She couldn't do that, she thought with a curse. And Laramie Cardwell was practically daring her to come steal it.

B. J. Daniels

#63. She studied his profile, the high cheekbones, deep-set eyes, strong, masculine nose, and full, sensuous mouth, fixing on the last, her insides quivering at the thought of those soft and knowing lips ...

Victoria Vane