Invention is not the product of logical thought, even though the final product is tied to a logical structure.
Dream, Dream, Dream, Dreams transform into thoughts And thoughts result in action.
The thoughts that come often unsought, and, as it were, drop into the mind, are commonly the most valuable of any we have, and therefore should be secured, because they seldom return again.
You could attach prices to thoughts. Some cost a lot, some a little. And how does one pay for thoughts? The answer, I think, is: with courage.[Man könnte Gedanken Preise anheften. Manche kosten viel, manche wenig. Und womit zahlt man für Gedanken? Ich glaube: mit Mut.]
Without Freedom of Thought, there can be no such Thing as Wisdom; and no such Thing as publick Liberty, without Freedom of Speech.
While I thought I have been learning how to live, I have been learning how to die.
When a man after long years of searching chances on a thought which discloses something of the beauty of this mysterious universe, he should not therefore be personally celebrated. He is already sufficiently paid by his experience of seeking and finding. In science, moreover, the work of the individual is so bound up with that of his scientific predecessors and contemporaries that it appears almost as an impersonal product of his generation.
There are some that only employ words for the purpose of disguising their thoughts.
Theirs, too, is the word-coining genius, as if thought plunged into a sea of words and came up dripping.
The words or the language, as they are written or spoken, do not seem to play any role in my mechanism of thought.
The really valuable thing in the pageant of human life seems to me not the State but the creative, sentient individual, the personality; it alone creates the noble and the sublime, while the herd as such remains dull in thought and dull in feeling.
The good times of today, are the sad thoughts of tomorrow.