#ought

Even those novelists most commonly deemed “philosophical” have sometimes answered with an emphatic no. Iris Murdoch, the longtime Oxford philosopher and author of some two dozen novels treating highbrow themes like consciousness and morality, argued that philosophy and literature were contrary pursuits. Philosophy calls on the analytical mind to solve conceptual problems in an “austere, unselfish, candid” prose, she said in a BBC interview broadcast in 1978, while literature looks to the imagination to show us something “mysterious, ambiguous, particular” about the world. Any appearance of philosophical ideas in her own novels was an inconsequential reflection of what she happened to know. “If I knew about sailing ships I would put in sailing ships,” she said. “And in a way, as a novelist, I would rather know about sailing ships than about philosophy. ↗

— Iris Murdoch

#imagination

There is no such thing as self-awareness. Imagine thought retreating into itself to think about itself. It would be easier to imagine a revolver bullet extracting itself from its victim's wound and re-entering the barrel. Yes, it would be easier to imagine the universe's explosion suddenly halting its outflow of energy, so that the galaxies congeal once more, and the millions of light-years of their flight through space are immediately annulled. ↗

— J.M.G. Le Clézio

#thought #imagination

But let no one imagine that we were mere ascetics. There is no more complex pleasure than thought, and it was to thought that we delivered ourselves over. ↗

— Jorge Luis Borges

#pleasure #thought #imagination

We're all entitled to our different likes and dislikes. Imagine the world if we all liked the same things. ↗

— Malia Ann Haberman

#chase-tinker #ideas #imagination #magic #thoughts

As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives. ↗

— Henry David Thoreau

#instructional #power-of-thoughts #inspirational

Your battles inspired me - not the obvious material battles but those that were fought and won behind your forehead. ↗

— James Joyce

#behind #forehead #fought #inspired #material

The ancestor of every action is a thought ↗

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

#ancestor #thoughts #inspirational

My mum is Brazilian and very proud. I'd love to do a Brazilian film. I've been brought up in the Brazilian culture. My mum brought me up on my own, I cook Brazilian food, I've never spoken a word of English to my mother. ↗

— Kaya Scodelario

#brazilian #brought #cook #culture #english

He always applied all his means, all his faculties, all his attention to the action or discussion of the moment, into everything he put passion. Hence the enormous advantage he had over his adversaries, for few people are entirely absorbed by one thought, or one action at one moment. ↗

— Caulaincourt on Napoleon

#inspiration #napoleon-boneparte #passion #thought #inspirational

I've no interest in being thought provoking. Who needs more thoughts. I'd rather go down as one who is thought disposing. ↗

— Rasheed Ogunlaru

#mindfulness #rasheed-ogunlaru-quotes #thought-provoking #thoughtfulness #thoughts