50+ Best Thinking Quotes To Inspire Deep Insights And Creativity

There is a distinction to be made between having thoughts and actually thinking. The first is something we all have, including animals, according to scientists. However, most of us do not engage in thinking, the act of actually forming and processing thoughts.

Thoughts are the random ramblings of our minds, and they rarely make sense. They are fleeting, and when a good idea appears, it vanishes just as fast.

Sometimes we have thoughts that even we don’t understand. Thoughts that aren’t even true—that aren’t really how we feel—but they’re running through our heads anyway because they’re interesting to think about. If you could hear other people’s thoughts, you’d overhear things that are true as well as things that are completely random. And you wouldn’t know one from the other. It’d drive you insane. What’s true? What’s not? A million ideas, but what do they mean?”
― Jay Asher

And that is why we need to take some time for ourselves to think.

When we say thinking it’s not about going full-on Albert Einstein, but rather thinking that has taken some time and significant processing before expressing or acting on it.

Because rash actions and unrestrained speech frequently get you into trouble. Thinking on the other hand allows you to deliberate with yourself, know and understand your thoughts, and channel your thinking toward a coherent, sensible, enlightening, and deep insight for creativity and action.

So if you want to improve your life, spare some of your time to think. Once the thinking is done, you can then proceed in doing.

Take time to deliberate, but when the time for action comes, stop thinking and go in. – Napoleon Bonaparte

Continue reading for 50+ more of the best thinking quotes to inspire deep insights and creativity.

50+ Best Thinking Quotes

Thinking quotes about life

We cannot solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them.
– Albert Einstein

Thinking is by far the most underrated activity. People consider it “unproductive” to sit on a bench and think. So they spend their lives doing things they never thought through. An hour of clear thinking can yield a conclusion that changes your life.
– Johnny Uzan

We are addicted to our thoughts. We cannot change anything if we cannot change our thinking.
– Santosh Kalwar

To think is easy. To act is difficult. To act as one thinks is the most difficult of all.
– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Controlling your life starts with controlling your thoughts.
– Dan Go

Above all, I have been a sentient being, a thinking animal, on this beautiful planet, and that in itself has been an enormous privilege and adventure.
– Oliver Sacks

Five percent of the people think; ten percent of the people think they think; and the other eighty-five percent would rather die than think.
– Thomas A. Edison

Thoughts are circular, they don’t take you anywhere. They don’t have feet-they can’t gain any ground. They can trap you if you don’t eventually stand up and make a move.
– Katie Kacvinsky

Thinking is learning all over again how to see, directing one’s consciousness, making of every image a privileged place.
– Albert Camus

The only place where your dream becomes impossible is in your own thinking.
– Robert H Schuller

We must begin thinking like a river if we are to leave a legacy of beauty and life for future generations.
– David Brower

To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.
– Oscar Wilde

Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours.
– John Locke

Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.
– Albert Einstein

People mistakenly assume that their thinking is done by their head; it is actually done by the heart which first dictates the conclusion, then commands the head to provide the reasoning that will defend it.
– Anthony de Mello

Thinking is man’s only basic virtue, from which all the others proceed. And his basic vice, the source of all his evils, is that nameless act which all of you practice, but struggle never to admit: the act of blanking out, the willful suspension of one’s consciousness, the refusal to think – not blindness, but the refusal to see; not ignorance, but the refusal to know.
– Ayn Rand

The way forward is found on a path through the wilderness of the head and heart—reason and emotion. Thinking, knowing, understanding.
– Laurence Gonzales

We are what our thoughts have made us; so take care about what you think. Words are secondary. Thoughts live; they travel far.
– Swami Vivekananda

Don’t wait for your feelings to change to take the action. Take the action and your feelings will change.
– Barbara Baron

Most people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so.
– Bertrand Russell

Words make you think. Music makes you feel. A song makes you feel a thought.
– Yip Harburg

…most people in the world don’t really use their brains to think. And people who don’t think are the ones who don’t listen to others.
– Haruki Murakami

Thinking is a bit uncomfortable, but you’ll get used to it. A matter of time and practice.
– Lloyd Alexander

The difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas as in escaping from old ones.
– John Maynard Keynes

Life is an experimental journey undertaken involuntarily. It is a journey of the spirit through the material world and, since it is the spirit that travels, it is the spirit that is experienced. That is why there exist contemplative souls who have lived more intensely, more widely, more tumultuously than others who have lived their lives purely externally.
– Fernando Pessoa

Creativity involves breaking out of expected patterns in order to look at things in a different way.
– Edward de Bono

Thought moves with the different whereas silence lives inside those with the loudest voice.
– Daniel Kemp

Thinking is the hardest work anyone can do, which is probably the reason why we have so few thinkers.
– Thomas S. Monson

Deep thinking quotes

If everyone is thinking alike, then no one is thinking.
– Benjamin Franklin

Right thinking comes with self-knowledge. Without understanding yourself, you have no basis for thought.
– Jiddu Krishnamurti

The conventional view serves to protect us from the painful job of thinking.
– John Kenneth Galbraith

Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.
– Steve Jobs

The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks.
– Christopher Hitchens

The third-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the majority. A second-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the minority. A first-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking.
– A.A. Milne

Pondering is a little like considering and a little like thinking, but looser. To ponder, one must let the facts roll around the rim of the mind’s roulette wheel, coming to settle in whichever slot they feed pulled to.
– Christopher Moore

The greatest enemy of good thinking is busyness.
– John C. Maxwell

Our thinking will automatically improve when we remember the words of Paul: ‘know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and the spirit of God dwelleth in you?
– Thomas S. Monson

The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.
– Albert Einstein

Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.
– Kahlil Gibran

Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.
– Albert Einstein

Thinking quotes funny

Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.
– Oscar Wilde

I prefer not to think before speaking. I like being as surprised as everyone else by what comes out of my mouth.
– Unknown

Try walking forward while looking over your shoulder and see how far you get. The same goes for life. Look forward!
– Martin Henderson

If you don’t design your own life plan, chances are you’ll fall into someone else’s plan. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much.
– Jim Rohn

When I look back on all these worries, I remember the story of the old man who said on his deathbed that he had had a lot of trouble in his life, most of which had never happened.
– Winston Churchill

I think God, in creating man, somewhat overestimated his ability.
– Oscar Wilde

Whenever I’m about to do something, I think, ‘Would an idiot do that?’ And if they would, I do not do that thing.
– Dwight Schrute, The Office

Don’t waste so much time thinking about how much you weigh. There is no more mind-numbing, boring, idiotic, self-destructive diversion from the fun of living.
– Meryl Streep

People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.
– Isaac Asimov

The lord gave us two ends: One to sit on and the other to think with. Success depends on which one we use the most.
– Ann Landers

Self-thinking quotes

Thinking for yourself and making your own decisions can be frightening. Letting go of other people’s expectations can leave you feeling empty for a time. And yet seeing yourself as an independent adult who can stand up for your own choices frees you to accept yourself as you are.
– Ellen Bass

The only means of strengthening one’s intellect is to make up one’s mind about nothing — to let the mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts.
– John Keats

Think for yourself and let others enjoy the privilege of doing so too.
– Voltaire

Your thoughts have the power to control; our being, our emotions, and the way we view the world that surrounds us. If you don’t constantly re-think what you think of on a daily basis, how do you ever expect to evolve into a being of; wisdom, truth, understanding, love, and above all, to be there for others?
– Martin R. Lemieux

If you want someone to tell you what to think,” the phantom answered briskly, without looking up, “you will never be short of people willing to do so.
– Frances Hardinge

I am not questioning God’s power! It is God who gave us reason and circumspection! It is God we serve by exercising prudence!
– Dan Brown

Each person is chargeable with the essential task to make his or her thought processes as refined as possible. Every person must declare what important distinctions will allow him or her to live a vivid and reflection filled life.
– Kilroy J. Oldster

You may believe that you are responsible for what you do, but not for what you think. The truth is that you are responsible for what you think, because it is only at this level that you can exercise choice. What you do comes from what you think.
– Marianne Williamson

Why is thinking so important?

Thinking is an important mental process. It helps us in defining and organizing experiences including planning, learning, reflecting, and creating. It also serves as the basis for human reasoning, concept formation, problem-solving, and deliberation.

As such, active thinking is an important activity that we should all engage in for a better life. Here are a few reasons why thinking is important:

Thinking is what defines us as humans

Humans are unique in that we can extract or take out similarities between things and form a concept and interpret them accordingly, allowing us to acquire an infinite amount of knowledge about the world we live in.

Because we can see similarities and differences in concepts as well as definite or specific things, our knowledge potential far outstrips that of animals, distinguishing us from them.

Thinking is a key component of survival

Our ability to figure things out is critical to our survival. Because, whether we believe it or not, we as humans have no innate knowledge.

The “knowledge” we have right now comes from our memory, from everything we have learned from birth to the present.

So, in order to live and improve, we must use all of the information we have by thinking, figuring things out, and coming up with what is appropriate for the situation.

Thinking is our connection with reality

Connecting with reality requires an accurate assessment of what is going on based on our own understanding.

This is accomplished by thinking, through our very own information processing of facts gathered by our sensory data.

And since reality is not based on our emotions, feelings, therefore, have no place in the thinking process. As such, our feelings about reality should not be taken as accurate information.

This is because previous thoughts, ideas, events, comprehension, or interpretations also have a significant influence on our feelings. So, two people with very different sets of values, philosophies, and principles in life can have very different emotional reactions to the same thing.

Thinking is how we figure things out

Thinking allows for reasoning, deliberation, and problem-solving. It is how we find solutions and make sense of the world we live in.

So, before establishing goals, values, and strategies for achieving them, it is necessary to think. This is the only way we can gain knowledge and know which actions to take and how to keep living.

Thinking leads to effective action

All effective actions and behavior begin with having thoughts.

And the careful consideration of these thoughts, that is, going through a process that includes some planning, predicting, hypothesizing, calculating, and reasoning increases our chances of success in whatever we are attempting to accomplish.

Fosters a can-do attitude

Thinking promotes a positive, can-do attitude. It fosters a sense of ability and, as a result, self-esteem, because gaining knowledge boosts our self-confidence.

When we think and figure things out, we are informed, and we feel competent, capable of living, and thus worthy of living. This ability to perceive ourselves as competent and adept leads to healthy self-esteem and increased happiness.

In this sense, we can say that our happiness is proportional to our level of thinking. The more we think, the happier we become, whereas not thinking or, worse, not wanting to think, like avoiding anything that requires our attention, can never lead to genuine happiness.

Thinking leads to new discoveries

Thinking is the only way to discover new things, invent new things, and find better ways to do things.

This is how great discoveries in human history came about. Thinking is the process by which every advancement in our quality of life, the standard of living, and comfort was achieved.

So, with thinking, particularly rational thinking, you might just discover a new way of doing things that will advance your current progress.

Thinking allows for a more effective and happy life

Thinking is the only way to live an effective and happy life because it leads to deliberate action, resulting in the achievement of goals, and thus a sense of control over one’s life and self-esteem.

What happens in our lives is the result of our mind’s constant stream of decisions and choices. Our mind is the engine that drives our lives.

We need to think in order to make informed choices and decisions. Because thinking leads to knowledge acquisition, which in turn leads to making informed decisions.

In addition, our ability to think greatly influences our happiness. Thinking is therefore required to ensure that the outcomes leave us effective and happy.

Conclusion

To conclude, thoughts and thinking are distinct from one another. Thoughts are our minds’ random ramblings; they rarely make sense and are fleeting. In contrast, thinking is a process of defining and organizing experiences. It is also the foundation of human reasoning, concept formation, problem-solving, and deliberation.

Simply allowing random thoughts to swim around in our heads will not suffice. We need to give ourselves some time to think if only to avoid making hasty decisions and saying things that will land us in hot water.

But it is even more important for us to think for the following reasons.

Thinking is what makes us human.
Thinking is a basic tool we can use in order to survive.
Reality is based on our own thinking.
We can figure things out by way of thinking.
Thinking leads to effective action.
Thinking fosters a can-do attitude.
It leads to new discoveries. And
Thinking allows for a more effective and happy life.

It is therefore for these reasons that we have compiled a list of 50+ of the best thinking quotes to inspire deep insights and creativity. Return to this article each time you need inspiration about thinking and its importance.

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