As A Man Thinks Quotes

I think, therefore I am" vs. "As a man thinks in his heart, so is he. ~ Rene Descartes

That's part of Jesus' point, that we all have sin in us. But he was also saying that sin begins and ends with the heart. Actually, that idea runs throughout the entire Bible. As a man 'thinks in his heart, so is he.' 'Out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.' In other words, what is in us is going to come out of us. And 'above all else, guard your heart.' Do you hear that, Zach? Out of everything we do, protecting our hearts is the most important thing.
We've got to guard them especially from anything that could come in and set up a lie about our God. Anything. I mean, even doing my work - and I'm a pastor - could convince me that God needs me in some way. That would be the perfect way for the enemy to set me up to wear myself out and shut myself down. And it would all start with a lie. The devil will try to convince us of anything - he's the father of lies, remember. And that is why we have to guard our hearts so carefully. ~ Denise Hildreth Jones

You are not better than your thought... As a man thinks so is he.. ~ Ikechukwu Joseph

When Scripture says, "As a man thinks, so is he," it is raw truth. How we approach life and react to its vagaries determines the bulk of our character. How we love is locked into how we think about it. What angers us is triggered by how we think. It is between our ears that we decide how easily offended we will be. When it comes to harsh words from others, whether my skin absorbs like cotton or deflects like Teflon is a decision I make. All of that happens in a three-pound organ five-and-a-half inches across called my brain. In a very real sense, my world begins and ends between my ears. I don't have to be brain-dead to be brain-defeated. ~ Richard Foth

Ignorance is servitude, because as a man thinks, so he is; a man who does not think for himself and allows himself to be guided by the thought of another is like the beast led by a halter. ~ Jose Rizal

As long as a man thinks, this struggle must go on, and so long man must have some form of religion. ~ Swami Vivekananda

In my mind's eye I can still see the first night flight I made in Argentina. It was pitch-dark. Yet in the black void, I could see the lights of man shining down below on the plains, like faintly luminous earthbound stars. Each star was a beacon signaling the presence of a human mind. Here a man was meditating on human happiness, perhaps, or on justice or peace. Lost among this flock of stars was the star of some solitary shepherd. There, perhaps, a man was in communication with the heavens, as he labored over his calculations of the nebula of Andromeda. And there, a pair of lovers. These fires were burning all over the countryside, and each of them, aven the most humble, had to be fed. The fire of the poet, of the teacher, of the carpenter. But among all these living fires, how many closed windows there were, how many dead stars, fires that gave off no light for lack of nourishment. ~ Antoine De Saint Exupery

As the wise say, a sensible man looks after his garden, and a coward looks after his money; a just man cares about his city and a crazy man cares about the government; and a wise man studies the thickness of fern-fronds. ~ Angélica Gorodischer

Although we cannot attain Jesus in his fullness unless at the same time we also take into account his unique relationship with God which has a special nature of its own, this does not of itself mean that Jesus' unique way of life is the only way to God. For even Jesus not only reveals God but also conceals him, since he appeared among us in non-godlike, creaturely humanity. As man he is a historical, contingent being who in no way can represent the full riches of God... unless one denies the reality of his real humanity (and that runs counter to the consensus of the church). So the gospel itself forbids us to speak of a Christian religious imperialism and exclusivism. ~ Edward Schillebeeckx

One of the tragedies of our day is that too many boys are growing up without guidance of a father, or another man, to show them what it looks like to do away with that boyhood stuff. As a result, they often move into adolescence and then adulthood looking like men but still speaking, reasoning, and behaving like boys. ~ Dennis Rainey

Oh, please, spare me the male ego. I'm not repulsed by sex, and I can reach an orgasm as well as any woman. After all, there are fifty-seven erotic points on a woman's body. If a man can't find one of them, he needs a flashlight and a sex manual. ~ Sandra Hill

Over a bowl of noodles [the younger Cantonese man] waxed eloquent on the subject of mantras. 'Ordinary people, Ah Jon, use mantras as spells to win good fortune or ward off disease and other evils. Perhaps they are right to do so, for the mantras are often successful, but I do not ask you to believe that. What I beg you to believe is that they are of the greatest help in altering states of consciousness. They do this by making your mind stay still instead of chasing after thoughts.'

He went on to explain that, being devoid of meaning, they do not promote conceptual thought as prayers, invocations and so forth are apt to do; and that, as each mantra has a mysterious correspondence (he could not explain what kind of correspondence) with the various potentialities embedded deeply in our consciousness […] it could cause one to snap into a state otherwise hard to reach. I do not remember his actual words, but I do remember that he was the first to voice an idea which was later to be abundantly confirmed by my own experience. […] he went on to say that to use meaningful words in any kind of religious practice is useless, since words encourage dualistic thought which hinders the mind from entering upon a truly spiritual state. His last words […] were: 'People who pray with words are just beginners. Don't do it!' Several passengers who understood English glanced at him as though they thought him a bit mad and I myself was quite taken aback by his un-Chinese vehemence, but ~ John Blofeld

The reason why there are so many police officers surrounding this house is because they want to make sure that we do not remove anything before a search warrant is issued. They have made it crystal clear that they want no Kardashians on this one." Kardashian. As in O.J. The man had changed law lexicon forever. ~ Harlan Coben

The railroad was more than a means of transportation to Gopher Prairie. It was a new god; a monster of steel limbs, oak ribs, flesh of gravel, and a stupendous hunger for freight; a deity created by man that he might keep himself respectful to Property, as elsewhere he had elevated and served as tribal gods the mines, cotton-mills, motor-factories, colleges, army. ~ Sinclair Lewis

Our attitude determines how we evaluate our life's experiences. They determine how we evaluate ourselves. They also govern how we look at other people. Are we inclined to judge an eternal soul by the appearance of an earthly body? Do we see the beautiful soul of a brother or sister or do we only see that person's earthly tabernacle? Bodies can be distorted by handicap, twisted by injury or worn by age. But if we can learn to see the inner man and woman, we will be seeing as God sees and loving as He loves. ~ Dallin H. Oaks

If he touches me, I'll kill him.
Rattle on a snake, a dog's growl to prevent a bite, her warning was meant to avoid unnecessary bloodshed and the burden of taking life, because as surely as the earth turned, if that man put a hand on her, instinct and history would overwhelm reason and she would destroy him or die trying. ~ Taylor Stevens

Masquerades disclose the reality of souls. As long as no one sees who we are, we can tell the most intimate details of our life. I sometimes muse over this sketch of a story about a man afflicted by one of those personal tragedies born of extreme shyness who one day, while wearing a mask I don't know where, told another mask all the most personal, most secret, most unthinkable things that could be told about his tragic and serene life. And since no outward detail would give him away, he having disguised even his voice, and since he didn't take careful note of whoever had listened to him, he could enjoy the ample sensation of knowing that somewhere in the world there was someone who knew him as not even his closest and finest friend did. When he walked down the street he would ask himself if this person, or that one, or that person over there might not be the one to whom he'd once, wearing a mask, told his most private life. Thus would be born in him a new interest in each person, since each person might be his only, unknown confidant. ~ Fernando Pessoa

The only way for a rich man to be healthy is by exercise and abstinence, to live as if he were poor. ~ William Temple

As he presses me against the car and his fingers tangle in my hair, I find myself hoping-and fearing-that I'll never be the object of such a love, one that could bring a man to his knees and never let him stand again. ~ Jeri Smith-Ready

There is one thing that, more than any other, throws people absolutely off their balance - the thought that you are dependent upon them. This is sure to produce an insolent and domineering manner towards you. There are some people, indeed, who become rude if you enter into any kind of relation with them; for instance, if you have occasion to converse with them frequently upon confidential matters, they soon come to fancy that they can take liberties with you, and so they try and transgress the laws of politeness. This is why there are so few with whom you care to become more intimate, and why you should avoid familiarity with vulgar people. If a man comes to think that I am more dependent upon him than he is upon me, he at once feels as though I had stolen something from him; and his endeavor will be to have his vengeance and get it back. The only way to attain superiority in dealing with men, is to let it be seen that you are independent of them. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer

I still feel there is a case to be made for my old belief that as man approaches the 'new heaven and the new earth'
or the space-age universe, if you will, he must do so with humility rather than with arrogance. ~ Rachel Carson

I sold my chastity for a book. If I had only resisted him, would I be here now? "I want you to read to me," he murmured as he turned to the first page. I stared at the Cyrillic script. "I can't. I don't know how." Simple conversational Russian was one thing, but the complex language of Jane Austen was another. "You will learn," he informed me. "I will help you." A small furrow appeared between his brows as he turned his eyes to the text. "It is generally accepted that a rich man should need a wife," he read, butchering the classic first line. I ~ Julia Sykes

Lenin arrived a stranger to Russia. Apart from a six-month stay in 1905-6, he had spent the previous seventeen years in exile abroad. Most of the workers who turned out to meet him at the Finland Station could never have seen him before.'I know very little of Russia,' Lenin once told Gorky. 'Simbirsk, Kazan, Petersburg, exile - that is all I know." During 1917 he would often claim that the mass of the ordinary people were even further to the Left than the Bolsheviks. Yet he had no experience of them, and knew only what his party agents told him (which was often what he wanted to hear). Between 5 July and the October seizure of power Lenin did not make a single public appearance. He barely set foot in the provinces. The man who was set to become the dictator of Russia had almost no direct knowledge of the way its people lived. Apart from two years as a lawyer, he had never even had a job. He was a "professional revolutionary', living apart from society and supporting himself from the party's funds and from the income of him mother's estate (which he continued to draw until her death in 1916). According to Gorky, it was this ignorance of everyday work, and the human suffering which it entailed, which had bred in Lenin a 'pitiless contempt, worthy of a nobleman, for the lives of the ordinary people...Life in all its complexity us unknown to Lenin. He does not know the ordinary people. He has never lived among them. ~ Orlando Figes

In Memory of My Feelings"

My quietness has a man in it, he is transparent
and he carries me quietly, like a gondola, through the streets.
He has several likenesses, like stars and years, like numerals.

My quietness has a number of naked selves,
so many pistols I have borrowed to protect myselves
from creatures who too readily recognize my weapons
and have murder in their heart!
though in winter
they are warm as roses, in the desert
taste of chilled anisette.
At times, withdrawn,
I rise into the cool skies
and gaze on at the imponderable world with the simple identification
of my colleagues, the mountains. Manfred climbs to my nape,
speaks, but I do not hear him,
I'm too blue.
An elephant takes up his trumpet,
money flutters from the windows of cries, silk stretching its mirror
across shoulder blades. A gun is "fired."
One of me rushes
to window #13 and one of me raises his whip and one of me
flutters up from the center of the track amidst the pink flamingoes,
and underneath their hooves as they round the last turn my lips
are scarred and brown, brushed by tails, masked in dirt's lust,
definition, open mouths gasping for the cries of the bettors for the lungs
of earth.
So many of my transparencies could not resist the race!
Terror in earth, dried mushrooms, pink feathers, tickets,
a flaking moon drifting across the muddie ~ Frank O'Hara

I made a conscious decision to take my life and career in a different direction. I started working on a play, and also, by attending Burning Man for several years, I was incredibly stimulated by the art there. I increasingly wanted to be a part of it, and focused on what I wanted to say as an artist. ~ Scott Cohen

A man would lose nothing, in terms of workload, if the distribution of care work were completely socialized instead of being performed by his wife. In structural terms, there would be no antagonistic or irreconcilable interests. Of course, this does not mean that he is aware of this problem, as it may well be that he is so integrated into sexist culture that he has developed some severe form of narcissism based on his presumed male superiority, which leads him to naturally oppose any attempts to socialize care work, or the emancipation of his wife. The capitalist, on the other hand, has something to lose in the socialization of the means of production; it is not just about his convictions about the way the world and his place in it, but also the massive profits he happily expropriates from the workers. („Remarks on Gender") ~ Cinzia Arruzza

Miss Darracott, an intelligent girl, now perceived that in harboring for as much as an instant the notion of marrying a man who fell so lamentably short of the ideal lover she was an irreclaimable ninnyhammer. Ideal lovers might differ in certain respects, but in whatever mold they were cast, not one of them was so unhandsome as to make it extremely difficult for one not to giggle at their utterances. This hopelessly overgrown and unromantic idiot must be given a firm set-down. ~ Georgette Heyer

Man overboard!" Then everyone was busy. Some of the sailors hurried aloft to take in the sail; others hurried below to get to the oars; and Rhince, who was on duty on the poop, began to put the helm hard over so as to come round and back to the man who had gone overboard. But by now everyone knew that it wasn't strictly a man. It was Reepicheep.
"Drat that mouse!" said Drinian. "It's more trouble than all the rest of the ship's company put together. If there is any scrape to be got into, in it will get! It ought to be put in irons--keelhauled--marooned--have its whiskers cut off. Can anyone see the little blighter?"
All this didn't mean that Drinian really disliked Reepicheep. On the contrary he liked him very much and was therefore frightened about him, and being frightened put him in a bad temper--just as your mother is much angrier with you for running out into the road in front of a car than a stranger would be. No one, of course, was afraid of Reepicheep's drowning, for he was an excellent swimmer; but the three who knew what was going on below the water were afraid of those long, cruel spears in the hands of the Sea People.
In a few minutes the Dawn Treader had come round and everyone could see the black blob in the water which was Reepicheep. He was chattering with the greatest excitement but as his mouth kept on getting filled with water nobody could understand what he was saying.
"He'll blurt the whole thing out if we don't shut him up," cried Dri ~ C.S. Lewis

As a child, I was afraid of the dark and the monsters on the outside.
As a man, I run away from the light, afraid to show the monsters within. ~ Anthony Liccione

She has been unkind to you, no doubt; because you see, she dislikes your cast of character, as Miss Scatcherd does mine; but how minutely you remember all she has done and said to you! What a singularly deep impression her injustice seems to have made on your heart! No ill-usage so brands its record on my feelings. Would you not be happier if you tried to forget her severity, together with the passionate emotions it excited? Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrongs. We are, and must be, one and all, burdened with faults in this world: but the time will soon come when, I trust, we shall put them off in putting off our corruptible bodies; when debasement and sin will fall from us with this cumbrous frame of flesh, and only the spark of the spirit will remain, - the impalpable principle of light and thought, pure as when it left the Creator to inspire the creature: whence it came it will return; perhaps again to be communicated to some being higher than man - perhaps to pass through gradations of glory, from the pale human soul to brighten to the seraph! ... ~ Charlotte Bronte

Whatever the reasons that I turn things down, I'm always happy when there's a good result, and I can enjoy it as a movie, you know? I don't feel like, 'Oh man, that was really good. I should have done it.' You have to make the decisions you have to make, whether it has to do with your family or repeating a character or whatever it is. ~ John C. Reilly

Precisely because I'm a man who is attracted to women, there may be some things that I have to say as a spectator of feminine grace that women themselves may not be able to see. ~ William T. Vollmann

If you're losing, just be a man; be a man and lose as a man. ~ Marat Safin

A creature
a frightfully, awful creature
was mere feet from her. Its eyes were enormous, the size of goose eggs and milky white. Its gray, slippery skin was stretched taut upon its face. Its mouth was wide and full of needle teeth. Its hands rested on the rock, hands that were webbed and huge with each finger ending in a sharp, curved nail. It was as tall as a human man, yet oddly shrunken and hunched. ~ M.L. LeGette

I say this because as an older man I am prone to ponder matters in the light of death in a way that you are not. I am like a traveler from Mars who looks down in astonishment at what passes here. And what I see is the same human frailty passed from generation to generation. What I see is again and again the same sad human frailty. We hate one another; we are the victims of irrational fears. And there is nothing in the stream of human history to suggest we are going to change this. But
I digress, confess that. I merely wish to point out that in the face of such a world you have only yourselves to rely on. You have only the decision you must make, each of you, alone. And will you contribute to the indifferent forces that ceaselessly conspire toward injustice? Or will you stand up against this endless tide and in the face of it be truly human? ~ David Guterson

A life spent in constant labor is a life wasted, save a man be such a fool as to regard a fulsome obituary notice as ample reward. ~ George Jean Nathan

There are general laws current in the world as to morality. 'Thou shalt not steal,' for instance. That has "necessarily been current as a law through all nations. But the first man you meet in the street will have ideas about theft so different from yours, that, if you knew them as you know your own, you would say that this law and yours were not even founded on the same principle. ~ Anthony Trollope

But Jesus has been depicted as a serious man. And Christians say he never laughed. Then what is the function of an Enlightened man? If Jesus cannot laugh, then who is going to laugh in this world? ~ Rajneesh

Devotion to the Blessed Sacrament is the queen of all devotions. It is the central devotion of the Church. All others gather round it, and group themselves there as satellites; for others celebrate his mysteries; this is Himself. It is the universal devotion. No one can be without it, in order to be a Christian. How can a man be a Christian who does not worship the living Presence of Christ? ~ Frederick William Faber

I could see their menfolk patrolling nervously up and down toting sub-machine guns and draped in cartridge belts. They were wearing their trademark sunglasses, those gold rimmed feminine accessories which should look comic on a man but instead manage to look as sinister as the wedding dresses and blonde wigs worn by Liberia's drugged fighters. They are the modern equivalent of the wooden masks donned around night fires by warriors preparing to do battle, which turn their wearers into something utterly alien -- faceless instruments of violence capable of unspeakable acts. ~ Michela Wrong

I love a good man outside the law, just as much as I hate a bad man inside the law. ~ Woody Guthrie

Jesus was a white man, too. Its like we have, hes a historical figure thats a verifiable fact, as is Santa, I just want kids to know that. How do you revise it in the middle of the legacy in the story and change Santa from white to black? ~ Megyn Kelly

Catti-brie had to believe that now, recalling the scene in light of the drow's words. She had to believe that her love for Wulfgar had been real, very real, and not misplaced, that he was all she had thought him to be.

Now she could. For the first time since Wulfgar's death, Cattie-brie could remember him without pangs of guilt, without the fears that, had he lived, she would not have married him. Because Drizzt was right; Wulfgar would have admitted the error despite his pride, and he would have grown, as he always had before. That was the finest quality of the man, an almost childlike quality, that viewed the world and his own life as getting better, as moving toward a better way in a better place.

What followed was the most sincere smile on Cattie-brie's face in many, many months. She felt suddenly free, suddenly complete with her past, reconciled and able to move forward with her life.

She looked at the drow, wide-eyed, with a curiosity that seemed to surprise Drizzt. She could go on, but what exactly did that mean?

Slowly, Cattie-brie began shaking her head, and Drizzt came to understand that the movement had something to do with him. He lifted a slender hand and brushed some stray hair back from her cheek, his ebony skin contrasting starkly with her light skin, even in the quiet light of night.

"I do love you," the drow admitted. The blunt statement did not catch Catti-brie by surprise, not at all. "As you love me," ~ R.A. Salvatore

In every community there are little knots of fantastic extremists who loudly proclaim that they are striving for righteousness, and who, in reality, do their feeble best for unrighteousness. Just as the upright politician should hold in peculiar scorn the man who makes the name of politician a reproach and a shame, so the genuine reformer should realize that the cause he champions is especially jeopardized by the mock reformer who does what he can to make reform a laughingstock among decent men. ~ Theodore Roosevelt