Thomas De Quincey Quotes

Do not imagine that what we have said of the insufficiency of our understanding and of its limited extent is an assertion founded only on the Bible: for philosophers likewise assert the same, and perfectly understand it,- without having regard to any religion or opinion.

Will and intellect are one and the same thing.

I'd ask people to keep in mind the idea that if you really understand something, it's even more important for you to consider the possibility of your wrongness. Even if it takes someone dumber than you to point that out.

Logicians have but ill defined As rational the human mind; Reason, they say, belongs to man, But let them prove it if they can.

you and I have good enough minds to know how very limited and finite they really are. The naked intellect is an extraordinarily inaccurate instrument.

It does take great maturity to understand that the opinion we are arguing for is merely the hypothesis we favor, necessarily imperfect, probably transitory, which only very limited minds can declare to be a certainty or a truth.

Profound minds are the most likely to think lightly of the resources of human reason, and it is the superficial thinker who is generally strongest in every kind of unbelief.

Just as the eye was made to see colours, and the ear to hear sounds, so the human mind was made to understand, not whatever you please, but quantity.

Even those to whom Providence has allotted greater strength of understanding, can expect only to improve a single science. In every other part of learning, they must be content to follow opinions, which they are not able to examine; and, even in that which they claim as peculiarly their own, can seldom add more than some small particle of knowledge, to the hereditary stock devolved to them from ancient times, the collective labour of a thousand intellects.

We do have to use our minds as far as they will take us, yet acknowledging that they cannot take us all the way.

Minds are of three kinds: one is capable of thinking for itself; another is able to understand the thinking of others; and a third can neither think for itself nor understand the thinking of others. The first is of the highest excellence, the second is excellent, and the third is worthless.

General ideas are no proof of the strength, but rather of the insufficiency of the human intellect.

Even great spirits have only their five-fingers' breadth of experience - just beyond it their thinking ceases and their endless empty space and stupidity begins.

And now the forces marshaled around the concept of the group have declared a war of extermination on that preciousness, the mind of man.

Knowledge, or verbal facility, is no proof that you know what you're talking about.

The liberation of the human mind has never been furthered by dunderheads.

But as a skeptic I am dubious about science as about everything else, unless the scientist is himself a skeptic, and few of them are. The stench of formaldehyde may be as potent as the whiff of incense in stimulating a naturally idolatrous understanding.

Not to know of what things one should demand demonstration, and of what one should not, argues want of education.

Study hard. Understand not only the questions, but the questioner. Know how best to articulate the answers, but do it with humility, because ultimately the answer is in a person, the person of Christ, not in an argument. So, do your work and know how to present the answer, but do it with gentleness and meekness.

The field of consciousness is tiny. It accepts only one problem at a time. Get into a fist fight, put your mind on the strategy of the fight, and you will not feel the other fellow's punches.

Having an open mind does not necessarily lead to perfection. It is your ability to observe, analyze, discern, and understand the true essence that basic principles contain that point the way to perfection.

I think the power of the mind is amazing, and we've barely scratched the surface of what it can do.

When your mind is simply trapped by the image out there so that you never make the reference to yourself, you have misread the image.

There is a very important distinction between a critical attitude of mind (or critical faculty) and a sceptical attitude.

The human mind is an organ for the discovery of truths rather than of falsehoods.