superficial thinking Quotes

Women remain children all their lives, for they always see only what is near at hand, cling to the present, take the appearance of a thing for reality, and prefer trifling matters to the most important.

Through shallow intellect, the mind becomes shallow, and one eats the fly, along with the sweets.

So little trouble do men take in the search after truth; so readily do they accept whatever comes first to hand.

Pat answers to complex problems are the hallmark of intellectual mediocrity

[Commenting on Ronald Reagan:] I don't think he ever thought anything through.

The average man never really thinks from end to end of his life. The mental activity of such people is only a mouthing of clichés.

People habituate themselves to let things pass through their minds, as one may speak, rather than to think of them. Thus by use they become satisfied merely with seeing what is said, without going any further. Review and attention, and even forming a judgment, becomes fatigue; and to lay anything before them that requires it, is putting them quite out of their way.

Some people rely on rumors and gossip because they are devoid of any original thought.

Small minds are captivated by trifles.

The average man never really thinks from end to end of his life. The mental activity of such people is only a mouthing of cliches. What they mistake for thought is simply a repetition of what they have heard. My guess is that well over 80 percent of the human race goes through life without having a single original thought.

Empty-brained triflers who have never tried to think, who take their creed as they take their fashions, speak of atheism as the outcome of foul life and vicious desires.

Behind the slogans lay an intellectual vacuum.

Boredom dismantles the mind, renders it superficial, out at the seams, saps it from within and dislocates it.

There are men who can think no deeper than a fact.

I've always thought comparisons were useless and ugly. It is a short cut to thinking.

Plain intellectual thinking is the peak of ignorance because all that you will know is to play with a few aspects and make others look like fools.

Most people, in fact, will not take the trouble in finding out the truth, but are much more inclined to accept the first story they hear.

There is nothing so unready as readiness of wit.

The world is satisfied with words, few care to dive beneath the surface.

When people look only at the surface and that satisfies them and they think from that surface they see, that is to be truly blind.

It's pretty simple, pretty obvious: that people's first impressions of people are really a big mistake.

There's such a self-conscious balance that goes into television. Also, these are not people that think things through.

You can tell nothing from a man's appearance, nothing except the depths of your own prejudice.

The very quality of books to read and facts to master with which the twentieth-century man is confronted encourages him to think broadly and superficially about much, but hinders him from thinking deeply and thoroughly about anything.

People who pin their faith to a catchword never feel the necessity of understanding anything.