Quote of the Day (Lorraine Hansberry, on Stillness and Thinking)

“Don’t get up. Just sit a while and think. Never be afraid to sit a while and think.”— African-American playwright Lorraine Hansberry (1930-1965), A Raisin in the Sun (1959)

Excellent advice, to which I would add just one corollary: Never be afraid to sit a while, think—and write.

Quote of the Day (Oliver Sacks, on Why We Speak)

“We speak not only to tell other people what we think, but to tell ourselves what we think. Speech is a part of thought.”— British-born American neurologist, naturalist, and historian of science Oliver Sacks (1933-2015), Seeing Voices: A Journey into the World of the Deaf (1989)

The image accompanying this post of Dr. Oliver Sacks was taken in 1985 by Bernard Gotfryd and is part of his collection at the Library of Congress.

TV Quote of the Day (‘All in the Family,’ on a Difficult Problem for Archie)

Archie Bunker [played by Carroll O’Connor]: “I’ve got a very serious problem here’s gonna take all of my thinking and all of my consecration.”—All in the Family, Season 2, Episode 10, “The Insurance Is Cancelled,” original air date Nov. 27, 1971, teleplay by Norman Lear, Lee Kalcheim, and directed by John Rich

Quote of the Day (Ralph Waldo Emerson, on Thought, ‘The Seed of Action’)

“Thought is the seed of action; but action is as much its second form as thought is its first. It rises in thought to the end, that it may be uttered and acted. The more profound the thought, the more burdensome. Always in proportion to the depth of its sense does it knock importunately at the gates of the soul, to be spoken, to be done. What is in, will out. It struggles to the birth.”— American essayist-poet Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), “Art,” originally printed in The Dial, January 1841, reprinted in Society and Solitude (1870) 

Quote of the Day (Walter Lippmann, on ‘Truly Effective Thinking’)

“In truly effective thinking, the prime necessity is to liquidate judgments, regain an innocent eye, disentangle feelings, be curious and open-hearted.”— American writer, reporter, and political commentator Walter Lippmann (1889-1974), Public Opinion (1922)

Quote of the Day (Anthony Trollope, on How ‘Little Misfortunes’ Impede Our Thinking)

“Bad noises, bad air, bad smells, bad light, an inconvenient attitude, ugly surroundings, little misfortunes that have lately been endured, little misfortunes that are soon to come, hunger and thirst, overeating and overdrinking, want of sleep or too much of it, a tight boot, a starched collar, are all inimical to thinking. I do not name bodily ailments. The feeling of heroism which is created by the magnanimity of overcoming great evils will sometimes make thinking easy. It is not the sorrows but the annoyances of life which impede. Were I told that the bank had broken in which my little all was kept for me I could sit down and write my love story with almost a sublimated vision of love; but to discover that I had given half a sovereign instead of sixpence to a cabman would render a great effort necessary before I could find the fitting words for a lover. These little lacerations of the spirit, not the deep wounds, make the difficulty.”—English novelist Anthony Trollope (1815-1882), “A Walk in the Woods,” in An Autobiography and Other Writings, edited by Nicholas Shrimpton (2014)

Quote of the Day (Aldous Huxley, on Thinking Correctly as a ‘Moral Act’)

"To think correctly is the condition of behaving well. It is also in itself a moral act; those who would think correctly must resist considerable temptations." —English novelist/essayist Aldous Huxley (1894-1963), Collected Essays (1959)