Mind Facts, Insights, and Truths
Here are some facts, insights, and truths about the mind, its processes, and its power I have gathered from different resources. Like me, you might not even hear some of them until now. Enjoy!
Mind Trivias
Ø Most of us use less than only 10% of our brain potential although we have access to the rest. We use more than 10% when we have a moment of creativity and inspiration.
Ø The concept of a light bulb next to a person who have suddenly thought of an idea (in comic books, cartoons, or movies) came from Scientist Manuel Schoch’s research and observation – that when the brain is in a state of tranquility & observation, the brain lights up and we can access more information.
Ø Our mind is inherently complex and likes to complicate things. Whereas, much in life is simple or has a simple (obvious) solution. We often miss what’s on our nose!
Ø Left and Right Brain Relationship:
- Left Brain – logical, male, west, scientific, grasping, conceptualizing, analytical
- Right Brain – emotional, female, east, intuitive, spatial, creative, artistic, receptive
Ø We have approximately 50,000 – 60,000 thoughts per day. Unfortunately, 95% of those thoughts we had today are the same ones we had yesterday! That would make only 5% of thoughts we think are new each day.
Ø Are you thinking about what you’re thinking about? Read that sentence again and read it carefully. It’s not a play on words.
Ø People can typically remember about 7 (±2) items in a random list.
Ø The mind is an iceberg; it floats with only 17 percent of its bulk above water – Sigmund Freud (1856 – 1939)
Mind Insights
My life and work has been aimed at one goal only: to infer or guess how the mental apparatus is constructed and what forces interplay and counteract in it.
Sigmund Freud (1856 – 1939)
Austrian psychoanalyst
We should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality.
Albert Einstein (1879 – 1955)
German-born U.S. physicist
Out of My Later Years
If an idea’s worth having once, it’s worth having twice.
Tom Stoppard (1937 - )
Czech-born British playwright and screenwriter
Indian Ink
I took my mind a walk or my mind took me a walk – whichever was the truth of it.
Norman McCaig (1910 – 1996)
Scottish poet
“An Ordinary Day”
Mental reflection is so much more interesting than T.V. It’s a shame more people don’t switch over to it. They probably think that what they hear is unimportant but it never is.
Robert T. Pirsig (1928 - )
U.S. writer
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
In everything that is supposed to be scientific, Reason must be awake and reflection applied. To him who looks at the world rationally the world looks rationally back. The relation is mutual.
G. W. F. Hegel (1770 – 1831)
German philosopher
Reason in History
To doubt everything or to believe everything are two equally convenient solutions; both dispense with the necessity of reflection.
Jules Henri Poincaré (1854 – 1912)
French mathematician and scientist
La Science et l’Hypothèse
To take time to think is to gain time to live.
Nancy Kline
U.S. author
Time to Think
As followers of natural science we know nothing of any relation between thoughts and the brain, except as a gross correlation in time and space.
Charles Scott Sherrington (1857 – 1952)
British physiologist
Man on his Nature
He never is alone that is accompanied with noble thoughts.
John Fletcher (1579 – 1625)
English playwright
“Love’s Cure”
If you make people think they’re thinking, they’ll love you: but if you really make them think, they’ll hate you.
Don Marquis (1878 – 1937)
U.S. journalist and writer
“archy and mehitabel”
Learning without thought is labor lost; thought without learning is perilous.
Confucius (551 BC – 479 BC)
Chinese philosopher, administrator, and moralist
Analects
Mind is the great lever of all things; human thought is the process by which human ends are ultimately answered.
Daniel Webster (1782 – 1852)
U.S. lawyer, politician, and orator, 1825
Address on laying the cornerstone of the Bunker Hill Monument
My thought is me: that is why I can’t stop. I exist by what I think…and I can’t prevent myself from thinking.
Jean-Paul Sartre (1905 – 1980)
French philosopher, playwright, and novelist
Nausea
The Master said, “If one learns from others but does not think, one will be bewildered. If, on the other hand, one thinks but does not learn from others, one will be in peril.”
Confucius (551 BC – 479 BC)
Chinese philosopher, administrator, and moralist
The stream of our thought is like a river. On the whole easy simple flowing predominates…But at intervals, an obstruction, a set-back, a log-jam occurs, stops the current, creates an eddy, and makes things move the other way.
William James (1842 – 1910)
U.S. psychologist and philosopher
The Principles of Psychology
The supreme paradox of all thought is the attempt to discover something that thought cannot think.
Søren Kierkegaard (1813 – 1855)
Danish philosopher
Philosophical Fragments
There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.
William Shakespeare (1564 – 1616)
English poet and playwright
Hamlet Act 2, Scene 2
We do not live to think, but, on the contrary, we think in order that we may succeed in surviving.
José Ortega y Gasset (1883 – 1955)
Spanish writer and philosopher
Partisan Review, “In Search of Goethe from Within”
We must learn to explore all the options and possibilities that confront us in a complex and rapidly changing world…We must dare to think about “unthinkable things” because when things become unthinkable, thinking stops and action becomes mindless.
J. William Fulbright (1905 – 1995)
U.S. educator and politician
Speech to Senate
I’m fat, but I’m thin inside. Has it ever struck you that there’s a thin man inside every fat man, just as they say there’s a statue inside every block of stone?
George Orwell (1903 – 1950)
British writer
Coming Up for Air
Everything has been said, and we are more than seven thousand years of human thought too late.
Jean de La Bruyère (1645 – 1696)
French essayist and moralist
Characters or the Manners of the Age
If man thinks about his physical or moral state, he usually discovers that he is ill.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749 – 1832)
German poet, playwright, and scientist
Sprüche in Prosa (Rudolf Steiner (ed.))
Many people would sooner die than think. In fact they do.
Bertrand Russell (1872 – 1970)
British philosopher and mathematician
To know how to say what others only know how to think is what makes men poets or sages; and to dare to say what others only dare to think makes men martyrs or reformers – or both.
Elizabeth Charles (1828 – 1896)
British writer
Chronicle of the Schönberg-Cotta Family
The great consolation in life is to say what one thinks.
Voltaire (1694 – 1778)
French writer and philosopher
The brain is the means by which we think we think.
Julian Tuwim (1894 – 1953)
Polish poet
The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.
H. P. Lovecraft (1890 – 1937)
U.S. writer
The Call of Cthulhu
No man ever looks at the world with pristine eyes. He sees it edited by a definite set of customs and institutions and ways of thinking.
Ruth Benedict (1887 – 1948)
U.S. anthropologist
Patterns of Culture
A man’s life is what his thoughts make it.
Marcus Aurelius (121 – 180)
Roman emperor and Stoic philosopher
Literature
If you think you are beaten, you are
If you think you dare not, you don’t
If you’d like to win, but think you can’t
it’s almost certain you won’t
If you think you’ll lose, you’ve lost
For out of the world we find
Success begins with a fellows will -
It’s all a state of mind.
If you think you’re outclassed, you are
You’ve got to think high to rise
You’ve got to be sure of yourself before
You can ever win a prize.
Life’s battle don’t always go
To the stronger or faster man
But sooner or later the man who wins
Is the one who thinks he can.
Anonymous
oooOOOooo
When faced with ill-natured people, we should think about the fact that in the past they failed to see the harmfulness of the disturbing emotions which now overwhelm them.
They became accustomed to giving them full reign and this familiarity has carried over into their present life. Nor can they have created much positive energy. All of this accounts for their unpleasant conduct.
If we are constantly surrounded by nice people who treat us well and by those that are in good health, we will lack the opportunity to increase our compassion.
Therefore, when such a rare opportunity presents itself, we recognize its value and cherish it. In this way we use adverse circumstances to support our spiritual practice, which is a central theme of the instructions for training the mind.
People who are difficult to deal with offer us a precious chance to train ourselves to be loving, compassionate and altruistic…That is why they are like a precious treasure.
When I see ill-natured people,
Overwhelmed by wrongdoing and pain,
May I cherish them as something rare,
As though I had found a treasure trove?
From “Eight Verses for Training the mind”
by Geshe Rinchen
oooOOOooo
I have finally kum to the konklusion, that a good reliable sett ov bowels iz wurth more tu a man, than enny quantity ov brains.
Henry Wheeler Shaw (1818 – 1885)
U.S. humorist.
Josh Billings: Hiz Sayings
oooOOOooo
Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deson’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a total mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm.
Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.
Amazing, huh?
oooOOOooo
Summary and Conclusion
There is something essential in man in which it is what it sets him apart from other creatures and creations in this world – the human mind. This is what makes him behave properly, speak sensibly, act due to a certain cause, and stay surviving despite many obstacles and problems he faces in life. Powerful, isn’t it? The power of the human mind is so strong that it makes man possess an ability to mold his personality, create his future, build his destiny, and turn his dreams into reality – a power so real and even greater, better, and more efficient than all other supernatural powers only created by the imagination.
The human mind does all these things, or should I say power, because of its unique characteristics and nature. It is comparable to a mirror in the sense that it is open and vast, reflects in full and precise details, unbiased towards any impression, distinguishes clearly, and is a potential for having everything already accomplished. These mind features help man generate 2 kinds of thoughts: positive and negative. Positive thoughts are healthy, constructive, and good ideas, while negative thoughts are the exact opposite – unhealthy, destructive, and bad ideas being produced by the mind. The mind produces all sorts of things that can be classified into either positive or negative thoughts to the point where there exists a clash between them. They fight against each other to win over the individual’s decision to which these thoughts would be taken into action.
Choosing what kinds of thought to be acted upon depends on the individual’s way of thinking. Positive thinking is the manner of looking at the good and bright things in life. Thus, if he is optimistic, he only entertains positive thoughts, making them succeed over the negative ones. On the other hand, negative thinking is the way of viewing life’s worries, doubts, and fears. Thus, if he is pessimistic, he ignores positive thoughts and minds only the negative ones which are those that won in the clash.
This is also where the power of the mind starts manifesting. Positive thinking creates positive reality in such a way that it molds one’s personality in good shape, makes his future clear, builds his destiny with directions, and turns his sweet dreams into reality. Negative thinking just the same has its power. Only, it creates negative reality – still the exact opposite of positive thinking. It molds one’s personality with defects, makes his future vague, builds his destiny without directions, and turns his nightmares into reality. This is how powerful the mind can be? It’s now up to us what reality we want to face; thus, what kind of thinking should we possess?
Obviously, the positive kind of thinking is what’s more preferable between the two. It will lead us in the right way in establishing a better life. Unfortunately, not all of us are optimistic. In fact, there are a lot of people who lives by the thought “I can’t.” Luckily, negative thinking is not a hopeless case. As spontaneous as our minds can be, we can still train them to ignore negative thoughts and focus only with the positive ones. These ways include starting the day with cheers and smiles, asking for guidance, planning the day ahead, being detached from the outcome, balancing one’s desires, and a lot more. Making these tips a regular habit will cause one to realize that looking at the bright side of life is not at all difficult. It is easy plus it creates great outcomes.
Thinking positively is only the first half of mind power. The other half is turning the positive thoughts into actions. And this is where will power comes in – the one responsible for making things happen. It’s like the voice inside our system that makes us do things in order for our thoughts to become real. Mind and will power is not at all distinct from one other. When one thinks with the mind, the body immediately does actions willingly to attain whatever it is in the mind.
Some common situations that individual finds difficult to face include personality polishing, making many friends, finding true love, reaching goals in life, and eventually, being recognized by the society. In the event that he thinks he does not perform well in such situations, he already concludes, “I can’t” without even trying. Therefore, he really will not. Where, in fact, if he just made the right programming in his mind that he can actually do it, then he will.
See, how powerful the mind is? You do not need to be a Superman or any of the X-men, or simply a superhero to possess a power because you already have a power. All it takes is the right way of thinking, plus the proper attitude, to become a superhero in your own ways. And what is the right way of thinking? It’s simple. It’s “I can. Therefore, I will.”
