Have you ever found a sign, quote, or phrase that captures the essence of what you were thinking? We all have!

Whether we stumble upon these serendipitous phrases or they come to us in times of reflection, having words to define our thoughts can be a real confidence booster. Here we’ve rounded up 100 quotes about thinking – from inspiring and powerful phrases to clever talking points.

Get your inspirational fuel flowing and use these quotes to give yourself and others the courage to pursue their ambitions, dreams, and goals.

100 Inspiring Quotes, Sayings & Captions About Thinking

1. A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices. – William James
2. Clear thinking requires courage rather than intelligence. – Thomas Szasz
3. Did you ever stop to think, and forget to start again? – Winnie the Pooh
4. Few minds wear out; more rust out. – Christian N. Bovee
5. The more you know, the more you realize you don’t know. – Aristotle
6. It is well for people who think, to change their minds occasionally in order to keep them clean. – Luther Burbank
7. Change the way you look at things and the things you look at change. – Wayne Dyer
8. Language shapes the way we think and determines what we can think about. – Benjamin Lee Whorf
9. Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason why so few engage in it. – Henry Ford
10. Misery is almost always the result of thinking. – Joseph Joubert
11. Most of the mistakes in thinking are inadequacies of perception rather than mistakes of logic. – Edward de Bono
12. Thought is the blossom; language the bud; action the fruit behind it. –  Ralph Waldo Emerson
13. What we think, we become. – Buddha
14. A bookstore is one of the only pieces of evidence we have that people are still thinking about. – Jerry Seinfeld
15. A good listener is usually thinking about something else. – Kin Hubbard
16. A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices. – William James
17. The power of imagination makes us infinite. – John Muir
18. A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right. – Thomas Paine
19. Your thoughts become things. – Mike Dooley
20. Imagination is more important than knowledge. – Albert Einstein
21. A man is but the product of his thoughts what he thinks, he becomes. – Mahatma Gandhi
22. If you can change your mind, you can change your life. – William James
23. Think big and don’t listen to people who tell you it can’t be done. Life’s too short to think small. – Tim Ferriss
24. Because you are alive, everything is possible. – Thich Nhat Han
25. The purpose of life is to be defeated by greater and greater things. – Reiner Maria Rilke
26. Much of the secret of life consists in knowing how to laugh, and also how to breathe – Alan Watts
27. Suffering is part of our training program for becoming wise. – Ram Dass
28. There are some things so serious that you have to laugh at them. – Niels Bohr
29. The world is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper – Bertrand Russe 
30. A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort. – Herm Albright
31. People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing – that’s why we recommend it daily. – Zig Ziglar
32. Positive anything is better than negative nothing. – Elbert Hubbard
33. The stone age didn’t end because the world ran out of stones. – Niels Bohr
34. Imperfections are not inadequacies; they are reminders that we’re all in this together – Brene Brown
35. Your beliefs become your thoughts, Your thoughts become your words, Your words become your actions, Your actions become your habits, Your habits become your values, Your values become your destiny. – Mahatma Gandhi
36. May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you’re wonderful and don’t forget to make some art – write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself. – Neil Gaiman
37. The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitudes. – William James
38. Go out into the world where your heart calls you. The blessings will come, I promise you that. I wish for you the insight to recognize the blessings as such, and sometimes it’s hard. But you’ll know it’s a blessing if you are enriched and transformed by the experience. So be ready. There are great souls and teachers everywhere. It’s your job to recognize them. – Sy Montgomery
39. There is always light. If only we’re brave enough to see it. If only we’re brave enough to be it. – Amanda Gorman
40. Where there’s hope, there’s life. It fills us with fresh courage and makes us strong again. – Anne Frank
41. What we hope ever to do with ease, we must learn first to do with diligence. – Samuel Johnson
42. It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. – Aristotle
43. The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today. – Franklin D. Roosevelt
44. The school is the last expenditure upon which America should be willing to economize. – Franklin D. Roosevelt
45. If you think education is expensive, try ignorance. – Derek Bok
46. It is today we must create the world of the future. – Eleanor Roosevelt
47. It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge. – Albert Einstein
48. The objective of education is to prepare the young to educate themselves throughout their lives. – Robert Maynard Hutchin
49. An education isn’t how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It’s being able to differentiate between what you do know and what you don’t. – Anatole France
50. Do not go where the path may lead; go instead where there is no path and leave a trail. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
51. Education would be much more effective if its purpose was to ensure that by the time they leave school every boy and girl should know how much they do not know, and be imbued with a lifelong desire to know it. – William Haley
52. Do not confine your children to your own learning for they were born in another time. – Hebrew Proverb
53. Too often we give children answers to remember rather than problems to solve. – Roger Lewin
54. The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend. – Henri Bergson
55. If you think you can, you can. And if you think you can’t, you’re right. – Mary Kay Ash
56. The main tenet of design thinking is empathy for the people you’re trying to design for. Leadership is exactly the same thing – building empathy for the people that you’re entrusted to help. – David Kelley
57. The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones. – Confucius
58. You can’t build a reputation on what you are going to do. – Henry Ford
59. Don’t let yesterday take up too much of today. – Will Rogers
60. We spend a lot time designing the bridge, but not enough time thinking about the people who are crossing it. – Dr. Prabhjot Singh
61. Failure is an option here. If things are not failing, you are not innovating enough. –  Elon Musk
62. Human-centered design is a philosophy, not a precise set of methods, but one that assumes that innovation should start by getting close to users and observing their activities. – Donald A. Norman
63. It’s not ‘us versus them’ or even ‘us on behalf of them.’ For a design thinker, it has to be ‘us with them’. – Tim Brown
64. Fail often so you can succeed sooner. – Tom Kelley
65. It’s through mistakes that you can grow. You have to get bad in order to get good. -Paula Scher
66. Don’t underestimate the ripple effect of what you do.  – Leila Janah
67. We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them. – Albert Einstein
68. A good idea is something that does not solve just one single problem but rather can solve multiple problems at once.  –  Shigeru Miyamoto
69. Creativity is to discover a question that has never been asked. If one brings up an idiosyncratic question, the answer he gives will necessarily be unique as well. -Kenya Hara
70. Creativity comes from a conflict of ideas.  –  Donatella Versace
71. We’re experimenting with new methods and techniques, we’re seeing lots of crazy ideas (plants that Tweet! social networking around virtual farms!), and we’re seeing culture being shaped by the very things we’re designing. – Daniel Brown
72. It’s really just a matter of time and resources; if you have those then anything is possible. – Hironobu Sakaguchi
73. It’s your inner truth. If you’re doing your best work and you think it’s work that helps other people, who can tear you down?  – Brit Morin
74. Our life is what our thoughts make it. – Marcus Aurelius
75. I am the greatest, I said that even before I knew I was. – Muhammad Ali
76. If you hear a voice within you say, ‘You cannot paint,’ then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced. – Vincent Van Gogh
77. Attitude is a choice. Happiness is a choice. Optimism is a choice. Kindness is a choice. Giving is a choice. Respect is a choice. Whatever choice you make makes you. Choose wisely. – Roy T. Bennett
78. Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve. – Napoleon Hill
79. You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, and find your eternity in each moment. Fools stand on their island of opportunities and look toward another land. There is no other land; there is no other life but this. – Henry David Thoreau
80. Wherever you go, no matter what the weather, always bring your own sunshine. – Anthony J. D’Angelo
81. If you put negative thoughts into your mind, you’re going to get negative results. It’s just as true that if you put positive thoughts in your mind, you will be a recipient of positive results. – Lou Holtz
82. When you go through a negative situation, don’t think about it. Make it positive. – Yoko Ono
83. Promise yourself that you will talk about health, happiness, and prosperity as often as possible. – John Wooden
84. Human beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds, can change the outer aspects of their lives. – William James, psychologist, philosopher
85. We become what we think about. – Earl Nightingale
86. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives. – Henry David Thoreau
87. The greatest source of happiness is the ability to be grateful at all times. – Zig Ziglar
88. Always turn a negative situation into a positive situation. – Michael Jordan
89. People who express their thoughts aggressively are not necessarily right.
90. If something appeared in a newspaper, magazine, or on TV, it does not mean that it is always true
91. What other think do not determine who I am.
92. I am not bound by other people’s thoughts and opinions.
93. It requires inner strength not to respond to everything people say.
94. You let people control you and play with your ropes when you respond with anger to ideas that you do not accept. Staying calm, without the need to respond shows inner strength and being free.
95. People with self-confidence are not afraid of what others think.
96. You don’t need to be part of the collective mindset. You can create different thoughts and ideas.
97. What seems true for someone doesn’t mean that it has to be true for you.
98. A great number of people blend with the group that feels they are part of. They do not show individuality.
99. When I think of you, I think of kindness, wisdom, and love. Thanks for being you. – Sam Crow
100. I think I’d miss you even if we never met. – The Wedding Date
101. Maybe if you can’t get somebody out of your head, they’re supposed to be there. – Unknown

Thinking is an important part of life, allowing us to make informed decisions and contemplate our choices. After reading through these quotes about thinking, I have come to the conclusion that it is vital to think deeply before making a decision.

Thinking can bring us closer to understanding ourselves and the world around us in various ways. We should never underestimate its power by taking shortcuts or rushing our choices.

Taking time to truly reflect on the impact of our actions will empower us as individuals and help create a better future for all of us.