Thinking

I try not to speak more clearly than I think.

Niels Bohr, quoted in Richard Rhodes, The making of the atomic bomb, New York, 1986, p. 77

I have only met a couple of people in my life who really understand how to ’think’; not fantasize or free-associate unconsciously, but volitionally initiate a process that solves a problem.

Anthony Minghella and Timothy Bricknell, Minghella on Minghella, London ; New York, 2005, p. ix

Nun aber kann man sich zwar willkürlich appliciren auf Lesen und Lernen; auf das Denken hingegen eigentlich nicht. Dieses nämlich muß, wie das Feuer durch einen Luftzug, angefacht und unterhalten werden durch irgend ein Interesse am Gegenstande desselben[.]

Arthur Schopenhauer, Parerga und paralipomena: Kleine philosophische Schriften, Leipzig, 1874

[I]n my specially isolated cell I was, to a very considerable extent, undisturbed, especially in the first five months after the sentence when I was in the dark and therefore necessarily inactive physically. In the dark there is little one can do except thjink, and the absence of anything to divert one’s thoughts gives them an intensity seldom experienced in normal conditions.

, Seven Years Solitary by Bone Edith - AbeBooks, p. 103

Like playing the violin or the piano, thinking needs everyday practice[.]

Charlie Chaplin, My autobiography, New York, N.Y., U.S.A, 1964, p. 251