Profound quotes
1.1K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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"It is customary to complain of the bustle and strenuousness of our epoch. But in truth the chief mark of our epoch is a profound laziness and fatigue; and the fact is that the real laziness is the cause of the apparent bustle."
"Ultimately, 'how's it going?' is the most futile and the most profound of questions. To answer it precisely, one would have to make a scrupulous inventory of one's psyche, considering each aspect in detail. No matter: we have to say 'fine' out of politeness and civility and change the subject, or else ruminate the question during our whole lives and reserve our reply for afterward."
"I might repeat to myself . . . a list of quotations from minds profound - if I can remember any of the damn things."
"The name that no human research can discover-- But THE CAT HIMSELF KNOWS, and will never confess. When you notice a cat in profound meditation, The reason, I tell you, is always the same: His mind is engaged in a rapt contemplation Of the thought, of the thought, of the thought of his name: His ineffable effable Effanineffable Deep and inscrutable singular Name."
"No political party can possibly lead a great revolutionary movement to victory unless it possesses revolutionary theory and knowledge of history and has a profound grasp of the practical movement."
"Beware of that profound enemy of the free enterprise system who pays lip-service to free competition, but also labels every antitrust prosecution as a persecution."
"Every man, when he gets quiet, when he becomes desperately honest with himself, is capable of uttering profound truths. We all derive from the same source. There is no mystery about the origin of things. We are all part of creation, all kings, all poets, all musicians; we have only to open up, only to discover what is already there."
"How many people make themselves abstract to appear profound. The most useful part of abstract terms are the shadows they create to hide a vacuum."
"How many people become abstract as a way of appearing profound."
"I go on many thrilling adventures and wondrous, profound escapades through books."
"Let him who cannot be alone beware of community... Let him who is not in community beware of being alone... Each by itself has profound perils and pitfalls. One who wants fellowship without solitude plunges into the void of words and feelings, and the one who seeks solitude without fellowship perishes in the abyss of vanity, self-infatuation and despair."
"If one should desire to know whether a kingdom is well governed, if its morals are good or bad, the quality of its music will furnish the answer."
"This [philanthropy] work is even more fascinating. It requires us to think harder about how we build partnerships, who we get behind. And yet we get to see progress that in some ways is even more profound than the great advances that digital technology has provided."
"Thought is the strongest thing we have. Work done by true and profound thought - that is a real force."
"I am what a romantic movie is to a profound thinker - a mere diversion, a comic interlude, something that is soon forgotten."
"Yet it is in this loneliness that the deepest activities begin. It is here that you discover act without motion, labor that is profound repose, vision in obscurity, and, beyond all desire, a fulfillment whose limits extend to infinity."
"The human mind delights in finding pattern—so much so that we often mistake coincidence or forced analogy for profound meaning. No other habit of thought lies so deeply within the soul of a small creature trying to make sense of a complex world not constructed for it."
"A woman whom we need and who makes us suffer elicits from us a whole gamut of feelings far more profound and vital than a man of genius who interests us."
"The most profound joy has more of gravity than of gaiety in it."
"I've spent the last 50 years or so steeping myself in the world's religions, and I've done my homework. I've gone to each of the world's eight great religions and sought out the most profound scholars I could find, and I've apprenticed myself to them and actually practiced each faith."
