Mind quotes

The Sign of the Four, Chapter VI, ‘Sherlock Holmes Gives a Demonstration,’ Project Gutenberg #2097. Holmes tells Watson that after eliminating impossible entry routes, ‘whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth,’ then applies the precept to the locked-room investigation and the hole in the roof. It is fictional detective reasoning in a specific evidential setup, not a universal rule that any improbable remaining hypothesis is automatically true without sound premises or exhaustive elimination.

Meno, around Stephanus 97e–98a, Socrates addressing Meno after the Daedalus-statue comparison. The quoted standalone sentence immediately follows Socrates’s argument that right opinions can guide action but need to be tied down by an account of their cause. Benjamin Jowett English translation, Project Gutenberg #1643. The text and translational phrasing are Jowett’s; the dialogue does not treat every true opinion as worthless.

Theaetetus, around Stephanus 201a–c, Socrates explaining his law-court counterexample while speaking with Theaetetus. Benjamin Jowett English translation, Project Gutenberg #1726. The full sentence is spoken by Socrates in the dramatic dialogue, not from Jowett’s prefatory commentary; no claim is made about modern evidence law.

Mental Efficiency. Bennett explicitly defines the scope of his argument as mental efficiency serving self-development; this is period conduct-of-life writing rather than modern cognitive-science evidence.

A Discourse Concerning the Original and Progress of Satire, represented in Project Gutenberg #2615. 'Satire is of the nature of moral philosophy, as being instructive' occurs inside Dryden's comparison of Persius, Juvenal and Horace, immediately before his account of Persius's Stoic moral teaching. The source does not expose a formal subsection corresponding to the queue parser's incidental 'Discourse C' clue, so this record is routed directly to the reviewed passage without inventing a structural heading. It remains Restoration literary criticism and moral theory rather than a timeless definition binding every modern satire.

Plato, Phaedo, approximately 65c–d; Socrates speaking with Simmias about the philosopher’s pursuit of true being and the limits of bodily perception. Benjamin Jowett English, Project Gutenberg #1658, dramatic text (not the editorial introduction).

Dhammapada 39, Max Müller translation; its religious vocabulary belongs to the text’s discipline of watchful thought and should not be reduced to a clinical claim about anxiety.

On the Improvement of the Understanding, section 12, Project Gutenberg #1016 in R. H. M. Elwes's public-domain English translation. Spinoza says the terms good and evil are applied relatively while introducing his distinction between ordinary relative goods and the true/highest good sought by the unfinished treatise. It remains translation-mediated seventeenth-century methodological philosophy rather than a claim that all moral distinctions are meaningless.

Notes from Underground, Part I, Chapter IX, Constance Garnett translation. The “twice two makes five” line immediately follows the narrator’s complaint about mathematical certainty. Verified against Project Gutenberg #600 and the 1918 Heinemann White Nights and Other Stories Wikisource text.

The Rambler, No. 103.

Letters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, Letter IX; represented Cassell & Company 1889 text in Project Gutenberg #3529. The frozen catalog reads “What a long time it requires to know ourselves, and yet every one has more of this knowledge than he is willing to own,” while the represented witness reads “What a long time it requires to know ourselves; and yet almost every one has more of this knowledge than he is willing to own, even to himself.” This collection retains its legacy shortened wording and explicitly records the omitted “almost” / closing phrase rather than silently rewriting it. Wollstonecraft is reflecting on her own solitude, experience and knowledge of the heart.

On Liberty, Chapter 2; Mill argues for open discussion because opposing views expose weaknesses and sharpen understanding.

Common English rendering of a passage in Meditations; wording varies by translation.

Pudd’nhead Wilson, Chapter XIX epigraph; a Calendar maxim paired with the good-example line.

Essay “Self-Reliance.”

Autobiography, Chapter V; this sentence concludes Mill’s reflection that happiness is better approached indirectly than made the sole object of scrutiny.

The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891 edition, Chapter 17; Lord Henry answers the Duchess of Monmouth’s question “What are you?” with “To define is to limit.”

Ghosts, Act II, R. Farquharson Sharp public-domain translation, Project Gutenberg #2467. Mrs. Alving says “And we are so miserably afraid of the light, all of us” immediately after describing inherited “old dead ideas” and beliefs as ghosts. The light is a dramatic metaphor within a conflict over family, duty and conventional belief, not a clinical claim.

The Wisdom of Life, T. Bailey Saunders translation; Project Gutenberg #10741. The simile compares a developing intellectual life with a slowly formed work of art.

Wake-Robin; Burroughs describes the anticipatory state created by close engagement with birds, seasons, and other natural signs.

On Liberty, Chapter II, Project Gutenberg #34901. Mill’s next argument is epistemic as well as political: suppressing an opinion can deprive everyone of truth or of the clearer understanding created when truth is tested against error.

Laches, around Stephanus 194e–195a, Benjamin Jowett English, Project Gutenberg #1584. Nicias speaks to Laches after Socrates invites an alternative to Laches’s endurance account; subsequent questioning probes the scope of knowledge about fear and hope and leaves the inquiry unresolved. The local dramatic speaker is Nicias, not Plato personally. The wording occurs in the dialogue body, not Jowett’s introduction.

The Madman, “My Friend”; the image follows the claim that the speaker is not identical with what others see.

Out from the Heart, “The Nature and Power of Mind,” represented New York R. F. Fenno & Company edition, Project Gutenberg #74178. Allen contrasts an undisciplined attitude toward experience with a mind disciplined by his moral ideals; the passage is historical conduct-of-life teaching, not medical or therapeutic guidance.

The Problems of Philosophy, Chapter XV, “The Value of Philosophy,” beginning on printed page 242 / scan leaf 246 and continuing onto printed page 243 / scan leaf 247 in the fully validated 1912 Williams & Norgate Wikisource scan, cross-checked against Project Gutenberg #5827. The “no tincture of philosophy” sentence criticizes inherited common-sense, national and habitual prejudices that have not been examined by deliberate reason; it remains Russell’s philosophical argument rather than a diagnosis of people who do not study philosophy.

Of Peace of Mind, section VI, Aubrey Stewart translation (1889), cross-checked against Project Gutenberg #64576 and Wikisource. Seneca orders practical deliberation as an examination of oneself, the proposed business, and the people for whose sake or in whose company it will be done.

The Montessori Elementary Material (1917), Arthur Livingston translation, Part IV, Geometry, Chapter I, “Plane Geometry,” beginning on printed page 260 and continuing onto page 261, Project Gutenberg #42869. Montessori links long spontaneous work with the geometric material to reasoning, character and higher cognitions within her method. The passage remains an early-twentieth-century pedagogical/developmental claim and is not presented as a universally established modern cognitive-effect estimate.

The War of the Worlds, Book One, Chapter I, “The Eve of the War,” Project Gutenberg #36. The sentence opens the novel by establishing the retrospective Martian-invasion premise and the narrator’s contrast between human complacency and extraterrestrial scrutiny. It is speculative-fiction narration, not a factual claim that Earth was observed by Martian intelligence.

The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table, represented by Project Gutenberg #751. The line is spoken in Holmes’s table-talk authorial persona and followed by an Alpine image; it is a literary metaphor for intellectual expansion, not a neurological claim.

The Advancement of Learning, First Book, Project Gutenberg #5500, transcribed from the 1893 Cassell & Company edition. Bacon contrasts impatience of doubt with mature suspension of judgment and then sets out two ways of contemplation before saying that beginning with certainties ends in doubts while beginning with doubts can end in certainties. It remains early-modern epistemological argument rather than a modern experimental rule for scientific method.

The Wisdom of Life, T. Bailey Saunders translation; Project Gutenberg #10741. The claim belongs to Schopenhauer’s philosophical account of personality and subjective experience.

Plato, Theaetetus, approximately 189e–190a; Socrates responding to Theaetetus on what it means for the mind to conceive something. Benjamin Jowett English, Project Gutenberg #1726, main dialogue after the discussion of false belief. The same passage later distinguishes inner speech from externally spoken words.

Table-Talk, Volume I, Essay III, “On the Past and Future,” Project Gutenberg #3020. “The future is yet to come” occurs in Hazlitt’s comparison of the already-existing past with the not-yet-existing future: the full sentence continues that the future “has never been anything.” The retained short excerpt is therefore part of a philosophical contrast, not a prediction, forecasting rule or scientific proposition.

Knickerbocker's History of New York, Book I, Chapter II, Project Gutenberg #13042. Exact-witness review corrects the inherited broad Book I locator: the “mighty soap-bubbles” sentence closes the chapter’s comic survey of competing cosmogonic theories. It belongs to Diedrich Knickerbocker’s satirical pseudo-history and anti-pedantic rhetoric, not Irving rejecting science as a method.

How Substances Can Be Good in Virtue of Their Existence Without Being Absolute Goods (De Hebdomadibus), H. F. Stewart / E. K. Rand 1918 edition, Project Gutenberg #13316. The sentence introduces a metaphysical method by distinguishing mental abstraction from actual separation.

Philippians 4:7 in the King James Version; excerpt before the concluding phrase.

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman; the statement immediately precedes Wollstonecraft’s insistence on reason rather than opinion as authority.

Dr. Montessori's Own Handbook, discussion of sensory didactic material. The statement reflects Montessori’s historical theory of mental development and is not labeled as a current neuroscientific finding.

Cheerfulness as a Life Power; Project Gutenberg #18394. Context notes distinguish motivational rhetoric from modern psychological evidence.

Three Men in a Boat, Chapter I; the narrator explains why every patent-medicine advertisement convinces him he has the advertised disease.

Phaedo, approximately Stephanus 91b–c, Socrates speaking to Simmias and Cebes after their objections to the arguments about the soul’s survival. He specifically asks them to contradict him if they think his reasoning is wrong. This is a complete sentence from Benjamin Jowett’s English translation, Project Gutenberg #1658, in the dialogue after the translator’s separate introduction. Socrates is a character and local speaker; do not attribute the sentence as a direct personal remark by Plato.

Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays, “The Place of Science in a Liberal Education.” Russell continues by describing an attempt to see material frankly, without preconception or wishful bias.

Nature (first published 1836), Chapter I, “Nature,” in James Munroe and Company’s 1849 new-edition witness represented by Project Gutenberg #29433. A scan of the same 1849 J. Munroe edition places “Nature always wears the colors of the spirit” on printed page 9. Emerson is arguing that inward condition colors the experience of landscape; this is nineteenth-century Transcendentalist philosophy, not modern cognitive science, environmental psychology or a clinical claim.

Gulliver's Travels, Part II, Chapter I, Project Gutenberg #829. Lemuel Gulliver reflects that nothing is great or little except by comparison after finding himself tiny among the inhabitants of Brobdingnag, reversing his earlier giant-scale experience in Lilliput. This is fictional first-person satire and perspective play, not a universal philosophical proof.

The Wealth of Nations, Book I, Chapter V; Project Gutenberg #3300. The historical spelling “conveniencies” is retained; this is classical political economy, not a modern household-wealth metric.

“Earth Is Short,” Poems: First Series (1890), Project Gutenberg #12242. The poem proceeds into questions about heaven and God; its religious questions remain questions rather than verified metaphysical claims.

The Art of Literature, section “On Thinking for Oneself,” T. Bailey Saunders translation; Project Gutenberg #10714. The library analogy immediately precedes the sentence.

Walden, Conclusion; Thoreau uses the sentence while arguing that familiar human views do not exhaust reality.

Laws, Book VII, Benjamin Jowett English translation. The Athenian Stranger asks Cleinias this question as they begin discussing how children should be raised; it is dialogue, not a detached modern prescription for health or schooling.

The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, “Proverbs of Hell,” represented by Project Gutenberg #45315 at printed page 16. Gutenberg regularizes the line to “imagined”; Blake’s engraved text is often transcribed with historical spelling and punctuation. The proverb is part of Blake’s deliberately paradoxical infernal-wisdom sequence, not a literal claim that every imagined thing will eventually be proved.