Theme

Philosophy quotes about mind

Philosophy of mind asks what consciousness, thought, and mental life are—and how they relate to body and world.

Why this theme matters

Dualism, materialism, functionalism, and phenomenological descriptions compete. AI renews old questions about understanding and experience.

In the history of philosophy

From Aristotle’s psyche and Buddhist analyses of mind to Descartes, Wittgenstein, and cognitive science, the theme spans metaphysics and epistemology.

Thinkers in this collection

Arthur Schopenhauer , Bertrand Russell , Dhammapada , Diamond Sutra , Wang Yangming , Boethius , Baruch Spinoza , John Locke

Frequently asked questions

What is the mind in philosophy?

It names the locus of thought, feeling, and consciousness—whether as soul, brain process, or patterned activity.

Can machines have minds?

That depends on what mind requires: behavior, information processing, or subjective experience. The debate remains open.

Where are philosophy quotes about mind?

This theme collects English passages on thought, awareness, and inner life.

  1. Reading means thinking with someone else's head instead of one's own.
  2. Envy is itself a terrible obstacle to happiness.
  3. Mind precedes all mental states; mind is their chief; they are mind-made.
  4. Give rise to a mind that abides nowhere.
  5. Mind is principle. Are there affairs or principles outside the mind?
  6. Nothing is miserable unless you think it so.
  7. We feel and know by experience that we are eternal.
  8. Let us then suppose the mind to be, as we say, white paper, void of all characters.
  9. Best for a human being is to live life with as much cheerfulness and as little distress as possible.
  10. Before you looked at this flower, it and your mind alike were still; when you come to look, its colors suddenly become clear.
  11. You must change your mind, not the sky.
  12. The soul is a substance; it is not a body, nor is it impressed in a body as a form in matter in the way of bodily forms.
  13. The human mind, insofar as it is a simple substance distinct from the body, can neither suffer from the body nor be confused with it, but by itself, according to its own operations, understands and wills.
  14. Sensation does not belong to the mind; living and sensing belong to the organic body.
  15. To philosophize soberly and accurately is to distinguish carefully what belongs to the mind from what belongs to the living body.
  16. We discover ourselves in the cold — and in the same moment we discover the cold in ourselves — before any sharp division of subject and object.
  17. It is not the wind that moves; it is not the flag that moves; it is your mind that moves.
  18. It is evident to any one who takes a survey of the objects of human knowledge, that they are either ideas actually imprinted on the senses; or else such as are perceived by attending to the passions and operations of the mind; or lastly, ideas formed by help of memory and imagination.
  19. That neither our thoughts, nor passions, nor ideas formed by the imagination, exist without the mind, is what everybody will allow.
  20. A spirit is one simple, undivided, active being: as it perceives ideas, it is called understanding, and as it produces or otherwise operates about ideas, it is called will.