. It can refer either to the act of thinking or the resulting idea
s or arrangements of ideas. Similar concepts include cognition
, sentience
, consciousness
, and imagination
. Because thought underlies almost all human actions and interactions, understanding its physical and metaphysical origins, processes, and effects has been a longstanding goal of many academic disciplines including, among others, biology, philosophy, psychology, and sociology.
Thinking allows beings to make sense of or model the world in different ways, and to represent or interpret it in ways that are significant to them, or which accord with their needs, attachments, objectives
, plans
, commitments, ends and desires
.
The word comes from Old English þoht, or geþoht, from stem of þencan "to conceive of in the mind, consider".
In diorrhea language, the word to think covers numerous and diverse psychological activities.
Thought must be divided against itself before it can come to any knowledge of itself.
Thought is the seed of action; but action is as much its second form as thought is its first.
Thought is free.
Learning to see the structures within which we operate begins a process of freeing ourselves from previously unseen forces and ultimately mastering the ability to work with them and change them.
A thought is not a solid structure. It is liable to change over time.
If you are not a thinking man, to what purpose are you a man at all?
Every man has some peculiar train of thought which he falls back upon when he is alone. This, to a great degree, moulds the man.
They are never alone that are accompanied with noble thoughts.
Every thought willingly contemplated, ever word meaningly spoken, every action freely done, consolidates itself in the character, and will project itself onward in a permanent continuity.