John Steinbeck Mind Quotations

These words dropped into my childish mind as if you should accidentally drop a ring into a deep well. I did not think of them much at the time, but there came a day in my life when the ring was fished up out of the well, good as new.

I have come to believe that a great teacher is a great artist and that there are as few as there are any other great artists. Teaching might even be the greatest of the arts since the medium is the human mind and spirit.

Texas is a state of mind. Texas is an obsession. Above all, Texas is a nation in every sense of the word. And there's an opening convey of generalities. A Texan outside of Texas is a foreigner.

She had a dour Presbyterian mind and a code of morals that pinned down and beat the brains out of nearly everything that was pleasant to do.

I have said that Texas is a state of mind, but I think it is more than that. It is a mystique closely approximating a religion.

Texas is not a state - it's a state of mind.

And now the forces marshaled around the concept of the group have declared a war of extermination on that preciousness, the mind of man.

I can understand why a system built on a pattern must try to destroy the free mind, for that is one thing which can by inspection destroy such a system. Surely I can understand this, and I hate it and I will fight against it to preserve the one thing that separates us from the uncreative beasts. If the glory can be killed, we are lost.

Failure is a state of mind. It's like one of those sand traps an ant lion digs. You keep sliding back. Takes one hell of a jump to get out of it.

Sometimes a kind of glory lights up the mind of a man.

The craft of writing is the art of penetrating other minds with the figures that are in your own mind.

The last clear definite function of men—muscles aching to work, minds aching to create beyond the single need—this is man.

Sometimes when she was alone, and she knew she was alone, she permitted her mind to play in a garden, and she smiled.

A good writer always works at the impossible.There is another kind who pulls in his horizons, drops his mind as one lowers rifle sights.

The camera need not be a cold mechanical device. Like the pen, it is as good as the man who uses it. It can be the extension of mind and heart...

Texas is a state of mind. Texas is an obsession. Above all else, Texas is a nation in every sense of the word.

I don’t mind getting smacked on the chin. I just don’t want to get nibbled to death. There’s a difference.

Muscles aching to work, minds aching to create - this is man.

This I believe: That the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world. And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected. And this I must fight against: any idea, religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual.