We cannot always control our thoughts, but we can control our words, and repetitionimpresses the subconscious, and we are then master of the situation.
A cup is useful only when it is empty; and a mind that is filled with beliefs, with dogmas, with assertions, with quotations, is really an uncreative mind.
Conflictis the gadfly of thought. It stirs us to observation and memory. Itinstigates to invention. It shocks us out of sheeplikepassivity, and sets us at noting and contriving.
