551 verses about Thoughts

Among men void of understanding observe the opportunity; But stay continually among the thoughtful.

Give not over your soul to sorrow; And afflict not yourself in your own counsel.

Love your own soul, and comfort your heart: And remove sorrow far from you; For sorrow has destroyed many, And there is no profit therein.

Envy and wrath shorten a man’s days; And care brings old age before the time.

Sum up your speech, many things in few words; Be as one that knows and yet holds his tongue.

There take your pastime, and do what is in your heart; And sin not by proud speech:

A man of counsel will not neglect a thought; A strange and proud man will not crouch in fear, Even after he has done a thing by himself without counsel.

The heart of a fool is as a cartwheel; And his thoughts like a rolling axle tree.

The vision of dreams is as this thing against that, The likeness of a face near a face.

Divinations, and soothsayings, and dreams, are vain: And the heart fancies, as a woman’s in travail.

The mouth tastes meats taken in hunting: So does an understanding heart false speeches.

A froward heart will cause heaviness: And a man of experience will recompense him.

O wicked imagination, whence came you rolling in To cover the dry land with deceitfulness?

For a man’s soul is sometime wont to bring him tidings, More than seven watchmen that sit on high on a watch-tower.

Let reason be the beginning of every work, And let counsel go before every action.

four manner of things do rise up, Good and evil, life and death; And that which rules over them continually is the tongue.

For all things are not profitable for all men, Neither has every soul pleasure in every thing.

Give not your heart to sorrow: Put it away, remembering the last end:

He will keep the discourse of the men of renown, And will enter in amidst the subtleties of parables.

He shall direct his counsel and knowledge, And in his secrets shall he meditate.

Yet more will I utter, which I have thought upon; And I am filled as the moon at the full.

Therefore from the beginning I was resolved, And I thought this, and left it in writing;

The expectation of things to come, and the day of death, Trouble their thoughts, and cause fear of heart;

A little or nothing is his resting, And afterward in his sleep, as in a day of keeping watch, He is troubled in the vision of his heart, As one that has escaped from the front of battle.

Better is a man that hides his foolishness Than a man that hides his wisdom.

No thought escapes him; There is not a word hid from him.

but we walked every man in the imagination of his own wicked heart, to serve strange gods, and to do that which is evil in the sight of the Lord our God.

Yet have we not entreated the favor of the Lord, in turning every one from the thoughts of his wicked heart.

and they shall praise me in the land of their captivity, and think upon my name,

But say you⌃ in your hearts, O Lord, we must worship you.

And the two elders saw her going in every day, and walking; and they were inflamed with love for her.

And they perverted their own mind, and turned away their eyes, that they might not look to heaven, nor remember just judgements.

To-day he shall be lifted up, and to-morrow he shall in no wise be found, because he is returned to his dust, and his thought is perished.

And when they changed the good will they bare him a little before into ill will, because these words of his were, as they thought, sheer madness,

I remembered with affection your honor and good will toward me. Returning out of the region of Persia, and being taken with a noisome sickness, I deemed it necessary to take thought for the common safety of all,

(And if he did it looking to an honorable memorial of gratitude laid up for those who die in godliness, holy and godly was the thought.) Wherefore he made the atoning sacrifice for those who had died, that they might be released from their sin.

And when this message came to Nicanor, he was confounded, and was sore troubled at the thought of annulling the articles that had been agreed upon, the man having done no wrong;

it turns also every thought into jollity and mirth, so that a man remembers neither sorrow nor debt:

His kinsmen, who were reclining with him, wondered at his instability, and thus expressed themselves:

The king, just like another Phalaris, a prey to thoughtlessness, made no account of the changes which his own mind had undergone, issuing in the deliverance of the Jews. He swore a fruitless oath, and determined forthwith to send them to hades, crushed by the knees and feet of the elephants.

In the thirties year after the ruin of the city, I Salathiel (the same is Esdras) was in Babylon, and lay troubled upon my bed, and my thoughts came up over my heart:

And after seven days, so it was, that the thoughts of my heart were very grievous to me again,

And be not hasty in regard of the former times, to think vain things, that you may not hasten in the latter times.

And in the eighth night was my heart vexed within me again, and I began to speak before the Most High.

and why have you not considered in your mind that which is to come, rather than that which is present?

Nevertheless they were not obedient to him; but spoke against him, and imagined for themselves vain things;

And he answered me, and said, Weigh within yourself the things that you have thought, for he that has what is hard to get rejoices over him that has what is plentiful.

The first order, because they have striven with great labor to overcome the evil thought which was fashoned together with them, that it might not lead them astray from life into death.

Then let I my thoughts go wherein I was occupied, and turned me to her,

Then left I the meditations wherein I was, and answered her in anger, and said,

What aileth you? and why are you so disquieted? and why is your understanding troubled, and the thoughts of your heart?

and shall taunt them to their face with their evil thoughts, and the torments wherewith they shall be tormented, which are likened to a flame: and he shall destroy them without labor by the law, which is likened to fire.

Lay up in your heart the signs that I have showed, and the dreams that you have seen, and the interpretations which you have heard:

and let go from the mortal thoughts, cast away from you the burdens of man, put off now your weak nature,

and lay aside the thoughts that are most grievous to you, and haste you to remove from these times.

Behold, the Lord knows all the works of men, their imaginations, their thoughts, and their hearts.

surely he knows your imagination, and what you⌃ think in your hearts. Woe to those who sin, and would fain hide their sin!

As I am going to demonstrate a most philosophical proposition, namely, that religious reasoning is absolute master of the passions, I would willingly advise you to give the utmost heed to philosophy.

If, then, reasoning appears to hold the mastery over the passions which stand in the way of temperance, such as gluttony and lust,

it surely also and manifestly has the rule over the affections which are contrary to justice, such as malice; and of those which are hindrances to manliness, as wrath, and pain, and fear.

How, then, is it, perhaps some may say, that reasoning, if it rule the affections, is not also master of forgetfulness and ignorance? They attempt a ridiculous argument.

For all these, contemning pains even to death, by this contempt, demonstrated that reasoning has command over the passions.

The question, therefore, is, whether reasoning be absolute master of the passions.

Reasoning is, then, intellect accompanied by a life of rectitude, putting foremost the consideration of wisdom.

The leading one of these is prudence; by whose means, indeed, it is that reasoning bears rule over the passions.

Of the passions, pleasure and pain are the two most comprehensive; and they also by nature refer to the soul.

Wrath is an affection, common to pleasure and to pain, if any one will pay attention when it comes upon him.

In the soul it is arrogance, and love of money, and vaingloriousness, and contention, and faithlessness, and the evil eye.

As pleasure and pain are, therefore, two growth of the body and the soul, so there are many offshoots of these passions.

And reasoning, the universal husbandman, purging, and pruning these severally, and binding round, and watering, and transplanting, in every way improves the materials of the morals and affections.

For reasoning is the leader of the virtues, but it is the sole ruler of the passions. Observe then first, through the very things which stand in the way of temperance, that reasoning is absolute ruler of the passions.

on this ground, therefore, the temperate Joseph is praised in that by reasoning, he subdued, on reflection, the indulgence of sense.

For, although young, and ripe for sexual intercourse, he abrogated by reasoning the stimulus of his passions.

Now, then, since it is the law which has forbidden us to desire, I shall much the more easily persuade you, that reasoning is able to govern our lusts, just as it does the affections which are impediments to justice.

And should a man be parsimonious, he is ruled by the law acting through reasoning; so that he does not glean his harvest crops, nor vintage: and in reference to other points we may perceive that it is reasoning that conquers his passions.

And think it not a strange assertion that reasoning can in behalf of the law conquer even enmity.

For the temperate understanding repels all these malignant passions, as it does wrath: for it masters even this.

Thus Moses, when angered against Dathan and Abiram, did nothing to them in wrath, but regulated his anger by reasoning.

For the temperate mind is able, as I said, to be superior to the passions, and to transfer some, and destroy others.

For if reasoning did not possess the power of subduing angry affections, he would not have spoken thus.

And at that time He enthroned above all the holy leader mind, through the medium of the senses.

How, then, a man may say, if reasoning be master of the passions, has it no control over forgetfulness and ignorance?

The argument is exceedingly ridiculous: for reasoning does not appear to bear sway over its own affections, but over those of the body,

Any one of you may not be able to eradicate malice, but reasoning has force to work with you to prevent you yielding to malice.

For reasoning is not an eradicator, but an antagonist of the passions.

But he, though parched with thirst, reasoned that a draught reputed of equal value to blood, would be terribly dangerous to his soul.

Wherefore, setting up reasoning in opposition to his desire, he poured out the draught to God.

For the temperate mind has power to conquer the pressure of the passions, and to quench the fires of excitement,

and to wrestle down the pains of the body, however excessive; and, through the excellency of reasoning, to abominate all the assaults of the passions.

But the occasion now invites us to give an illustration of temperate reasoning from history.

And you will be acting, I think, still more senselessly, if you follow vain conceits about the truth.

For over the ungodly you shall tyrannize; but you shall not lord it over my thoughts about religion, either by your arguments, or through deeds.

Confessedly, therefore, religious reasoning is master of the passions.

For had the passions been superior to reasoning, I would have given them the witness of this mastery.

Ridiculous would it be were it not so; and I prove that reasoning has not only mastered pains, but that it is also superior to the pleasures, and withstands them.

By the spirit of reasoning, and the reasoning of Isaac, he rendered powerless the many-headed instrument.

But perhaps some might say, It is not all who conquer passions, as all do not possess wise reasoning.

But nothing of this kind did the young men say or think when about to be tortured.

And it is impossible to overlook the leadership of reflection: for it gained the victory over both passions and troubles.

How, then, can we avoid according to these men mastery of passion through right reasoning, since they drew not back from the pains of fire?