Thoughts

See Also: IDEAS, INTELLIGENCE

1. Common thoughts on common things, which time is shaking, day by day, like feathers from his wings —John Greenleaf Whittier
2. Each was in his own thoughts, like a sleeping-bag —William Mcllvanney
3. Every thought is like dough; you have only to knead it well; you can make anything you like out of it —Ivan Turgenev
4. Exceptions [to theories] would crowd into her mind like a mob of unruly children —Peter Meinke
5. (He succeeded in starting) a familiar train of thought … like a brackish taste in his mouth —Dorothy Canfield Fisher
6. Great thoughts, like great deeds, need no trumpet —P. J. Bailey
7. Heavy on my mind, like a lump of soggy yeast dough, expanding, suffocating, blotting out all other thoughts —Mignon F. Ballard
8. Her thought ran like a barge along a river —Marianne Wiggins
9. Her thoughts ran round and round like dogs trapped behind a fence —Marge Piercy
10. Her thoughts rose as a veil before her vision —Charles Johnson
11. Her thoughts seemed to lead backwards and forwards like a shuttle weaving the moments, hours, days together in a pattern —Rumer Godden
12. (Booksellers were like dope-pushers to him.) He was like a junkie on thought —Saul Bellow

    Bellow’s simile describes an avid reader.

13. His thoughts like wild animals fed upon themselves —Charles Johnson
14. His thoughts went round and round like rats in a cage —Stephen Vincent Benét
15. Human thought is not a firework, ever shooting off fresh forms and shapes as it burns; it is a tree growing very slowly —Jerome K. Jerome
16. Human thought, like God, makes the world in its own image —Adam Clayton Powell
17. I have thought about you until I feel like a bee —William Diehl
18. I will not go so far as to say that to construct a history of thought without profound study of the mathematical ideas of successive epochs is like omitting Hamlet from the play which (was) named after him … but it is certainly analogous to cutting out the part of Ophelia —Alfred North Whitehead
19. Meditative … like the chirping of a solitary little bird —Eudora Welty
20. Meditative, like a girl trying to decide which dress to wear to a party —O. Henry
21. Men’s thoughts are thin and flimsy like lace; they are themselves pitiable like the lacemakers —Soren Kierkegaard
22. My mind paddles away like a wooden spoon in a bowl of dough —Richard Maynard
23. My thoughts are like sprouts, like sprouts on the branch of your brain —Edna O’Brien
24. My thoughts are whirled like a potter’s wheel —William Shakespeare

    A variation in common use: “My head is spinning like a merry-go-round.”

25. My thoughts turn over like a patchwork quilt —Diane Wakoski
26. Our thoughts are always happening … like leaves floating down a stream or clouds crossing the sky, they just keep coming —Ram Dass and Paul Gorman
27. Preoccupied in following his own thought, like someone out to net a butterfly —William Mcllvanney
28. Reasoning comes as naturally to man as flying to birds —Quintilian
29. Reflective as an old sextant —Richard Ford
30. Ripe in her thought like a fresh apple fallen from the limb —Karl Shapiro
31. Sudden a thought came like a full-blown rose —John Keats
32. Thinking is like loving and dying. Each of us must do it for himself —Josiah Royce
33. Thinking was like a fountain. Once it gets going at a certain pressure, well, it is almost impossible to turn it off —Walter De La Mare
34. Thought ascends, and buds from the brain, as the fruit from the root —Victor Hugo
35. A thought as neat and final as though a ticker tape had fed it into his brain and left off with a row of dots —Kaatje Hurlbut
36. The thought … clanged like pipes in my mind —Scott Spencer
37. The thought kept beating in her like her heart —Wallace Stevens

    The World as Meditation, from which this is taken, follows the simile with this sentence: “The two kept beating together.”

38. The thought [of women] … once it came it usually tended to stay for several hours, filling his noggin like a cloud of gnats —Larry McMurtry
39. Thoughts buzzing in his head like crazy flies —H. E. Bates
40. (His) thoughts drove in like a night-cloud —Stevie Smith
41. Thoughts … fall from him like chantering from an abundant poet —Wallace Stevens
42. Thoughts flickering like heat lightning —F. van Wyck Mason
43. Thoughts floating like light clouds through the upper air of his mind —George Santayana
44. Thoughts … flowing in unison, like a mountain-stream and a lake-stream meeting, but not yet merging, in a single river —George Santayana
45. Thoughts ground each other as millstones grind when there is no corn in between —Rudyard Kipling
46. Thoughts like fleas jump from man to man, but they don’t bite everybody —Anon
47. The thought … slipped through his mind like a dot of quicksilver —Stanley Elkin
48. (Foolish) thoughts play in her mind like firelight and shadow in a dim room —George Garrett
49. Thoughts ran like squirrels in the boy’s head —Conrad Richter
50. Thoughts rising like fish to the fluid surface of his mind —Ellen Glasgow
51. (Lying awake with her) thoughts running round and round inside her skull like trapped mice —Josephine Tey
52. Thoughts spinning and tumbling like a week’s wash —Julia Whedon
53. Thoughts that peel off and fly away at breathless speeds like the last stubborn leaves ripped from wet branches —John Ashbery
54. Thoughts … tied up in knots like snakes, squeezing and suffocating them —V. S. Pritchett
55. Thoughts … twisting like snakes through his brain —Alice Walker
56. Thoughts … untidily stacked like dishes slanting (in) a full sink —Lincoln Kirstein
57. Thoughts … vague and pale, like ghosts —Jean Rhys
58. Thoughts veering through her like a flight of birds —Anon
59. Thoughts went on, coming and going like leaves blown in the wind —Ellen Glasgow
60. Thoughts wheeled like a flight of bats in her mind —Ellen Glasgow
61. Thoughts which moved, like the clouds, slowly, shedding dim yet vivid light —Iris Murdoch
62. Thoughts … whirling around on themselves, like the apocryphal snake seizing its own tail and then devouring itself —Stanley Elkin
63. Unusable and contradictory thoughts filled Quinn’s mind with almost physical duress as though his poor head were a golf ball which, slashed open, shows its severed rubber filaments snapping and racing about in confusion —Thomas McGuane
64. When thought grows old and worn with usage it should, like current coin, be called in, and from the mint of genius, reissued fresh and new —Alexander Smith