I have always thought the actions of men the best interpreters of their thoughts.
Source: An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, book 1 (1690)
Topic
Thought's paradox appears early in this collection: Einstein wants to know God's thoughts; the rest are mere details. The ambition is extreme — thought aimed at the structure of the universe — and it sets a standard the other quotes negotiate with. Lincoln's rueful observation that books show you your original thoughts aren't very new is the corrective: thought feels private and novel but mostly rehearses what has already been said. Johnson's birthday-thought entry is the most personal: returning years make him think in ways the world conspires to avoid. Hugo's trinity of intelligence, imagination, and memory — wife, mistress, servant — gives thought a domestic sociology that is half taxonomy and half confession. Twain's freedom-of-thought passage reminds us that thought in society is never fully free — it requires the political structure that makes it possible. What the collection traces is the distance between the private experience of thinking — vivid, original-feeling, urgent — and the humbling record that most of what we think has been thought before, and thought better.
I have always thought the actions of men the best interpreters of their thoughts.