Conflict is the gadfly of thought. It stirs us to observation and memory. It instigates to invention. It shocks us out of sheeplike passivity, and sets us at noting and contriving. (John Dewey)

Conflict is the gadfly of thought. It stirs us to observation and memory. It instigates to invention. It shocks us out of sheeplike passivity, and sets us at noting and contriving.

Related topics

conflict contriving gadfly invention memory noting observation passivity thought

Related quotes

[U]gliness of the right sort is a kind of beauty. It has some of the best qualities of beauty-it attracts observation and fixes the memory.

Jean Ingelow

Time, which wears down and diminishes all things, augments and increases good deeds, because a good turn liberally offered to a reasonable man grows continually through noble thought and memory.

François Rabelais

On the day I was born, or possibly on one of the following days, my father went on a walk in the forested hills and thought of a name for me. His first son was called Daniel, and Samuel in memory of one of his forefathers.

Immanuel Velikovsky

And it sort of jogged a memory of something that I read at school and I read it, and I thought God this is it. So you never can tell. I could find something this afternoon.

Andrew Lloyd Webber

Prior to the invention of writing, our ancestors had to rely on memory, sketches, or music to encode and preserve important information.

Daniel Levitin