Thinking well depends on rest and play.
“The best and freshest thinking often takes place when the mind is at ease, not trying to think but simply, say, paying attention or reflecting, not so much pursuing ideas down endless corridors as letting ideas pursue us, being receptive, letting reality come to us” (80).
Thinking well depends on revelation.
“For the ‘truth’ is that, save God alone, no person—intellectual or otherwise—has all the truth. The one who thinks so is not only insufferable but just plain wrong” (82).
Thinking well depends on risk.
“If we stick with our self-imposed limitations, we will never know what we can do” (107).
Thinking well depends on honesty.
“The real problem, however, is not the charge that you are arrogant but the distinct possibility that you actually are. Self-examination is always in order” (122).
Thinking well depends on attention.
“Solitude without attention is somnolence” (130).
Buy the book.
Habits of the Mind: Intellectual Life As a Christian Calling
James W. Sire
InterVarsity Press (September 2000)
