“Do you think in words or pictures?” “I think in thoughts”.

The line is presented as a witty retort in an anecdote: someone asks a prominent intellectual whether their thinking is primarily verbal or visual, and the reply reframes the question by asserting that thinking consists of thoughts rather than words or images. The attribution to Keynes appears in much later retellings, relayed via Isaiah Berlin to Daniel Dennett, without a contemporaneous record from Keynes himself.

The response sidesteps a forced choice between inner speech and mental imagery, implying that both are representations and that the underlying unit of cognition is something more abstract. It also highlights that labeling the medium of thought doesn’t fully explain how thinking carries meaning.

“Do you think in words or pictures?” “I think in thoughts.”

“Do you think in words or images?” “I think in thoughts.”