Motivational Quotes

Ideas

Ideals are like stars: you will not succeed in touching them with your hands, but like the seafaring man on the ocean desert of waters, you choose them as your guides, and following them, you reach your destiny.

- Carl Schurz

Best Quotes about Ideas

To have a great idea, have a lot of them.

Edison, Thomas A.

A new idea is first condemned as ridiculous and then dismissed as trivial, until finally, it becomes what everybody knows.

James, William

So long as new ideas are created, sales will continue to reach new highs.

Brande, Dorothea

An idea is a putting truth in check-mate.

Gasset, Jose Ortega Y

Ideas are, in truth, force.

James, Henry

Think for thyself one good idea, but known to be thine own, is better than a thousand gleaned from fields by others sown.

Wilson, Alexander

An idea is worth nothing if it has no champion.

In every great time there is some one idea at work which is more powerful than any other, and which shapes the events of the time and determines their ultimate issues.

Bacon, Francis

An idea is not responsible for the people who believe in it.

Marquis, Don

10.

It is not always by plugging away at a difficulty and sticking to it that one overcomes it; often it is by working on the one next to it. Some things and some people have to be approached obliquely, at an angle.

Gide, Andre

11.

Great ideas originate in the muscles.

Edison, Thomas A.

12.

It is a lesson which all history teaches wise men, to put trust in ideas, and not in circumstances.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

13.

People find ideas a bore because they do not distinguish between live ones and stuffed ones on a shelf.

Pound, Ezra

14.

The vitality of thought is in adventure. Ideas won't keep. Something must be done about them. When the idea is new, its custodians have fervor, live for it, and if need be, die for it.

Whitehead, Alfred North

15.

Such as take lodgings in a head that's to be let unfurnished.

Butler, Samuel

16.

An idea is a feat of association, and the height of it is a good metaphor.

Frost, Robert

17.

Don't worry about people stealing an idea. If it's original, you will have to ram it down their throats.

Howard Aiken

18.

It's easy to come up with new ideas; the hard part is letting go of what worked for you two years ago, but will soon be out-of-date.

Oech, Roger Von

19.

Do not follow the ideas of others, but learn to listen to the voice within yourself. Your body and mind will become clear and you will realize the unity of all things.

Dogen

20.

No one has ever had an idea in a dress suit.

Sir Frederick G. Banting

21.

Ideas are a capital that bears interest only in the hands of talent.

Rivarol, Antoine

22.

It is ideas, not vested interests, which are dangerous for good or evil.

Keynes, John Maynard

23.

Ideas... they have the power

Hill, Napoleon

24.

Whenever I hear people talking about liberal ideas, I am always astounded that men should love to fool themselves with empty sounds. An idea should never be liberal; it must be vigorous, positive, and without loose ends so that it may fulfill its divine mission and be productive. The proper place for liberality is in the realm of the emotions.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

25.

Ideas won't work unless you do.

26.

Every revolutionary idea seems to evoke three stages of reaction. They may be summed up by the phrases: (1) It's completely impossible. (2) It's possible, but it's not worth doing. (3) I said it was a good idea all along.

Clarke, Arthur C.

27.

But how shall I get ideas? Keep your wits open! Observe! Observe! Study! Study! But above all, Think! Think! And when a noble image is indelibly impressed upon the mind -- Act!

Marden, Orison Swett

28.

Not the one who has many ideas, but the one who has a single conviction may become a great person.

Cotvos

29.

Ideas move fast when their time comes.

Heilbrun, Carolyn

30.

Good ideas are not adopted automatically. They must be driven into practice with courageous patience.

Hyman Rickover

31.

Concepts, like individuals, have their histories and are just as incapable of withstanding the ravages of time as are individuals. But in and through all this they retain a kind of homesickness for the scenes of their childhood.

Kierkegaard, S°ren

32.

Man's mind, stretched by a new idea, never goes back to its original dimensions.

Holmes, Oliver Wendell

33.

This is my answer to the gap between ideas and action - I will write it out.

Hortense Calisher

34.

Ideas that enter the mind under fire remain there securely and for ever.

Trotsky, Leon

35.

I'm not impressed with the power of a corporate president. I am impressed with the power of ideas.

Mason, Ken

36.

In Texas, years ago, almost all of the oil came from surface operations. Then someone got the idea that there were greater sources of supply deeper down. A well was drilled five thousand feet deep. The result? A gusher. Too many of us operate on the surface. We never go deep enough to find supernatural resources. The result is, we never operate at our best. More time and investment is involved to go deep but a gusher will pay off.

Montapert, Alfred A.

37.

To die for an idea; it is unquestionably noble. But how much nobler it would be if men died for ideas that were true!

H. L. Mencken

38.

He was distinguished for ignorance; for he had only one idea, and that was wrong.

Disraeli, Benjamin

39.

A handsome parson is fit for nothing but ti put ideas into the young woman's heads.

Judith Brocklehurst

40.

Many ideas are good for a limited time -- not forever.

Townsend, Robert

41.

Ideas are invented only as correctives to the past. Through repeated rectification of this kind one may hope to disengage an idea that is valid.

Bachelard, Gaston

42.

I had a monumental idea this morning, but I didn't like it.

Samuel Goldwyn

43.

Everyone is a genius at least once a year. The real geniuses simply have their bright ideas closer together.

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

44.

I said to myself, I have things in my head that are not like what anyone has taught me - shapes and ideas so near to me - so natural to my way of being and thinking that it hasn't occurred to me to put them down. I decided to start anew, to strip away what I had been taught.

Georgia O'Keeffe

45.

Ideas are fatal to caste.

Forster, Edward M.

46.

Ideas control the world.

Garfield, James A.

47.

When an idea reaches critical mass there is no stopping the shift its presence will induce.

Williamson, Marianne

48.

Everything begins with an idea.