Motivational Quotes

Ideas

There are well-dressed foolish ideas, just as there are will-dressed fools.

- Chamfort, Sebastien-Roch Nicolas De

Best Quotes about Ideas

It is the nature of thought to find its way into action.

Bovee, Christian Nevell

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

Butler, Samuel

Some people entertain ideas; others put them to work.

Lots of people know a good thing the minute the other fellow sees it first.

Hodges, Job E.

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

Judith Brocklehurst

It's easy to come up with new ideas; the hard part is letting go of what worked for you two years ago, but will soon be out-of-date.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

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

Cotvos

The ideas of a time are like the clothes of a season: they are as arbitrary, as much imposed by some superior will which is seldom explicit. They are utilitarian and political, the instruments of smooth-running government.

Lewis, Wyndham

Ideas move fast when their time comes.

Heilbrun, Carolyn

10.

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

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

11.

Once I thought ideas were exceptions not the rule. That is not so. Ideas are so plentiful that they ride by on air. You've only to reach out and snatch one...

Mckeun, Rod

12.

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

Trotsky, Leon

13.

It's very good for an idea to be commonplace. The important thing is that a new idea should develop out of what is already there so that it soon becomes an old acquaintance. Old acquaintances aren't by any means always welcome, but at least one can't be mistaken as to who or what they are.

Fitzgerald, Penelope

14.

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

James, William

15.

The most important thing in science is not so much to obtain new facts as to discover new ways of thinking about them.

Bragg, Sir William

16.

Great people talk about ideas. Small people talk about other people.

Gibson, Tobias S.

17.

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

18.

An idea is a point of departure and no more. As soon as you elaborate it, it becomes transformed by thought.

Picasso, Pablo

19.

Getting an idea should be like sitting down on a pin. It should make you jump up and do something.

Simpson, E. L.

20.

Take the obvious, add a cupful of brains, a generous pinch of imagination, a bucketful of courage and daring, stir well and bring to a boil.

Baruch, Bernard M.

21.

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.

22.

Everything begins with an idea.

Nightingale, Earl

23.

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

Keynes, John Maynard

24.

A man is not necessarily intelligent because he has plenty of ideas, any more than he is a good general because he has plenty of soldiers.

Chamfort, Sebastien-Roch Nicolas De

25.

If you are possessed by an idea, you find it expressed everywhere, you even smell it.

Mann, Thomas

26.

There are more ideas on earth than intellectuals imagine. And these ideas are more active, stronger, more resistant, more passionate than politicians think. We have to be there at the birth of ideas, the bursting outward of their force: not in books expressing them, but in events manifesting this force, in struggles carried on around ideas, for or against them. Ideas do not rule the world. But it is because the world has ideas... that it is not passively ruled by those who are its leaders or those who would like to teach it, once and for all, what it must think.

Foucault, Michel

27.

A mind once stretched by a new idea never regains its original dimensions.

Holmes, Oliver Wendell

28.

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

29.

Sometimes the best, and only effective, way to kill an idea is to put it into practice.

Harris, Sidney J.

30.

The best way to have a good idea is to have a lot of ideas.

Pauling, Linus

31.

It first appeared like a crazy idea. It turned out he had a great idea.

Munro, J. Richard

32.

Ideas are, in truth, force.

James, Henry

33.

Nothing dies harder than a bad idea.

Cameron, Julie

34.

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

Hortense Calisher

35.

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

Townsend, Robert

36.

An idea is a putting truth in check-mate.

Gasset, Jose Ortega Y

37.

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

38.

What you need is an idea.

Lear, William P.

39.

Good ideas and innovations must be driven into existence by courageous patience.

Rickover, Hyman G.

40.

The simple joy of taking an idea into one's own hands and giving it proper form, that's exciting.

Nelson, George

41.

An idea is worth nothing if it has no champion.

42.

Not just in commerce but in the world of ideas too our age is putting on a veritable clearance sale. Everything can be had so dirt cheap that one begins to wander whether in the end anyone will want to make a bid.

Kierkegaard, S°ren

43.

Get your ideas on paper and study them. Do not let them go to waste!

Brown, Les

44.

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

Howard Aiken

45.

An invasion of armies can be resisted, but not an idea whose time has come.

Victor Hugo

46.

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

47.

There are only two kinds of scholars; those who love ideas and those who hate them.

Emile Chartier

48.

You have to hatch ideas -- and then hitch them.

Everson, Ray D.

49.

Ideas won't work unless you do.

50.

Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen.

John Steinbeck