Motivational Quotes

Ideas

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.

Best Quotes about Ideas

A crank is someone with a new idea -- until it catches on.

Twain, Mark

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

Harris, Sidney J.

There is no prosperity, trade, art, city, or great material wealth of any kind, but if you trace it home, you will find it rooted in a thought of some individual man. --

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

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

Mason, Ken

An idea discovered is much better possessed.

Young

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

Every new idea is an impossibility until it is born.

Brown, Ron

Many ideas grow better when transplanted into another mind than in the one where they sprung up.

Holmes, Oliver Wendell

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

Howard Aiken

10.

You look at any giant corporation, and I mean the biggies, and they all started with a guy with an idea, doing it well.

Robbins, Irvine

11.

Ideas not coupled with action never become bigger than the brain cells they occupied.

Glasgow, Arnold H.

12.

If you want to kill any idea in the world today, get a committee working on it.

Kettering, Charles F.

13.

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

14.

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

Hodges, Job E.

15.

Some people entertain ideas; others put them to work.

16.

Ideas are the roots of creation.

Dimnet, Ernest

17.

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

18.

Do something. If it doesn't work, do something else. No idea is too crazy.

Jim Hightower

19.

Little words hurt big ideas.

Newton, Howard W.

20.

Good ideas are a dime a dozen, bad ones are free.

Horton, Doug

21.

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

Holmes, Oliver Wendell

22.

Ideas can be life-changing. Sometimes all you need to open the door is just one more good idea.

Rohn, Jim

23.

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

24.

It doesn't matter how new an idea is: what matters is how new it becomes.

Canetti, Elias

25.

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

Nelson, George

26.

An idea is the only level which moves the world.

Corey, Arthur F.

27.

Go out and buy yourself a five-cent pencil and a ten-cent notebook and begin to write down some million-dollar ideas for yourself.

Grinde, Bob

28.

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

29.

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

Keynes, John Maynard

30.

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

James, William

31.

Ideas are refined and multiplied in the commerce of minds. In their splendor, images effect a very simple communion of souls.

Bachelard, Gaston

32.

So many new ideas are at first strange and horrible, though ultimately valuable that a very heavy responsibility rests upon those who would prevent their dissemination.

J. B. S. Haldane

33.

The way to combat noxious ideas is with other ideas. The way to combat falsehoods is with truth.

William O. Douglas

34.

We are governed not by armies, but by ideas.

Caird, Mona

35.

If you pray for only one thing, .let it be for an idea.

Sutton, Percy

36.

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

37.

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

Hyman Rickover

38.

There is no adequate defense, except stupidity, against the impact of a new idea.

Bridgman, P. W.

39.

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

Townsend, Robert

40.

What you need is an idea.

Lear, William P.

41.

Man's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions.

Oliver Wendell Holmes

42.

The point, simply, is that we are doing more rediscovering these days than discovering coming anew upon truths that ignorant people refused to examine, over the centuries, because the wise people who held custody of the fundamental truths of nature were unpopular.

Williamson, John

43.

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

Brande, Dorothea

44.

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

Chamfort, Sebastien-Roch Nicolas De

45.

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

Pound, Ezra

46.

They come into being not through demonstration but through revelation, through the medium of powerful personalities.

Einstein, Albert

47.

Ideas are powerful things, requiring not a studious contemplation but an action, even if it is only an inner action. Their acquisition obligates each man in some way to change his life, even if it is only his inner life. They demand to be stood for. They dictate where a man must concentrate his vision. They determine his moral and intellectual priorities. They provide him with allies and make him enemies. In short, ideas impose an interest in their ultimate fate which goes far beyond the realm of the merely reasonable.

Decter, Midge

48.

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

Bovee, Christian Nevell

49.

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

50.

A single idea, if it is right, saves us the labor of an infinity of experiences.

Maritain, Jacques