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

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

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

Rickover, Hyman G.

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

William O. Douglas

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

Jim Hightower

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

Frost, Robert

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

Pauling, Linus

To love an idea is to love it a little more than one should.

Rostand, Jean

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

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

Bridgman, P. W.

10.

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

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.

If you have the same ideas as everybody else but have them one week earlier than everyone else then you will be hailed as a visionary. But if you have them five years earlier you will be named a lunatic.

Jones, Barry

13.

Mere words are cheap and plenty enough, but ideas that rouse and set multitudes thinking come as gold for the mines.

Penny, A. Owen

14.

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

Canetti, Elias

15.

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

Bovee, Christian Nevell

16.

Man's fear of ideas is probably the greatest dike holding back human knowledge and happiness.

Ernst, Morris L.

17.

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

Williamson, Marianne

18.

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

Butler, Samuel

19.

Very simple ideas lie within the reach only of complex minds

Gourmont, Remy De

20.

What you need is an idea.

Lear, William P.

21.

The idea that is not dangerous is not worthy of being called an idea at all.

Hubbard, Elbert

22.

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

Simpson, E. L.

23.

All achievements, all earned riches, have their beginning in an idea.

Hill, Napoleon

24.

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

Bachelard, Gaston

25.

A great idea is usually original to more than one discoverer. Great ideas come when the world needs them. Great ideas surround the world's ignorance and press for admission.

Phelps, Elizabeth Stuart

26.

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

27.

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

Rohn, Jim

28.

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

Holmes, Oliver Wendell

29.

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

30.

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

Harris, Sidney J.

31.

If you want to get across an idea, wrap it up in a person.

Bunche, Ralph

32.

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

Gibson, Tobias S.

33.

An idea discovered is much better possessed.

Young

34.

Labor gives birth to ideas.

Rohn, Jim

35.

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

36.

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

Oliver Wendell Holmes

37.

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

38.

It's a pretty good idea to be of good cheer but not all the time. Just at the most unexpected times.

39.

Clarke, Arthur C.

40.

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

Samuel Goldwyn

41.

A good idea plus capable men cannot fail; it is better than money in the bank.

Berry, John

42.

Our greatest lack is not money for any undertaking, but rather ideas, If the ideas are good, cash will somehow flow to where it is needed.

Schuller, Robert H.

43.

We are not to make the ideas of contentment and aspiration quarrel, for God made them fast friends. A man may aspire, and yet be quite content until it is time to raise; and both flying and resting are but parts of one contentment. The very fruit of the gospel is aspiration. It is to the heart what spring is to the earth, making every root, and bud, and bough desire to be more. -

Beecher, Henry Ward

44.

There is one thing stronger than all the armies in the world, and that is an idea whose time has come.

Hugo, Victor

45.

Never hesitate to steal a good idea.

Neuharth, Al

46.

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

Hyman Rickover

47.

When patterns are broken, new worlds can emerge.

Kupferberg, Tuli

48.

Ideas too are a life and a world.

Lichtenberg, Georg C.

49.

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

Victor Hugo

50.

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