Motivational Quotes

Ideas

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

- Emerson, Ralph Waldo

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

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

Keynes, John Maynard

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

Judith Brocklehurst

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

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

Very simple ideas lie within the reach only of complex minds

Gourmont, Remy De

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

Harris, Sidney J.

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

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.

10.

Ideas are, in truth, force.

James, Henry

11.

A new idea is like a child. It's easier to conceive than to deliver.

Koysis, Ted

12.

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

Everson, Ray D.

13.

We like to test things... no matter how good an idea sounds, test it first.

Block, Henry

14.

We are governed not by armies, but by ideas.

Caird, Mona

15.

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

Maritain, Jacques

16.

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

Holmes, Oliver Wendell

17.

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

18.

Labor gives birth to ideas.

Rohn, Jim

19.

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

20.

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

Rostand, Jean

21.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

22.

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

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

23.

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

Hubbard, Elbert

24.

Nothing dies harder than a bad idea.

Cameron, Julie

25.

The world moves, and ideas that were good once are not always good.

26.

Brain cells create ideas. Stress kills brain cells. Stress is not a good idea.

Saunders, Richard

27.

Never hesitate to steal a good idea.

Neuharth, Al

28.

The vitality of thought is in adventure. Ideas won't keep. Something must be done about them.

Alfred North Whitehead

29.

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

30.

Every composer knows the anguish and despair occasioned by forgetting ideas which one had no time to write down.

Hector Berlioz

31.

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

32.

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

Sutton, Percy

33.

Long is the road from conception to completion.

Moliere

34.

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.

35.

If a man had as many ideas during the day as he does when he has insomnia, he would make a fortune.

Niblack, Griff

36.

Ideas are the roots of creation.

Dimnet, Ernest

37.

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

38.

The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist.

Keynes, John Maynard

39.

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

Samuel Goldwyn

40.

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

41.

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

42.

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

Brown, Les

43.

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

Einstein, Albert

44.

What you need is an idea.

Lear, William P.

45.

It is by acts and not by ideas that people live.

Anatole France

46.

The difference between people and ideas is... only superficial.

Rorty, Richard

47.

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

48.

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

49.

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

50.

Ideas lose themselves as quickly as quail, and one must wing them the minute they rise out of the grass, or they are gone.

Kennedy, Thomas F.