Motivational Quotes

Ideas

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

- Ernst, Morris L.

Best Quotes about Ideas

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

Pound, Ezra

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

Samuel Goldwyn

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

Munro, J. Richard

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

Mann, Thomas

An idea is the only level which moves the world.

Corey, Arthur F.

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

Howard Aiken

Labor gives birth to ideas.

Rohn, Jim

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

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

Williamson, Marianne

10.

I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones.

John Cage

11.

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

Rorty, Richard

12.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

13.

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

14.

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

Harris, Sidney J.

15.

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

Frost, Robert

16.

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

17.

The ideas dictate everything, you have to be true to that or you're dead.

Lynch, David

18.

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

Jim Hightower

19.

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

20.

All opening moves were the same, like in chess. You don't have to come up with anything new, there's no point, because you're both after the same thing anyway. The game soon finds its own way and it's only at that point that you need a strategy.

Paolo Giordano

21.

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

22.

Nothing dies harder than a bad idea.

Cameron, Julie

23.

The human mind treats a new idea the same way the body treats a strange protein; it rejects it.

P. B. Medawar

24.

A pile of rocks ceases to be a rock when somebody contemplates it with the idea of a cathedral in mind.

Saint-Exupery, Antoine De

25.

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

26.

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

Ernst, Morris L.

27.

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

Chamfort, Sebastien-Roch Nicolas De

28.

One of the greatest pains to human nature is the pain of a new idea.

Walter Bagehot

29.

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

30.

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

31.

Little words hurt big ideas.

Newton, Howard W.

32.

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.

33.

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

34.

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

Everson, Ray D.

35.

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.

36.

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

Block, Henry

37.

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

Holmes, Oliver Wendell

38.

Some people entertain ideas; others put them to work.

39.

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

40.

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

Pauling, Linus

41.

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

Rostand, Jean

42.

What you need is an idea.

Lear, William P.

43.

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

Sir Frederick G. Banting

44.

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

45.

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

Alfred North Whitehead

46.

An idea discovered is much better possessed.

Young

47.

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

Victor Hugo

48.

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

49.

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

Hubbard, Elbert

50.

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

Kettering, Charles F.