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

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

Emile Chartier

Ideas are the roots of creation.

Dimnet, Ernest

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

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

Keynes, John Maynard

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

Holmes, Oliver Wendell

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

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

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

Holmes, Oliver Wendell

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

Kettering, Charles F.

10.

An idea is not responsible for the people who believe in it.

Marquis, Don

11.

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

Walter Bagehot

12.

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

Niblack, Griff

13.

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

14.

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.

15.

Ideas... they have the power

Hill, Napoleon

16.

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

Bridgman, P. W.

17.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

18.

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

Oliver Wendell Holmes

19.

When patterns are broken, new worlds can emerge.

Kupferberg, Tuli

20.

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

Simpson, E. L.

21.

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

Nelson, George

22.

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

Cotvos

23.

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

Chamfort, Sebastien-Roch Nicolas De

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.

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

Pauling, Linus

26.

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

27.

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

Jim Hightower

28.

Ideas too are a life and a world.

Lichtenberg, Georg C.

29.

Nothing is more dangerous than an idea, when you only have one.

Chartier, Alain

30.

Harold, like the rest of us, had many impressions which saved him the trouble of distinct ideas.

Eliot, George

31.

The ideas I stand for are not mine. I borrowed them from Socrates. I swiped them from Chesterfield. I stole them from Jesus. And I put them in a book. If you don't like their rules, whose would you use?

Carnegie, Dale

32.

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

Hyman Rickover

33.

Everything begins with an idea.

Nightingale, Earl

34.

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

Brande, Dorothea

35.

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

Samuel Goldwyn

36.

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

Hodges, Job E.

37.

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

Townsend, Robert

38.

The idea is in my head to put it down is nothing.

Avery, Milton

39.

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

40.

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

Lynch, David

41.

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

Williamson, Marianne

42.

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

Rorty, Richard

43.

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

44.

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

45.

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

46.

An idea is never given to you without you being given the power to make it reality. You must, nevertheless, suffer for it.

Bach, Richard

47.

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

John Steinbeck

48.

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

Einstein, Albert

49.

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