Motivational Quotes

Ideas

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

Best Quotes about Ideas

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

Harris, Sidney J.

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

Very simple ideas lie within the reach only of complex minds

Gourmont, Remy De

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

Ernst, Morris L.

Foucault, Michel

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.

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

An idea is a putting truth in check-mate.

Gasset, Jose Ortega Y

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

Bovee, Christian Nevell

10.

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

Brown, Les

11.

When patterns are broken, new worlds can emerge.

Kupferberg, Tuli

12.

Ideas are the roots of creation.

Dimnet, Ernest

13.

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

Lynch, David

14.

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

Berry, John

15.

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

Rorty, Richard

16.

Ideas are fatal to caste.

Forster, Edward M.

17.

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

Twain, Mark

18.

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

Kettering, Charles F.

19.

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

Canetti, Elias

20.

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

Chartier, Alain

21.

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

Gibson, Tobias S.

22.

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

23.

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

Niblack, Griff

24.

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

James, William

25.

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

Marquis, Don

26.

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.

27.

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

Hugo, Victor

28.

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

Brande, Dorothea

29.

Labor gives birth to ideas.

Rohn, Jim

30.

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

John Cage

31.

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

John Steinbeck

32.

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

Emile Chartier

33.

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

Hubbard, Elbert

34.

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

35.

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

Horton, Doug

36.

Ideas won't work unless you do.

37.

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

38.

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

Holmes, Oliver Wendell

39.

The greatest achievements of the human mind are generally received with distrust.

Schopenhauer, Arthur

40.

Ideas... they have the power

Hill, Napoleon

41.

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

Holmes, Oliver Wendell

42.

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

Pauling, Linus

43.

What you need is an idea.

Lear, William P.

44.

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

45.

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

Williamson, Marianne

46.

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

Sir Frederick G. Banting

47.

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

Maritain, Jacques

48.

He was distinguished for ignorance; for he had only one idea, and that was wrong.

Disraeli, Benjamin

49.

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

Rickover, Hyman G.

50.

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