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

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

James, William

Great ideas originate in the muscles.

Edison, Thomas A.

Ideas won't work unless you do.

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

Bridgman, P. W.

Ideas that enter the mind under fire remain there securely and for ever.

Trotsky, Leon

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

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

Pound, Ezra

Ideas control the world.

Garfield, James A.

There is no prosperity, trade, art, city, or great material wealth of any kind, but if you trace it home, you will find it rooted in a thought of some individual man. --

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

10.

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

Holmes, Oliver Wendell

11.

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

Anatole France

12.

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

Munro, J. Richard

13.

It's easy to come up with new ideas; the hard part is letting go of what worked for you two years ago, but will soon be out-of-date.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

14.

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

Holmes, Oliver Wendell

15.

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

16.

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.

17.

This is my answer to the gap between ideas and action - I will write it out.

Hortense Calisher

18.

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

Hubbard, Elbert

19.

What you need is an idea.

Lear, William P.

20.

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

Rorty, Richard

21.

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

Canetti, Elias

22.

You look at any giant corporation, and I mean the biggies, and they all started with a guy with an idea, doing it well.

Robbins, Irvine

23.

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

Rohn, Jim

24.

Not just in commerce but in the world of ideas too our age is putting on a veritable clearance sale. Everything can be had so dirt cheap that one begins to wander whether in the end anyone will want to make a bid.

Kierkegaard, S°ren

25.

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

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.

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

Sutton, Percy

28.

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

29.

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

30.

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

31.

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

Niblack, Griff

32.

Ideas are a capital that bears interest only in the hands of talent.

Rivarol, Antoine

33.

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

Einstein, Albert

34.

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

Penny, A. Owen

35.

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

36.

Human life is driven forward by its dim apprehension of notions too general for its existing language.

Whitehead, Alfred North

37.

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.

38.

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.

39.

The best ideas are common property.

Seneca

40.

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

Kettering, Charles F.

41.

Every new idea is an impossibility until it is born.

Brown, Ron

42.

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

43.

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

Brown, Les

44.

When patterns are broken, new worlds can emerge.

Kupferberg, Tuli

45.

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

46.

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

Bachelard, Gaston

47.

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

Victor Hugo

48.

An idea is worth nothing if it has no champion.

49.

Foucault, Michel

50.