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

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

Pound, Ezra

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

Oliver Wendell Holmes

Ideas are fatal to caste.

Forster, Edward M.

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

Hector Berlioz

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

Ideas not coupled with action never become bigger than the brain cells they occupied.

Glasgow, Arnold H.

An idea discovered is much better possessed.

Young

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

John Steinbeck

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

Chartier, Alain

10.

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

Hugo, Victor

11.

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

Victor Hugo

12.

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

Nelson, George

13.

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

Munro, J. Richard

14.

Ideas won't work unless you do.

15.

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

16.

The way to combat noxious ideas is with other ideas. The way to combat falsehoods is with truth.

William O. Douglas

17.

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

Block, Henry

18.

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

19.

The point, simply, is that we are doing more rediscovering these days than discovering coming anew upon truths that ignorant people refused to examine, over the centuries, because the wise people who held custody of the fundamental truths of nature were unpopular.

Williamson, John

20.

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

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.

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

23.

An idea is the only level which moves the world.

Corey, Arthur F.

24.

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

25.

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

26.

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

Walter Bagehot

27.

Never hesitate to steal a good idea.

Neuharth, Al

28.

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.

29.

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

30.

An idea is a putting truth in check-mate.

Gasset, Jose Ortega Y

31.

Every new idea is an impossibility until it is born.

Brown, Ron

32.

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

Niblack, Griff

33.

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

Samuel Goldwyn

34.

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

35.

The best ideas are common property.

Seneca

36.

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

37.

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

38.

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

Hubbard, Elbert

39.

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

Frost, Robert

40.

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