Motivational Quotes

Ideas

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

- Frost, Robert

Best Quotes about Ideas

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

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

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

Maritain, Jacques

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

Such as take lodgings in a head that's to be let unfurnished.

Butler, Samuel

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

Holmes, Oliver Wendell

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

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.

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

Ernst, Morris L.

10.

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

Everson, Ray D.

11.

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

Walter Bagehot

12.

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

13.

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

14.

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

Avery, Milton

15.

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

Harris, Sidney J.

16.

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

Einstein, Albert

17.

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

18.

Everyone is a genius at least once a year. The real geniuses simply have their bright ideas closer together.

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

19.

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.

20.

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

Sir Frederick G. Banting

21.

If you want to get across an idea, wrap it up in a person.

Bunche, Ralph

22.

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

Townsend, Robert

23.

Very simple ideas lie within the reach only of complex minds

Gourmont, Remy De

24.

Labor gives birth to ideas.

Rohn, Jim

25.

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

Lynch, David

26.

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

Berry, John

27.

The best ideas are common property.

Seneca

28.

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

Horton, Doug

29.

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

30.

It's very good for an idea to be commonplace. The important thing is that a new idea should develop out of what is already there so that it soon becomes an old acquaintance. Old acquaintances aren't by any means always welcome, but at least one can't be mistaken as to who or what they are.

Fitzgerald, Penelope

31.

An idea is a putting truth in check-mate.

Gasset, Jose Ortega Y

32.

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

33.

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

Alfred North Whitehead

34.

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.

35.

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

Brande, Dorothea

36.

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

Mann, Thomas

37.

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

John Steinbeck

38.

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

Samuel Goldwyn

39.

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

Penny, A. Owen

40.

A handsome parson is fit for nothing but ti put ideas into the young woman's heads.

Judith Brocklehurst

41.

Ideas are, in truth, force.

James, Henry

42.

The world moves, and ideas that were good once are not always good.

43.

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

P. B. Medawar

44.

I'm not impressed with the power of a corporate president. I am impressed with the power of ideas.

Mason, Ken

45.

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

46.

Greater than the tread of mighty armies is an idea whose time has come.

Hugo, Victor

47.

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

48.

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

49.

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

Anatole France

50.

Ideas are the roots of creation.

Dimnet, Ernest