Motivational Quotes

Ideas

An idea is a putting truth in check-mate.

- Gasset, Jose Ortega Y

Best Quotes about Ideas

An idea discovered is much better possessed.

Young

To have a great idea, have a lot of them.

Edison, Thomas A.

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

Avery, Milton

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.

Don't worry about people stealing an idea. If it's original, you will have to ram it down their throats.

Howard Aiken

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

Nelson, George

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

Ernst, Morris L.

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

Hugo, Victor

10.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

11.

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.

12.

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

Rohn, Jim

13.

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

14.

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

Gibson, Tobias S.

15.

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

P. B. Medawar

16.

When patterns are broken, new worlds can emerge.

Kupferberg, Tuli

17.

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

18.

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

Mason, Ken

19.

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

Lynch, David

20.

Great ideas originate in the muscles.

Edison, Thomas A.

21.

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

Hodges, Job E.

22.

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

Bridgman, P. W.

23.

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

Bunche, Ralph

24.

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

Holmes, Oliver Wendell

25.

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

Munro, J. Richard

26.

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

Oliver Wendell Holmes

27.

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

Canetti, Elias

28.

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

29.

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

30.

Some people entertain ideas; others put them to work.

31.

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

Eliot, George

32.

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

Bachelard, Gaston

33.

We are governed not by armies, but by ideas.

Caird, Mona

34.

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

35.

Ideas control the world.

Garfield, James A.

36.

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

Horton, Doug

37.

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.

38.

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.

39.

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

Chamfort, Sebastien-Roch Nicolas De

40.

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

41.

Ideas move fast when their time comes.

Heilbrun, Carolyn

42.

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

Whitehead, Alfred North

43.

Very simple ideas lie within the reach only of complex minds

Gourmont, Remy De

44.

Everything begins with an idea.

Nightingale, Earl

45.

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

Twain, Mark

46.

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

47.

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

Pound, Ezra

48.

Long is the road from conception to completion.

Moliere

49.

Ideas are invented only as correctives to the past. Through repeated rectification of this kind one may hope to disengage an idea that is valid.

Bachelard, Gaston

50.

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