Motivational Quotes

Ideas

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

Best Quotes about Ideas

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

Nelson, George

An idea is worth nothing if it has no champion.

An idea discovered is much better possessed.

Young

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

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

Samuel Goldwyn

Ideas are, in truth, force.

James, Henry

To love an idea is to love it a little more than one should.

Rostand, Jean

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

Anatole France

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

Hugo, Victor

10.

Ideas control the world.

Garfield, James A.

11.

The ideas I stand for are not mine. I borrowed them from Socrates. I swiped them from Chesterfield. I stole them from Jesus. And I put them in a book. If you don't like their rules, whose would you use?

Carnegie, Dale

12.

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

Twain, Mark

13.

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

Hortense Calisher

14.

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

Bovee, Christian Nevell

15.

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

Canetti, Elias

16.

The best ideas are common property.

Seneca

17.

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

18.

A powerful idea communicates some of its strength to him who challenges it.

Proust, Marcel

19.

Gide, Andre

20.

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

Trotsky, Leon

21.

Some people entertain ideas; others put them to work.

22.

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

Bachelard, Gaston

23.

Getting an idea should be like sitting down on a pin. It should make you jump up and do something.

Simpson, E. L.

24.

Everything begins with an idea.

Nightingale, Earl

25.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

26.

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.

27.

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

Glasgow, Arnold H.

28.

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

Hubbard, Elbert

29.

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

30.

A new idea is like a child. It's easier to conceive than to deliver.

Koysis, Ted

31.

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

Disraeli, Benjamin

32.

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.

33.

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

Williamson, Marianne

34.

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

Brande, Dorothea

35.

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

36.

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

37.

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

William O. Douglas

38.

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

39.

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

40.

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.

41.

An idea is the only level which moves the world.

Corey, Arthur F.

42.

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

43.

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

Bunche, Ralph

44.

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

45.

Ideas move fast when their time comes.

Heilbrun, Carolyn

46.

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

Horton, Doug

47.

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

Kettering, Charles F.

48.

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

Everson, Ray D.

49.

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

Sir Frederick G. Banting

50.

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