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

Ideas won't work unless you do.

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

Holmes, Oliver Wendell

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.

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

Hugo, Victor

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

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.

The greatest achievements of the human mind are generally received with distrust.

Schopenhauer, Arthur

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

Howard Aiken

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.

10.

Ideas are, in truth, force.

James, Henry

11.

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

12.

It is ideas, not vested interests, which are dangerous for good or evil.

Keynes, John Maynard

13.

An idea is a putting truth in check-mate.

Gasset, Jose Ortega Y

14.

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

15.

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

Niblack, Griff

16.

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

17.

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

Bachelard, Gaston

18.

What you need is an idea.

Lear, William P.

19.

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

20.

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

Glasgow, Arnold H.

21.

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.

22.

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

23.

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

Holmes, Oliver Wendell

24.

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

25.

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

Frost, Robert

26.

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

John Steinbeck

27.

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

28.

An idea discovered is much better possessed.

Young

29.

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

Anatole France

30.

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

31.

Good ideas are not adopted automatically. They must be driven into practice with courageous patience.

Hyman Rickover

32.

The best ideas are common property.

Seneca

33.

We are governed not by armies, but by ideas.

Caird, Mona

34.

All achievements, all earned riches, have their beginning in an idea.

Hill, Napoleon

35.

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

Brown, Les

36.

An idea is worth nothing if it has no champion.

37.

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

Eliot, George

38.

An idea is the only level which moves the world.

Corey, Arthur F.

39.

Ideas are the roots of creation.

Dimnet, Ernest

40.

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

Bridgman, P. W.

41.

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

Chartier, Alain

42.

A man is not necessarily intelligent because he has plenty of ideas, any more than he is a good general because he has plenty of soldiers.

Chamfort, Sebastien-Roch Nicolas De

43.

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

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

44.

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

45.

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

Hubbard, Elbert

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.

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

Bunche, Ralph

48.

Not the one who has many ideas, but the one who has a single conviction may become a great person.

Cotvos

49.

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

Mason, Ken

50.

The best way to have a good idea is to have a lot of ideas.