Motivational Quotes

Ideas

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

Best Quotes about Ideas

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

Williamson, Marianne

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

Trotsky, Leon

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

Some people entertain ideas; others put them to work.

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

Good ideas and innovations must be driven into existence by courageous patience.

Rickover, Hyman G.

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

Canetti, Elias

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

Gibson, Tobias S.

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

Edison, Thomas A.

10.

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

11.

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

Mason, Ken

12.

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

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 difference between people and ideas is... only superficial.

Rorty, Richard

15.

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

16.

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

17.

Ideas won't work unless you do.

18.

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

Proust, Marcel

19.

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

20.

Every new idea is an impossibility until it is born.

Brown, Ron

21.

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

22.

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

Avery, Milton

23.

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

24.

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

Judith Brocklehurst

25.

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

Munro, J. Richard

26.

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

Schopenhauer, Arthur

27.

An idea is worth nothing if it has no champion.

28.

Brain cells create ideas. Stress kills brain cells. Stress is not a good idea.

Saunders, Richard

29.

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

Nelson, George

30.

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

Pound, Ezra

31.

An idea is a putting truth in check-mate.

Gasset, Jose Ortega Y

32.

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

33.

Ideas too are a life and a world.

Lichtenberg, Georg C.

34.

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

Twain, Mark

35.

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

36.

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

Victor Hugo

37.

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

Frost, Robert

38.

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

Kettering, Charles F.

39.

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

Holmes, Oliver Wendell

40.

An idea is not responsible for the people who believe in it.

Marquis, Don

41.

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

Niblack, Griff

42.

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

43.

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

Townsend, Robert

44.

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.

45.

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

Hill, Napoleon

46.

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

47.

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

Oliver Wendell Holmes

48.

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

49.

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

Ernst, Morris L.

50.

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