Motivational Quotes

Ideas

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

- Hugo, Victor

Best Quotes about Ideas

We like to test things... no matter how good an idea sounds, test it first.

Block, Henry

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

Pound, Ezra

Every composer knows the anguish and despair occasioned by forgetting ideas which one had no time to write down.

Hector Berlioz

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

Bachelard, Gaston

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

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

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

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

Alfred North Whitehead

Ideas are a capital that bears interest only in the hands of talent.

Rivarol, Antoine

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

Rorty, Richard

10.

An idea discovered is much better possessed.

Young

11.

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

Cotvos

12.

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

Holmes, Oliver Wendell

13.

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

Glasgow, Arnold H.

14.

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

Chamfort, Sebastien-Roch Nicolas De

15.

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

Berry, John

16.

The best ideas are common property.

Seneca

17.

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

Hortense Calisher

18.

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.

19.

We are not to make the ideas of contentment and aspiration quarrel, for God made them fast friends. A man may aspire, and yet be quite content until it is time to raise; and both flying and resting are but parts of one contentment. The very fruit of the gospel is aspiration. It is to the heart what spring is to the earth, making every root, and bud, and bough desire to be more. -

Beecher, Henry Ward

20.

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

21.

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

Mann, Thomas

22.

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

Hodges, Job E.

23.

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

Oliver Wendell Holmes

24.

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

Twain, Mark

25.

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

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

Trotsky, Leon

28.

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

John Steinbeck

29.

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

Proust, Marcel

30.

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

Marquis, Don

31.

Ideas move fast when their time comes.

Heilbrun, Carolyn

32.

Ideas control the world.

Garfield, James A.

33.

Ideas... they have the power

Hill, Napoleon

34.

Do something. If it doesn't work, do something else. No idea is too crazy.

Jim Hightower

35.

Labor gives birth to ideas.

Rohn, Jim

36.

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

37.

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

Nelson, George

38.

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

39.

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

40.

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

Hyman Rickover

41.

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

Brande, Dorothea

42.

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

Koysis, Ted

43.

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

Keynes, John Maynard

44.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

45.

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

Pauling, Linus

46.

An idea is a point of departure and no more. As soon as you elaborate it, it becomes transformed by thought.

Picasso, Pablo

47.

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

48.

An idea is worth nothing if it has no champion.

49.

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

50.

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