Motivational Quotes

Ideas

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

- Hugo, Victor

Best Quotes about Ideas

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

Sir Frederick G. Banting

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.

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

Ideas won't work unless you do.

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

We are governed not by armies, but by ideas.

Caird, Mona

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

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

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

Cotvos

10.

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

Keynes, John Maynard

11.

Mere words are cheap and plenty enough, but ideas that rouse and set multitudes thinking come as gold for the mines.

Penny, A. Owen

12.

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

Koysis, Ted

13.

Every new idea is an impossibility until it is born.

Brown, Ron

14.

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

15.

Concepts, like individuals, have their histories and are just as incapable of withstanding the ravages of time as are individuals. But in and through all this they retain a kind of homesickness for the scenes of their childhood.

Kierkegaard, S°ren

16.

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

Hyman Rickover

17.

There is no prosperity, trade, art, city, or great material wealth of any kind, but if you trace it home, you will find it rooted in a thought of some individual man. --

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

18.

I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones.

John Cage

19.

Ideas are the roots of creation.

Dimnet, Ernest

20.

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

Hill, Napoleon

21.

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

22.

Everything begins with an idea.

Nightingale, Earl

23.

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

24.

One of the greatest pains to human nature is the pain of a new idea.

Walter Bagehot

25.

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

26.

A single idea, if it is right, saves us the labor of an infinity of experiences.

Maritain, Jacques

27.

Long is the road from conception to completion.

Moliere

28.

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

Everson, Ray D.

29.

What you need is an idea.

Lear, William P.

30.

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

31.

Never hesitate to steal a good idea.

Neuharth, Al

32.

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

Hubbard, Elbert

33.

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.

34.

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

Marquis, Don

35.

There are only two kinds of scholars; those who love ideas and those who hate them.

Emile Chartier

36.

Sometimes the best, and only effective, way to kill an idea is to put it into practice.

Harris, Sidney J.

37.

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

Bunche, Ralph

38.

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

Munro, J. Richard

39.

An idea is the only level which moves the world.

Corey, Arthur F.

40.

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

Niblack, Griff

41.

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

William O. Douglas

42.

Ideas are fatal to caste.

Forster, Edward M.

43.

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

Whitehead, Alfred North

44.

You look at any giant corporation, and I mean the biggies, and they all started with a guy with an idea, doing it well.

Robbins, Irvine

45.

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

46.

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

Bridgman, P. W.

47.

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

Rohn, Jim

48.

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

Rorty, Richard

49.

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