Motivational Quotes

Ideas

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

Best Quotes about 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

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

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

An idea is the only level which moves the world.

Corey, Arthur F.

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

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

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

Some people entertain ideas; others put them to work.

The human mind treats a new idea the same way the body treats a strange protein; it rejects it.

P. B. Medawar

10.

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

Holmes, Oliver Wendell

11.

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

12.

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

Simpson, E. L.

13.

An idea discovered is much better possessed.

Young

14.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

15.

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

Mann, Thomas

16.

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

Ernst, Morris L.

17.

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

Keynes, John Maynard

18.

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

Horton, Doug

19.

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

Bridgman, P. W.

20.

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

Edison, Thomas A.

21.

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

Hugo, Victor

22.

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

Holmes, Oliver Wendell

23.

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

24.

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

25.

An idea is worth nothing if it has no champion.

26.

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

Trotsky, Leon

27.

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.

28.

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

Bachelard, Gaston

29.

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

Penny, A. Owen

30.

A new idea is first condemned as ridiculous and then dismissed as trivial, until finally, it becomes what everybody knows.

James, William

31.

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

32.

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

33.

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

Everson, Ray D.

34.

The best ideas are common property.

Seneca

35.

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

36.

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

Schopenhauer, Arthur

37.

When patterns are broken, new worlds can emerge.

Kupferberg, Tuli

38.

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

Bovee, Christian Nevell

39.

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

William O. Douglas

40.

If you pray for only one thing, .let it be for an idea.

Sutton, Percy

41.

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

Rohn, Jim

42.

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.

43.

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

44.

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

Rivarol, Antoine

45.

Very simple ideas lie within the reach only of complex minds

Gourmont, Remy De

46.

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

Eliot, George

47.

Ideas too are a life and a world.