Motivational Quotes

Ideas

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.

Best Quotes about Ideas

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

Marquis, Don

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

Oliver Wendell Holmes

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

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

Everson, Ray D.

Such as take lodgings in a head that's to be let unfurnished.

Butler, Samuel

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

Picasso, Pablo

They come into being not through demonstration but through revelation, through the medium of powerful personalities.

Einstein, Albert

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

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

Eliot, George

10.

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

Chamfort, Sebastien-Roch Nicolas De

11.

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

Munro, J. Richard

12.

An idea is the only level which moves the world.

Corey, Arthur F.

13.

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

Williamson, Marianne

14.

Ideas too are a life and a world.

Lichtenberg, Georg C.

15.

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

Bunche, Ralph

16.

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

Hubbard, Elbert

17.

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

William O. Douglas

18.

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

Hodges, Job E.

19.

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

Proust, Marcel

20.

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

Glasgow, Arnold H.

21.

Everything begins with an idea.

Nightingale, Earl

22.

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

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.

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

25.

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

Bridgman, P. W.

26.

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

Mason, Ken

27.

The best ideas are common property.

Seneca

28.

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

29.

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

30.

To love an idea is to love it a little more than one should.

Rostand, Jean

31.

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.

32.

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

Block, Henry

33.

I had a monumental idea this morning, but I didn't like it.

Samuel Goldwyn

34.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

35.

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

Bachelard, Gaston

36.

An idea is a putting truth in check-mate.

Gasset, Jose Ortega Y

37.

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

Twain, Mark

38.

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

39.

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

40.

An idea is worth nothing if it has no champion.

41.

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

Hortense Calisher

42.

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

Sutton, Percy

43.

What you need is an idea.

Lear, William P.

44.

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

Horton, Doug

45.

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

Townsend, Robert

46.

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

Keynes, John Maynard

47.

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

Jim Hightower

48.

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

Holmes, Oliver Wendell

49.

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

Frost, Robert

50.

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