Motivational Quotes

Ideas

What you need is an idea.

- Lear, William P.

Best Quotes about Ideas

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

Walter Bagehot

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

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

Bachelard, Gaston

Little words hurt big ideas.

Newton, Howard W.

Ideas control the world.

Garfield, James A.

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

Williamson, Marianne

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

Holmes, Oliver Wendell

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

Alfred North Whitehead

Do not follow the ideas of others, but learn to listen to the voice within yourself. Your body and mind will become clear and you will realize the unity of all things.

Dogen

10.

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

Edison, Thomas A.

11.

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

12.

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

13.

We are governed not by armies, but by ideas.

Caird, Mona

14.

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

Proust, Marcel

15.

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.

16.

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

Berry, John

17.

Some people entertain ideas; others put them to work.

18.

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

19.

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

Niblack, Griff

20.

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

21.

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

22.

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

William O. Douglas

23.

Ideas move fast when their time comes.

Heilbrun, Carolyn

24.

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

Avery, Milton

25.

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

Judith Brocklehurst

26.

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

Mason, Ken

27.

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

Canetti, Elias

28.

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

Holmes, Oliver Wendell

29.

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

Twain, Mark

30.

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

Rorty, Richard

31.

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

Hill, Napoleon

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.

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

34.

He was distinguished for ignorance; for he had only one idea, and that was wrong.

Disraeli, Benjamin

35.

Ideas are invented only as correctives to the past. Through repeated rectification of this kind one may hope to disengage an idea that is valid.

Bachelard, Gaston

36.

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

Pauling, Linus

37.

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

Sutton, Percy

38.

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

Block, Henry

39.

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

40.

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.

41.

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

42.

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

Pound, Ezra

43.

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

44.

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

Glasgow, Arnold H.

45.

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

Everson, Ray D.

46.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

47.

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

James, William

48.

In Texas, years ago, almost all of the oil came from surface operations. Then someone got the idea that there were greater sources of supply deeper down. A well was drilled five thousand feet deep. The result? A gusher. Too many of us operate on the surface. We never go deep enough to find supernatural resources. The result is, we never operate at our best. More time and investment is involved to go deep but a gusher will pay off.

Montapert, Alfred A.

49.

Nothing dies harder than a bad idea.

Cameron, Julie

50.

Very simple ideas lie within the reach only of complex minds

Gourmont, Remy De