Motivational Quotes

Ideas

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

Best Quotes about Ideas

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

Hugo, Victor

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

Marquis, Don

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

Pound, Ezra

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

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

Chamfort, Sebastien-Roch Nicolas De

Every new idea is an impossibility until it is born.

Brown, Ron

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

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

Penny, A. Owen

Ideas too are a life and a world.

Lichtenberg, Georg C.

10.

Ideas... they have the power

Hill, Napoleon

11.

Long is the road from conception to completion.

Moliere

12.

It's very good for an idea to be commonplace. The important thing is that a new idea should develop out of what is already there so that it soon becomes an old acquaintance. Old acquaintances aren't by any means always welcome, but at least one can't be mistaken as to who or what they are.

Fitzgerald, Penelope

13.

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

14.

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

15.

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

16.

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

Bridgman, P. W.

17.

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

Einstein, Albert

18.

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

Simpson, E. L.

19.

Ideas control the world.

Garfield, James A.

20.

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

Maritain, Jacques

21.

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

22.

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

Berry, John

23.

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

Pauling, Linus

24.

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

Proust, Marcel

25.

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

26.

Little words hurt big ideas.

Newton, Howard W.

27.

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

Block, Henry

28.

Great people talk about ideas. Small people talk about other people.

Gibson, Tobias S.

29.

Ideas move fast when their time comes.

Heilbrun, Carolyn

30.

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

Koysis, Ted

31.

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

Hector Berlioz

32.

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

33.

We are governed not by armies, but by ideas.

Caird, Mona

34.

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

35.

What you need is an idea.

Lear, William P.

36.

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

37.

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

Alfred North Whitehead

38.

The best ideas are common property.

Seneca

39.

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

40.

Don't worry about people stealing an idea. If it's original, you will have to ram it down their throats.

Howard Aiken

41.

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

Bunche, Ralph

42.

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

Cotvos

43.

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