Motivational Quotes

Ideas

Little words hurt big ideas.

- Newton, Howard W.

Best Quotes about Ideas

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

P. B. Medawar

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

John Cage

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

Holmes, Oliver Wendell

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

Ideals are like stars: you will not succeed in touching them with your hands, but like the seafaring man on the ocean desert of waters, you choose them as your guides, and following them, you reach your destiny.

Carl Schurz

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

Oliver Wendell Holmes

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

Glasgow, Arnold H.

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

Samuel Goldwyn

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

Walter Bagehot

10.

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

Horton, Doug

11.

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

Block, Henry

12.

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

Howard Aiken

13.

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

Schopenhauer, Arthur

14.

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

Hugo, Victor

15.

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

16.

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

17.

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

18.

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

19.

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

Trotsky, Leon

20.

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

Penny, A. Owen

21.

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

22.

Ideas too are a life and a world.

Lichtenberg, Georg C.

23.

Everything begins with an idea.

Nightingale, Earl

24.

Good ideas and innovations must be driven into existence by courageous patience.

Rickover, Hyman G.

25.

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

Rohn, Jim

26.

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

Munro, J. Richard

27.

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

Bridgman, P. W.

28.

Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen.

John Steinbeck

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.

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

Gibson, Tobias S.

31.

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

Hubbard, Elbert

32.

An invasion of armies can be resisted, but not an idea whose time has come.

Victor Hugo

33.

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

Rivarol, Antoine

34.

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

Proust, Marcel

35.

Ideas... they have the power

Hill, Napoleon

36.

An idea discovered is much better possessed.

Young

37.

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

Disraeli, Benjamin

38.

Not just in commerce but in the world of ideas too our age is putting on a veritable clearance sale. Everything can be had so dirt cheap that one begins to wander whether in the end anyone will want to make a bid.

Kierkegaard, S°ren

39.

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

Hector Berlioz

40.

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

41.

An idea is the only level which moves the world.

Corey, Arthur F.

42.

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

Mann, Thomas

43.

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

44.

Little words hurt big ideas.

Newton, Howard W.

45.

Brain cells create ideas. Stress kills brain cells. Stress is not a good idea.

Saunders, Richard

46.

Labor gives birth to ideas.

Rohn, Jim

47.

Ideas are fatal to caste.