Motivational Quotes

Ideas

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

- Oliver Wendell Holmes

Best Quotes about 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

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

Judith Brocklehurst

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

Nothing is more dangerous than an idea, when you only have one.

Chartier, Alain

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

John Cage

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

Einstein, Albert

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

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

Rivarol, Antoine

10.

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

Avery, Milton

11.

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

12.

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

Marquis, Don

13.

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

14.

An idea is worth nothing if it has no champion.

15.

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

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.

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

Hugo, Victor

18.

Human life is driven forward by its dim apprehension of notions too general for its existing language.

Whitehead, Alfred North

19.

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

Jim Hightower

20.

An idea is a putting truth in check-mate.

Gasset, Jose Ortega Y

21.

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.

22.

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

Chamfort, Sebastien-Roch Nicolas De

23.

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

24.

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

William O. Douglas

25.

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

26.

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.

27.

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

28.

The best ideas are common property.

Seneca

29.

It's easy to come up with new ideas; the hard part is letting go of what worked for you two years ago, but will soon be out-of-date.

Oech, Roger Von

30.

You look at any giant corporation, and I mean the biggies, and they all started with a guy with an idea, doing it well.

Robbins, Irvine

31.

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

32.

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

33.

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

34.

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

Holmes, Oliver Wendell

35.

Ideas won't work unless you do.

36.

There are only two kinds of scholars; those who love ideas and those who hate them.

Emile Chartier

37.

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

38.

Everything begins with an idea.

Nightingale, Earl

39.

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

Bunche, Ralph

40.

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

Schopenhauer, Arthur

41.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

42.

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

43.

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

Munro, J. Richard

44.

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

James, William

45.

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

46.

We are governed not by armies, but by ideas.

Caird, Mona

47.

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

Oliver Wendell Holmes

48.

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

49.

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

50.

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

Sutton, Percy