Motivational Quotes

Ideas

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

- P. B. Medawar

Best Quotes about Ideas

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

John Cage

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

Koysis, Ted

Good ideas are not adopted automatically. They must be driven into practice with courageous patience.

Hyman Rickover

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

Twain, Mark

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

Long is the road from conception to completion.

Moliere

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

Emile Chartier

Ideas too are a life and a world.

Lichtenberg, Georg C.

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

Mason, Ken

10.

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

11.

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

12.

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

Rohn, Jim

13.

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

Bridgman, P. W.

14.

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

Victor Hugo

15.

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

16.

Get your ideas on paper and study them. Do not let them go to waste!

Brown, Les

17.

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

18.

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

Disraeli, Benjamin

19.

Great ideas originate in the muscles.

Edison, Thomas A.

20.

Every revolutionary idea seems to evoke three stages of reaction. They may be summed up by the phrases: (1) It's completely impossible. (2) It's possible, but it's not worth doing. (3) I said it was a good idea all along.

Clarke, Arthur C.

21.

Greater than the tread of mighty armies is an idea whose time has come.

Hugo, Victor

22.

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

Edison, Thomas A.

23.

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

Bachelard, Gaston

24.

Never hesitate to steal a good idea.

Neuharth, Al

25.

Sometimes the best, and only effective, way to kill an idea is to put it into practice.

Harris, Sidney J.

26.

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

Oliver Wendell Holmes

27.

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

Holmes, Oliver Wendell

28.

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.

29.

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

Rivarol, Antoine

30.

The ideas dictate everything, you have to be true to that or you're dead.

Lynch, David

31.

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

Niblack, Griff

32.

An idea is worth nothing if it has no champion.

33.

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

Everson, Ray D.

34.

If you want to kill any idea in the world today, get a committee working on it.

Kettering, Charles F.

35.

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

Avery, Milton

36.

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

Maritain, Jacques

37.

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

Munro, J. Richard

38.

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

Penny, A. Owen

39.

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

40.

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

Whitehead, Alfred North

41.

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

42.

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.

43.

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

Chartier, Alain

44.

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

45.

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

46.

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

Hugo, Victor

47.

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

48.

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

Picasso, Pablo

49.

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