Motivational Quotes

Ideas

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

Best Quotes about Ideas

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

Rickover, Hyman G.

Harold, like the rest of us, had many impressions which saved him the trouble of distinct ideas.

Eliot, George

It is the nature of thought to find its way into action.

Bovee, Christian Nevell

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

James, William

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

Trotsky, Leon

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

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

Canetti, Elias

Long is the road from conception to completion.

Moliere

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

Chamfort, Sebastien-Roch Nicolas De

10.

Nothing dies harder than a bad idea.

Cameron, Julie

11.

It's easy to come up with new ideas; the hard part is letting go of what worked for you two years ago, but will soon be out-of-date.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

12.

Great ideas originate in the muscles.

Edison, Thomas A.

13.

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

14.

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

Rorty, Richard

15.

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

Hugo, Victor

16.

Many ideas grow better when transplanted into another mind than in the one where they sprung up.

Holmes, Oliver Wendell

17.

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

Berry, John

18.

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

Holmes, Oliver Wendell

19.

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

Saunders, Richard

20.

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

Twain, Mark

21.

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

Samuel Goldwyn

22.

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

Everson, Ray D.

23.

This is my answer to the gap between ideas and action - I will write it out.

Hortense Calisher

24.

The ideas of a time are like the clothes of a season: they are as arbitrary, as much imposed by some superior will which is seldom explicit. They are utilitarian and political, the instruments of smooth-running government.

Lewis, Wyndham

25.

The simple joy of taking an idea into one's own hands and giving it proper form, that's exciting.

Nelson, George

26.

Ideas are the roots of creation.

Dimnet, Ernest

27.

It is by acts and not by ideas that people live.

Anatole France

28.

Everyone is a genius at least once a year. The real geniuses simply have their bright ideas closer together.

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

29.

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

30.

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

Munro, J. Richard

31.

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

Sutton, Percy

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.

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

34.

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

35.

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

Disraeli, Benjamin

36.

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

Schopenhauer, Arthur

37.

Never hesitate to steal a good idea.

Neuharth, Al

38.

Ideas lose themselves as quickly as quail, and one must wing them the minute they rise out of the grass, or they are gone.

Kennedy, Thomas F.

39.

The best ideas are common property.

Seneca

40.

So long as new ideas are created, sales will continue to reach new highs.

Brande, Dorothea

41.

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.

42.

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

43.

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.

44.

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

Koysis, Ted

45.

Ideas too are a life and a world.

Lichtenberg, Georg C.

46.

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

Walter Bagehot

47.

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

Chartier, Alain

48.

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

Cotvos

49.

To love an idea is to love it a little more than one should.

Rostand, Jean

50.

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