Motivational Quotes

Ideas

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

- Schopenhauer, Arthur

Best Quotes about Ideas

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

Samuel Goldwyn

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

Mann, Thomas

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

Oliver Wendell Holmes

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

Holmes, Oliver Wendell

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

Kettering, Charles F.

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

No one has ever had an idea in a dress suit.

Sir Frederick G. Banting

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

Hugo, Victor

Ideas are fatal to caste.

Forster, Edward M.

10.

The vitality of thought is in adventure. Ideas won't keep. Something must be done about them. When the idea is new, its custodians have fervor, live for it, and if need be, die for it.

Whitehead, Alfred North

11.

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.

12.

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

Whitehead, Alfred North

13.

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

14.

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

Bridgman, P. W.

15.

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

16.

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

17.

It's easy to come up with new ideas; the hard part is letting go of what worked for you two years ago, but will soon be out-of-date.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

18.

Ideas control the world.

Garfield, James A.

19.

We are governed not by armies, but by ideas.

Caird, Mona

20.

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

Walter Bagehot

21.

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

Hugo, Victor

22.

When patterns are broken, new worlds can emerge.

Kupferberg, Tuli

23.

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

Simpson, E. L.

24.

Such as take lodgings in a head that's to be let unfurnished.

Butler, Samuel

25.

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

William O. Douglas

26.

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

27.

When an idea reaches critical mass there is no stopping the shift its presence will induce.

Williamson, Marianne

28.

Nothing dies harder than a bad idea.

Cameron, Julie

29.

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

Edison, Thomas A.

30.

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

Victor Hugo

31.

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

32.

Everything begins with an idea.

Nightingale, Earl

33.

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

34.

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

Holmes, Oliver Wendell

35.

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

Twain, Mark

36.

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

Bunche, Ralph

37.

An idea is the only level which moves the world.

Corey, Arthur F.

38.

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

39.

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

40.

Very simple ideas lie within the reach only of complex minds

Gourmont, Remy De

41.

Some people entertain ideas; others put them to work.

42.

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

43.

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

44.

Ideas are, in truth, force.

James, Henry

45.

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

Rickover, Hyman G.

46.

Many ideas are good for a limited time -- not forever.

Townsend, Robert

47.

But how shall I get ideas? Keep your wits open! Observe! Observe! Study! Study! But above all, Think! Think! And when a noble image is indelibly impressed upon the mind -- Act!

Marden, Orison Swett

48.

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.

49.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

50.

Ideas... they have the power

Hill, Napoleon