Motivational Quotes

Ideas

Some people entertain ideas; others put them to work.

Famous Inspirational Daily Quotes

Best Quotes about Ideas

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

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

Ideas are, in truth, force.

James, Henry

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

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

Rorty, Richard

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

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

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

Anatole France

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

Holmes, Oliver Wendell

10.

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

11.

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

Picasso, Pablo

12.

An idea is never given to you without you being given the power to make it reality. You must, nevertheless, suffer for it.

Bach, Richard

13.

An idea is a feat of association, and the height of it is a good metaphor.

Frost, Robert

14.

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

15.

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

16.

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

Oliver Wendell Holmes

17.

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

Trotsky, Leon

18.

Nothing dies harder than a bad idea.

Cameron, Julie

19.

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

Hortense Calisher

20.

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

Nelson, George

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.

The vitality of thought is in adventure. Ideas won't keep. Something must be done about them.

Alfred North Whitehead

23.

Long is the road from conception to completion.

Moliere

24.

It is ideas, not vested interests, which are dangerous for good or evil.

Keynes, John Maynard

25.

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

Twain, Mark

26.

Little words hurt big ideas.

Newton, Howard W.

27.

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

Mason, Ken

28.

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

29.

Great ideas originate in the muscles.

Edison, Thomas A.

30.

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

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

31.

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

Gibson, Tobias S.

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.

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

Berry, John

34.

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

35.

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

Eliot, George

36.

Some people entertain ideas; others put them to work.

37.

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

Edison, Thomas A.

38.

Ideas won't work unless you do.

39.

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.

40.

Ideas... they have the power

Hill, Napoleon

41.

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

Rickover, Hyman G.

42.

Ideas control the world.

Garfield, James A.

43.

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

44.

Everything begins with an idea.

Nightingale, Earl

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.

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

Holmes, Oliver Wendell

47.

There are more ideas on earth than intellectuals imagine. And these ideas are more active, stronger, more resistant, more passionate than politicians think. We have to be there at the birth of ideas, the bursting outward of their force: not in books expressing them, but in events manifesting this force, in struggles carried on around ideas, for or against them. Ideas do not rule the world. But it is because the world has ideas... that it is not passively ruled by those who are its leaders or those who would like to teach it, once and for all, what it must think.

Foucault, Michel

48.

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

Emile Chartier

49.

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

Niblack, Griff

50.

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

Hyman Rickover