Motivational Quotes

Ideas

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

Best Quotes about Ideas

Ideas... they have the power

Hill, Napoleon

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

Everson, Ray D.

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

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

Bovee, Christian Nevell

The idea that is not dangerous is not worthy of being called an idea at all.

Hubbard, Elbert

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

Rivarol, Antoine

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

People find ideas a bore because they do not distinguish between live ones and stuffed ones on a shelf.

Pound, Ezra

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

Simpson, E. L.

10.

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

11.

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

12.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

13.

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

Brown, Les

14.

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

Munro, J. Richard

15.

We are not to make the ideas of contentment and aspiration quarrel, for God made them fast friends. A man may aspire, and yet be quite content until it is time to raise; and both flying and resting are but parts of one contentment. The very fruit of the gospel is aspiration. It is to the heart what spring is to the earth, making every root, and bud, and bough desire to be more. -

Beecher, Henry Ward

16.

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

17.

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

Rorty, Richard

18.

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.

19.

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

William O. Douglas

20.

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

Holmes, Oliver Wendell

21.

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

22.

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

Frost, Robert

23.

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

24.

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

Chamfort, Sebastien-Roch Nicolas De

25.

Never hesitate to steal a good idea.

Neuharth, Al

26.

Don't worry about people stealing an idea. If it's original, you will have to ram it down their throats.

Howard Aiken

27.

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.

28.

The best ideas are common property.

Seneca

29.

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

Cotvos

30.

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

Hugo, Victor

31.

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

32.

Lots of people know a good thing the minute the other fellow sees it first.

Hodges, Job E.

33.

Little words hurt big ideas.

Newton, Howard W.

34.

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

Bridgman, P. W.

35.

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

36.

What you need is an idea.

Lear, William P.

37.

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

38.

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

Alfred North Whitehead

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.

Go out and buy yourself a five-cent pencil and a ten-cent notebook and begin to write down some million-dollar ideas for yourself.

Grinde, Bob

41.

Nothing dies harder than a bad idea.

Cameron, Julie

42.

The best way to have a good idea is to have a lot of ideas.

Pauling, Linus

43.

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

44.

Good ideas are a dime a dozen, bad ones are free.

Horton, Doug

45.

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.

46.

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

James, William

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.

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

49.

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

Emile Chartier

50.

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

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg