Motivational Quotes

Ideas

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

- Anatole France

Best Quotes about Ideas

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

Hugo, Victor

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

Holmes, Oliver Wendell

Ideas control the world.

Garfield, James A.

Some people entertain ideas; others put them to work.

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

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

Eliot, George

I said to myself, I have things in my head that are not like what anyone has taught me - shapes and ideas so near to me - so natural to my way of being and thinking that it hasn't occurred to me to put them down. I decided to start anew, to strip away what I had been taught.

Georgia O'Keeffe

An idea is a putting truth in check-mate.

Gasset, Jose Ortega Y

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

10.

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

11.

Man's fear of ideas is probably the greatest dike holding back human knowledge and happiness.

Ernst, Morris L.

12.

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

Bachelard, Gaston

13.

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

Williamson, Marianne

14.

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

15.

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.

16.

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

Butler, Samuel

17.

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

18.

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

Oliver Wendell Holmes

19.

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

Everson, Ray D.

20.

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

Berry, John

21.

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.

22.

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

Holmes, Oliver Wendell

23.

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

Bovee, Christian Nevell

24.

When patterns are broken, new worlds can emerge.

Kupferberg, Tuli

25.

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

Chartier, Alain

26.

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

Lynch, David

27.

Ideas are the roots of creation.

Dimnet, Ernest

28.

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

Hubbard, Elbert

29.

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

Samuel Goldwyn

30.

An idea is not responsible for the people who believe in it.

Marquis, Don

31.

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

32.

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

Edison, Thomas A.

33.

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

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

34.

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

Mason, Ken

35.

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

36.

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

Victor Hugo

37.

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

38.

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

Nelson, George

39.

A handsome parson is fit for nothing but ti put ideas into the young woman's heads.

Judith Brocklehurst

40.

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

41.

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

42.

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

43.

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

44.

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

Rivarol, Antoine

45.

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

Trotsky, Leon

46.

The best ideas are common property.

Seneca

47.

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

48.

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

49.

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

Hugo, Victor

50.

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