Motivational Quotes

Ideas

We like to test things... no matter how good an idea sounds, test it first.

- Block, Henry

Best Quotes about Ideas

It's easy to come up with new ideas; the hard part is letting go of what worked for you two years ago, but will soon be out-of-date.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

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

Schopenhauer, Arthur

Ideas control the world.

Garfield, James A.

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

Everson, Ray D.

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

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

Simpson, E. L.

Sometimes the best, and only effective, way to kill an idea is to put it into practice.

Harris, Sidney J.

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

Hugo, Victor

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

Sutton, Percy

10.

Ideas... they have the power

Hill, Napoleon

11.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

12.

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.

13.

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

14.

I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones.

John Cage

15.

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.

16.

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

17.

Great ideas originate in the muscles.

Edison, Thomas A.

18.

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

Munro, J. Richard

19.

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

Whitehead, Alfred North

20.

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.

21.

When patterns are broken, new worlds can emerge.

Kupferberg, Tuli

22.

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

Marquis, Don

23.

What you need is an idea.

Lear, William P.

24.

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.

25.

Ideas move fast when their time comes.

Heilbrun, Carolyn

26.

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

Nelson, George

27.

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

Disraeli, Benjamin

28.

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.

29.

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

Alfred North Whitehead

30.

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

31.

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

32.

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

Butler, Samuel

33.

We are governed not by armies, but by ideas.

Caird, Mona

34.

The best ideas are common property.

Seneca

35.

Mere words are cheap and plenty enough, but ideas that rouse and set multitudes thinking come as gold for the mines.

Penny, A. Owen

36.

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

37.

Every composer knows the anguish and despair occasioned by forgetting ideas which one had no time to write down.

Hector Berlioz

38.

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

39.

Labor gives birth to ideas.

Rohn, Jim

40.

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

Kettering, Charles F.

41.

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

42.

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

43.

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

James, William

44.

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

45.

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

Bunche, Ralph

46.

We like to test things... no matter how good an idea sounds, test it first.

Block, Henry

47.

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

48.

Ideas won't work unless you do.