Motivational Quotes

Ideas

We are governed not by armies, but by ideas.

- Caird, Mona

Best Quotes about Ideas

Some people entertain ideas; others put them to work.

An idea discovered is much better possessed.

Young

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

Emile Chartier

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

Holmes, Oliver Wendell

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

James, William

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

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

Twain, Mark

In every great time there is some one idea at work which is more powerful than any other, and which shapes the events of the time and determines their ultimate issues.

Bacon, Francis

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

Pauling, Linus

10.

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

Victor Hugo

11.

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

John Cage

12.

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

Hector Berlioz

13.

What you need is an idea.

Lear, William P.

14.

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

Kettering, Charles F.

15.

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

Howard Aiken

16.

The best ideas are common property.

Seneca

17.

It doesn't matter how new an idea is: what matters is how new it becomes.

Canetti, Elias

18.

Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen.

John Steinbeck

19.

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

Alfred North Whitehead

20.

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

Penny, A. Owen

21.

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

Pound, Ezra

22.

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

Eliot, George

23.

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

Williamson, Marianne

24.

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

Walter Bagehot

25.

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

Rorty, Richard

26.

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

Hodges, Job E.

27.

Great ideas originate in the muscles.

Edison, Thomas A.

28.

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.

29.

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

Bovee, Christian Nevell

30.

The idea is in my head to put it down is nothing.

Avery, Milton

31.

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

Holmes, Oliver Wendell

32.

All achievements, all earned riches, have their beginning in an idea.

Hill, Napoleon

33.

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

34.

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

Hortense Calisher

35.

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

Schopenhauer, Arthur

36.

Ideas control the world.

Garfield, James A.

37.

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

38.

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

Edison, Thomas A.

39.

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

40.

Ideas move fast when their time comes.

Heilbrun, Carolyn

41.

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

Munro, J. Richard

42.

An idea is the only level which moves the world.

Corey, Arthur F.

43.

We are governed not by armies, but by ideas.