Motivational Quotes

Ideas

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

- Canetti, Elias

Best Quotes about Ideas

Do something. If it doesn't work, do something else. No idea is too crazy.

Jim Hightower

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

Eliot, George

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

Brown, Les

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

Simpson, E. L.

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

Hortense Calisher

Ideas move fast when their time comes.

Heilbrun, Carolyn

Very simple ideas lie within the reach only of complex minds

Gourmont, Remy De

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

Rorty, Richard

A single idea, if it is right, saves us the labor of an infinity of experiences.

Maritain, Jacques

10.

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

11.

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

Marquis, Don

12.

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

13.

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

14.

An idea is a putting truth in check-mate.

Gasset, Jose Ortega Y

15.

They come into being not through demonstration but through revelation, through the medium of powerful personalities.

Einstein, Albert

16.

Ideas control the world.

Garfield, James A.

17.

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

James, William

18.

Ideas won't work unless you do.

19.

Never hesitate to steal a good idea.

Neuharth, Al

20.

Nothing dies harder than a bad idea.

Cameron, Julie

21.

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

Victor Hugo

22.

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

23.

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

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

24.

What you need is an idea.

Lear, William P.

25.

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

Twain, Mark

26.

So long as new ideas are created, sales will continue to reach new highs.

Brande, Dorothea

27.

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

Kettering, Charles F.

28.

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

Edison, Thomas A.

29.

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

Mason, Ken

30.

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

William O. Douglas

31.

Not just in commerce but in the world of ideas too our age is putting on a veritable clearance sale. Everything can be had so dirt cheap that one begins to wander whether in the end anyone will want to make a bid.

Kierkegaard, S°ren

32.

The point, simply, is that we are doing more rediscovering these days than discovering coming anew upon truths that ignorant people refused to examine, over the centuries, because the wise people who held custody of the fundamental truths of nature were unpopular.

Williamson, John

33.

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

Hyman Rickover

34.

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

35.

Ideas are, in truth, force.

James, Henry

36.

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

Rivarol, Antoine

37.

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

Pound, Ezra

38.

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

Anatole France

39.

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

Disraeli, Benjamin

40.

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

41.

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

Whitehead, Alfred North

42.

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

Pauling, Linus

43.

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

John Steinbeck

44.

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

45.

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

46.

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

Chartier, Alain

47.

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

Holmes, Oliver Wendell

48.

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

Berry, John

49.

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

50.

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