Motivational Quotes

Ideas

Great ideas originate in the muscles.

- Edison, Thomas A.

Best Quotes about Ideas

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

Berry, John

Never hesitate to steal a good idea.

Neuharth, Al

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

Block, Henry

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

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

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

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

Maritain, Jacques

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

Chamfort, Sebastien-Roch Nicolas De

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

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

Hector Berlioz

10.

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

Marquis, Don

11.

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

Cotvos

12.

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

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.

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

15.

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

Munro, J. Richard

16.

Ideas are, in truth, force.

James, Henry

17.

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

Frost, Robert

18.

Nothing dies harder than a bad idea.

Cameron, Julie

19.

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

Bunche, Ralph

20.

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

Rivarol, Antoine

21.

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

Hubbard, Elbert

22.

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

Bovee, Christian Nevell

23.

An idea is the only level which moves the world.

Corey, Arthur F.

24.

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

John Steinbeck

25.

An idea is a putting truth in check-mate.

Gasset, Jose Ortega Y

26.

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

John Cage

27.

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

Schopenhauer, Arthur

28.

No one has ever had an idea in a dress suit.

Sir Frederick G. Banting

29.

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

Williamson, Marianne

30.

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

Ernst, Morris L.

31.

If a man had as many ideas during the day as he does when he has insomnia, he would make a fortune.

Niblack, Griff

32.

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

Trotsky, Leon

33.

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.

34.

Labor gives birth to ideas.

Rohn, Jim

35.

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

Holmes, Oliver Wendell

36.

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

37.

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

38.

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

39.

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

Jim Hightower

40.

Ideas move fast when their time comes.

Heilbrun, Carolyn

41.

Ideas can be life-changing. Sometimes all you need to open the door is just one more good idea.

Rohn, Jim

42.

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.