Motivational Quotes

Ideas

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

- Edison, Thomas A.

Best Quotes about Ideas

An idea discovered is much better possessed.

Young

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

Twain, Mark

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

Einstein, Albert

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

Holmes, Oliver Wendell

You look at any giant corporation, and I mean the biggies, and they all started with a guy with an idea, doing it well.

Robbins, Irvine

Go out and buy yourself a five-cent pencil and a ten-cent notebook and begin to write down some million-dollar ideas for yourself.

Grinde, Bob

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

Cotvos

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.

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

Schopenhauer, Arthur

10.

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

Mason, Ken

11.

Some people entertain ideas; others put them to work.

12.

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

Bovee, Christian Nevell

13.

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

14.

Ideas move fast when their time comes.

Heilbrun, Carolyn

15.

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

16.

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

17.

An idea is the only level which moves the world.

Corey, Arthur F.

18.

What you need is an idea.

Lear, William P.

19.

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

Hugo, Victor

20.

Brain cells create ideas. Stress kills brain cells. Stress is not a good idea.

Saunders, Richard

21.

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

Walter Bagehot

22.

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

Hugo, Victor

23.

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

24.

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.

25.

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

Hodges, Job E.

26.

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

Rorty, Richard

27.

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

James, William

28.

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.

29.

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

30.

Think for thyself one good idea, but known to be thine own, is better than a thousand gleaned from fields by others sown.

Wilson, Alexander

31.

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

32.

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

33.

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

Bachelard, Gaston

34.

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

Hill, Napoleon

35.

Great ideas originate in the muscles.

Edison, Thomas A.

36.

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

Canetti, Elias

37.

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

Sutton, Percy

38.

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

William O. Douglas

39.

An idea is a putting truth in check-mate.

Gasset, Jose Ortega Y

40.

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

Chamfort, Sebastien-Roch Nicolas De

41.

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

42.

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

43.

Ideas not coupled with action never become bigger than the brain cells they occupied.

Glasgow, Arnold H.

44.

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.

45.

Many ideas are good for a limited time -- not forever.

Townsend, Robert

46.

Nothing dies harder than a bad idea.

Cameron, Julie

47.

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

Harris, Sidney J.

48.

An idea is a point of departure and no more. As soon as you elaborate it, it becomes transformed by thought.

Picasso, Pablo

49.

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

Disraeli, Benjamin

50.

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