Motivational Quotes

Ideas

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

- Einstein, Albert

Best Quotes about Ideas

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

Pound, Ezra

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

Chamfort, Sebastien-Roch Nicolas De

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.

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

Marquis, Don

We are not to make the ideas of contentment and aspiration quarrel, for God made them fast friends. A man may aspire, and yet be quite content until it is time to raise; and both flying and resting are but parts of one contentment. The very fruit of the gospel is aspiration. It is to the heart what spring is to the earth, making every root, and bud, and bough desire to be more. -

Beecher, Henry Ward

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

Victor Hugo

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

Alfred North Whitehead

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

Disraeli, Benjamin

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

Rorty, Richard

10.

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

Nelson, George

11.

There is no adequate defense, except stupidity, against the impact of a new idea.

Bridgman, P. W.

12.

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

Everson, Ray D.

13.

An idea is a putting truth in check-mate.

Gasset, Jose Ortega Y

14.

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

Hyman Rickover

15.

I said to myself, I have things in my head that are not like what anyone has taught me - shapes and ideas so near to me - so natural to my way of being and thinking that it hasn't occurred to me to put them down. I decided to start anew, to strip away what I had been taught.

Georgia O'Keeffe

16.

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

Walter Bagehot

17.

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

Glasgow, Arnold H.

18.

Man's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions.

Oliver Wendell Holmes

19.

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

Bachelard, Gaston

20.

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

Townsend, Robert

21.

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

22.

Very simple ideas lie within the reach only of complex minds

Gourmont, Remy De

23.

Good ideas and innovations must be driven into existence by courageous patience.

Rickover, Hyman G.

24.

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

Maritain, Jacques

25.

Ideas control the world.

Garfield, James A.

26.

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

Penny, A. Owen

27.

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

Ernst, Morris L.

28.

What you need is an idea.

Lear, William P.

29.

An idea is never given to you without you being given the power to make it reality. You must, nevertheless, suffer for it.

Bach, Richard

30.

Ideas are, in truth, force.

James, Henry

31.

A powerful idea communicates some of its strength to him who challenges it.

Proust, Marcel

32.

Long is the road from conception to completion.

Moliere

33.

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

Avery, Milton

34.

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

Rivarol, Antoine

35.

Ideas... they have the power

Hill, Napoleon

36.

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.

37.

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

38.

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

Picasso, Pablo

39.

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

Holmes, Oliver Wendell

40.

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

Twain, Mark

41.

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

John Cage

42.

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

43.

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

44.

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

Frost, Robert

45.

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

46.

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

Howard Aiken

47.

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

Saunders, Richard

48.

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

49.

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