Motivational Quotes

Ideas

It's very good for an idea to be commonplace. The important thing is that a new idea should develop out of what is already there so that it soon becomes an old acquaintance. Old acquaintances aren't by any means always welcome, but at least one can't be mistaken as to who or what they are.

- Fitzgerald, Penelope

Best Quotes about Ideas

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

Hyman Rickover

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

Bridgman, P. W.

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

It is a lesson which all history teaches wise men, to put trust in ideas, and not in circumstances.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

Such as take lodgings in a head that's to be let unfurnished.

Butler, Samuel

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

Picasso, Pablo

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

Schopenhauer, Arthur

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

John Cage

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

10.

It is ideas, not vested interests, which are dangerous for good or evil.

Keynes, John Maynard

11.

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

Nelson, George

12.

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

13.

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

Holmes, Oliver Wendell

14.

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

Cotvos

15.

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

Victor Hugo

16.

Ideas won't work unless you do.

17.

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

18.

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

Townsend, Robert

19.

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

Niblack, Griff

20.

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

William O. Douglas

21.

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

22.

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

Brown, Les

23.

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

24.

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

Chamfort, Sebastien-Roch Nicolas De

25.

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

Maritain, Jacques

26.

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

Bachelard, Gaston

27.

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

28.

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

Hortense Calisher

29.

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

John Steinbeck

30.

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

Avery, Milton

31.

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

Proust, Marcel

32.

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

33.

Ideas are the roots of creation.

Dimnet, Ernest

34.

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.

35.

Ideas move fast when their time comes.

Heilbrun, Carolyn

36.

Ideas... they have the power

Hill, Napoleon

37.

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

Bunche, Ralph

38.

Long is the road from conception to completion.

Moliere

39.

Ideas control the world.

Garfield, James A.

40.

The most important thing in science is not so much to obtain new facts as to discover new ways of thinking about them.

Bragg, Sir William

41.

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

Hodges, Job E.

42.

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

Ernst, Morris L.

43.

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.

44.

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

Canetti, Elias

45.

The world moves, and ideas that were good once are not always good.

46.

Ideas are fatal to caste.

Forster, Edward M.

47.

Our greatest lack is not money for any undertaking, but rather ideas, If the ideas are good, cash will somehow flow to where it is needed.

Schuller, Robert H.

48.

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

49.

Never hesitate to steal a good idea.

Neuharth, Al

50.

The ideas dictate everything, you have to be true to that or you're dead.

Lynch, David