Motivational Quotes

Ideas

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

Best Quotes about Ideas

Ideas too are a life and a world.

Lichtenberg, Georg C.

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

Penny, A. Owen

Ideas control the world.

Garfield, James A.

A handsome parson is fit for nothing but ti put ideas into the young woman's heads.

Judith Brocklehurst

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

Avery, Milton

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

Great ideas originate in the muscles.

Edison, Thomas A.

To love an idea is to love it a little more than one should.

Rostand, Jean

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

10.

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

John Cage

11.

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

Everson, Ray D.

12.

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

13.

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

Holmes, Oliver Wendell

14.

It's easy to come up with new ideas; the hard part is letting go of what worked for you two years ago, but will soon be out-of-date.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

15.

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

Bovee, Christian Nevell

16.

Ideas are fatal to caste.

Forster, Edward M.

17.

The vitality of thought is in adventure. Ideas won't keep. Something must be done about them. When the idea is new, its custodians have fervor, live for it, and if need be, die for it.

Whitehead, Alfred North

18.

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

19.

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

Glasgow, Arnold H.

20.

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

21.

Some people entertain ideas; others put them to work.

22.

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

23.

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

Sutton, Percy

24.

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

Bridgman, P. W.

25.

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

26.

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

Bunche, Ralph

27.

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

Hyman Rickover

28.

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

Ernst, Morris L.

29.

I had a monumental idea this morning, but I didn't like it.

Samuel Goldwyn

30.

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

Brown, Les

31.

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

Butler, Samuel

32.

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

Schopenhauer, Arthur

33.

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

Howard Aiken

34.

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

Proust, Marcel

35.

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

36.

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

Kettering, Charles F.

37.

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

Chartier, Alain

38.

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

39.

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

Cotvos

40.

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

Canetti, Elias

41.

The best ideas are common property.

Seneca

42.

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

Berry, John

43.

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

Simpson, E. L.

44.

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

Rickover, Hyman G.

45.

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

46.

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

47.

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

Trotsky, Leon

48.

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

Hugo, Victor

49.

Concepts, like individuals, have their histories and are just as incapable of withstanding the ravages of time as are individuals. But in and through all this they retain a kind of homesickness for the scenes of their childhood.

Kierkegaard, S°ren

50.

A new idea is like a child. It's easier to conceive than to deliver.

Koysis, Ted