Motivational Quotes

Ideas

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

Best Quotes about Ideas

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

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

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

Brown, Les

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

Mason, Ken

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

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

Marquis, Don

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

There are only two kinds of scholars; those who love ideas and those who hate them.

Emile Chartier

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

Hector Berlioz

10.

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

Maritain, Jacques

11.

When patterns are broken, new worlds can emerge.

Kupferberg, Tuli

12.

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

Sir Frederick G. Banting

13.

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

14.

The human mind treats a new idea the same way the body treats a strange protein; it rejects it.

P. B. Medawar

15.

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

16.

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

Harris, Sidney J.

17.

Ideas won't work unless you do.

18.

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

19.

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

John Steinbeck

20.

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

21.

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

Hugo, Victor

22.

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

23.

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.

24.

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

Sutton, Percy

25.

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

Walter Bagehot

26.

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

Edison, Thomas A.

27.

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

28.

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

Chartier, Alain

29.

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

30.

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

31.

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

Nelson, George

32.

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

33.

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

Penny, A. Owen

34.

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

Holmes, Oliver Wendell

35.

Never hesitate to steal a good idea.

Neuharth, Al

36.

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

Rostand, Jean

37.

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

William O. Douglas

38.

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

Jim Hightower

39.

Ideas are fatal to caste.

Forster, Edward M.

40.

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

Holmes, Oliver Wendell

41.

A pile of rocks ceases to be a rock when somebody contemplates it with the idea of a cathedral in mind.

Saint-Exupery, Antoine De

42.

Harold, like the rest of us, had many impressions which saved him the trouble of distinct ideas.

Eliot, George

43.

Long is the road from conception to completion.

Moliere

44.

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

45.

Great people talk about ideas. Small people talk about other people.

Gibson, Tobias S.

46.

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

Saunders, Richard

47.

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

Hugo, Victor

48.

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.