Motivational Quotes

Ideas

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

- Holmes, Oliver Wendell

Best Quotes about Ideas

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

Some people entertain ideas; others put them to work.

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

P. B. Medawar

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

Edison, Thomas A.

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

Little words hurt big ideas.

Newton, Howard W.

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

Canetti, Elias

It is by acts and not by ideas that people live.

Anatole France

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

10.

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

Nelson, George

11.

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

Sir Frederick G. Banting

12.

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

Proust, Marcel

13.

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

Victor Hugo

14.

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

15.

Good ideas are a dime a dozen, bad ones are free.

Horton, Doug

16.

An idea is the only level which moves the world.

Corey, Arthur F.

17.

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

Ernst, Morris L.

18.

Every new idea is an impossibility until it is born.

Brown, Ron

19.

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

Koysis, Ted

20.

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

Keynes, John Maynard

21.

Everything begins with an idea.

Nightingale, Earl

22.

When an idea reaches critical mass there is no stopping the shift its presence will induce.

Williamson, Marianne

23.

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

Townsend, Robert

24.

Very simple ideas lie within the reach only of complex minds

Gourmont, Remy De

25.

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

Maritain, Jacques

26.

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

Walter Bagehot

27.

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

Penny, A. Owen

28.

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

Hugo, Victor

29.

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

Holmes, Oliver Wendell

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.

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.

32.

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

Hugo, Victor

33.

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

Eliot, George

34.

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

John Cage

35.

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

Harris, Sidney J.

36.

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

Trotsky, Leon

37.

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

38.

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

39.

Everyone is a genius at least once a year. The real geniuses simply have their bright ideas closer together.

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

40.

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

Brown, Les

41.

Long is the road from conception to completion.

Moliere

42.

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

Frost, Robert

43.

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

Pound, Ezra

44.

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

Rickover, Hyman G.

45.

Ideas control the world.

Garfield, James A.

46.

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

47.

The best way to have a good idea is to have a lot of ideas.

Pauling, Linus

48.

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

49.

An idea is worth nothing if it has no champion.

50.

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

Mason, Ken