Motivational Quotes

Ideas

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

Best Quotes about Ideas

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

Pauling, Linus

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

Howard Aiken

An idea is worth nothing if it has no champion.

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

Saunders, Richard

Nothing dies harder than a bad idea.

Cameron, Julie

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

Jim Hightower

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

Ideas are the roots of creation.

Dimnet, Ernest

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

10.

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

Schopenhauer, Arthur

11.

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

Maritain, Jacques

12.

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

13.

Ideas move fast when their time comes.

Heilbrun, Carolyn

14.

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

Anatole France

15.

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

16.

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

Bovee, Christian Nevell

17.

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

Chamfort, Sebastien-Roch Nicolas De

18.

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

Simpson, E. L.

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.

Ideas are fatal to caste.

Forster, Edward M.

21.

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

Nelson, George

22.

Ideas control the world.

Garfield, James A.

23.

An idea is a putting truth in check-mate.

Gasset, Jose Ortega Y

24.

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

Hyman Rickover

25.

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

Hodges, Job E.

26.

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

Proust, Marcel

27.

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

28.

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

Mason, Ken

29.

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.

30.

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

Frost, Robert

31.

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

Einstein, Albert

32.

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

Canetti, Elias

33.

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

Townsend, Robert

34.

An idea discovered is much better possessed.

Young

35.

Ideas won't work unless you do.

36.

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

Victor Hugo

37.

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

38.

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

39.

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

Cotvos

40.

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

41.

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

Oliver Wendell Holmes

42.

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

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

43.

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

Disraeli, Benjamin

44.

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

45.

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

Rorty, Richard

46.

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

Bridgman, P. W.

47.

We are governed not by armies, but by ideas.

Caird, Mona

48.

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

Gibson, Tobias S.

49.

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.

50.

When patterns are broken, new worlds can emerge.

Kupferberg, Tuli