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

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

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

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

Penny, A. Owen

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

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

Rorty, Richard

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

Hodges, Job E.

When patterns are broken, new worlds can emerge.

Kupferberg, Tuli

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

Williamson, Marianne

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

Saunders, Richard

10.

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

Disraeli, Benjamin

11.

It's easy to come up with new ideas; the hard part is letting go of what worked for you two years ago, but will soon be out-of-date.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

12.

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

Horton, Doug

13.

The ideas I stand for are not mine. I borrowed them from Socrates. I swiped them from Chesterfield. I stole them from Jesus. And I put them in a book. If you don't like their rules, whose would you use?

Carnegie, Dale

14.

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

15.

Long is the road from conception to completion.

Moliere

16.

Every revolutionary idea seems to evoke three stages of reaction. They may be summed up by the phrases: (1) It's completely impossible. (2) It's possible, but it's not worth doing. (3) I said it was a good idea all along.

Clarke, Arthur C.

17.

Ideas are, in truth, force.

James, Henry

18.

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

Pauling, Linus

19.

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

Walter Bagehot

20.

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

Hortense Calisher

21.

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

Chamfort, Sebastien-Roch Nicolas De

22.

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

John Steinbeck

23.

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

Proust, Marcel

24.

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

25.

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

Sir Frederick G. Banting

26.

It first appeared like a crazy idea. It turned out he had a great idea.

Munro, J. Richard

27.

We are governed not by armies, but by ideas.

Caird, Mona

28.

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

Canetti, Elias

29.

The best ideas are common property.

Seneca

30.

You look at any giant corporation, and I mean the biggies, and they all started with a guy with an idea, doing it well.

Robbins, Irvine

31.

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

Judith Brocklehurst

32.

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

Butler, Samuel

33.

We like to test things... no matter how good an idea sounds, test it first.

Block, Henry

34.

Everything begins with an idea.

Nightingale, Earl

35.

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

Holmes, Oliver Wendell

36.

If you are possessed by an idea, you find it expressed everywhere, you even smell it.

Mann, Thomas

37.

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

38.

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

39.

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

Koysis, Ted

40.

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

Edison, Thomas A.

41.

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

Brown, Les

42.

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

Ernst, Morris L.

43.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

44.

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.

45.

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

Marquis, Don

46.

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

Rickover, Hyman G.

47.

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

48.

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

49.

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

Emile Chartier

50.

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