Motivational Quotes

Ideas

Ideas too are a life and a world.

- Lichtenberg, Georg C.

Best Quotes about Ideas

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

Disraeli, Benjamin

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

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

Hodges, Job E.

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

The vitality of thought is in adventure. Ideas won't keep. Something must be done about them.

Alfred North Whitehead

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

An idea is the only level which moves the world.

Corey, Arthur F.

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

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

10.

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

11.

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

Bovee, Christian Nevell

12.

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

13.

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

14.

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

Everson, Ray D.

15.

In every great time there is some one idea at work which is more powerful than any other, and which shapes the events of the time and determines their ultimate issues.

Bacon, Francis

16.

What you need is an idea.

Lear, William P.

17.

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

Anatole France

18.

Ideas are the roots of creation.

Dimnet, Ernest

19.

Ideas can be life-changing. Sometimes all you need to open the door is just one more good idea.

Rohn, Jim

20.

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

Simpson, E. L.

21.

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

Kettering, Charles F.

22.

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

Hortense Calisher

23.

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

24.

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

Hugo, Victor

25.

When patterns are broken, new worlds can emerge.

Kupferberg, Tuli

26.

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

Jim Hightower

27.

Ideas are powerful things, requiring not a studious contemplation but an action, even if it is only an inner action. Their acquisition obligates each man in some way to change his life, even if it is only his inner life. They demand to be stood for. They dictate where a man must concentrate his vision. They determine his moral and intellectual priorities. They provide him with allies and make him enemies. In short, ideas impose an interest in their ultimate fate which goes far beyond the realm of the merely reasonable.

Decter, Midge

28.

If a man had as many ideas during the day as he does when he has insomnia, he would make a fortune.

Niblack, Griff

29.

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

Chartier, Alain

30.

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

Samuel Goldwyn

31.

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

John Cage

32.

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

33.

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

Block, Henry

34.

The ideas dictate everything, you have to be true to that or you're dead.

Lynch, David

35.

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

Howard Aiken

36.

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

37.

Ideas control the world.

Garfield, James A.

38.

Ideas move fast when their time comes.

Heilbrun, Carolyn

39.

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

Frost, Robert

40.

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

Cotvos

41.

Ideas won't work unless you do.

42.

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

Brown, Les

43.

All achievements, all earned riches, have their beginning in an idea.

Hill, Napoleon

44.

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

45.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

46.

Human life is driven forward by its dim apprehension of notions too general for its existing language.

Whitehead, Alfred North

47.

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.

48.

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

Schopenhauer, Arthur

49.

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

50.

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

Bridgman, P. W.