Motivational Quotes

Ideas

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.

Best Quotes about Ideas

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

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

Keynes, John Maynard

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.

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

Eliot, George

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

John Cage

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

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

Pauling, Linus

A good idea plus capable men cannot fail; it is better than money in the bank.

Berry, John

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

10.

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

Horton, Doug

11.

Ideas are fatal to caste.

Forster, Edward M.

12.

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

13.

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.

14.

Ideas not coupled with action never become bigger than the brain cells they occupied.

Glasgow, Arnold H.

15.

Ideas are a capital that bears interest only in the hands of talent.

Rivarol, Antoine

16.

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

17.

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

Chartier, Alain

18.

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.

19.

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

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

20.

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

John Steinbeck

21.

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

22.

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

Anatole France

23.

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

Victor Hugo

24.

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

25.

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

Edison, Thomas A.

26.

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

27.

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

Holmes, Oliver Wendell

28.

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

29.

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

30.

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

31.

Every new idea is an impossibility until it is born.

Brown, Ron

32.

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

33.

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

Marquis, Don

34.

When patterns are broken, new worlds can emerge.

Kupferberg, Tuli

35.

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

Simpson, E. L.

36.

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

Whitehead, Alfred North

37.

Ideas too are a life and a world.

Lichtenberg, Georg C.

38.

Montapert, Alfred A.

39.

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

Pound, Ezra

40.

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

41.

If you want to get across an idea, wrap it up in a person.

Bunche, Ralph

42.

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

43.

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

Hortense Calisher

44.

An idea discovered is much better possessed.

Young

45.

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

Williamson, Marianne

46.

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