Motivational Quotes

Ideas

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

- Proust, Marcel

Best Quotes about 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

Ideas are fatal to caste.

Forster, Edward M.

What you need is an idea.

Lear, William P.

Ideas are the roots of creation.

Dimnet, Ernest

Great ideas originate in the muscles.

Edison, Thomas A.

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

Mason, Ken

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

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.

If you pray for only one thing, .let it be for an idea.

Sutton, Percy

10.

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

Hortense Calisher

11.

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

Pauling, Linus

12.

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

13.

The idea is in my head to put it down is nothing.

Avery, Milton

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.

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

16.

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

17.

Ideas... they have the power

Hill, Napoleon

18.

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

Saunders, Richard

19.

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.

20.

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

21.

A new idea is first condemned as ridiculous and then dismissed as trivial, until finally, it becomes what everybody knows.

James, William

22.

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

Trotsky, Leon

23.

A man is not necessarily intelligent because he has plenty of ideas, any more than he is a good general because he has plenty of soldiers.

Chamfort, Sebastien-Roch Nicolas De

24.

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

Penny, A. Owen

25.

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

26.

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.

27.

Ideals are like stars: you will not succeed in touching them with your hands, but like the seafaring man on the ocean desert of waters, you choose them as your guides, and following them, you reach your destiny.

Carl Schurz

28.

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

Munro, J. Richard

29.

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

Everson, Ray D.

30.

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

Chamfort, Sebastien-Roch Nicolas De

31.

The idea that is not dangerous is not worthy of being called an idea at all.

Hubbard, Elbert

32.

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

Hill, Napoleon

33.

An idea is the only level which moves the world.

Corey, Arthur F.

34.

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

Holmes, Oliver Wendell

35.

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

Berry, John

36.

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

Hyman Rickover

37.

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

Niblack, Griff

38.

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

Whitehead, Alfred North

39.

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

Schopenhauer, Arthur

40.

Nothing dies harder than a bad idea.

Cameron, Julie

41.

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

42.

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

Rorty, Richard

43.

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

Alfred North Whitehead

44.

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

45.

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

Edison, Thomas A.

46.

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

Keynes, John Maynard

47.

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

Disraeli, Benjamin

48.

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

49.

It is not always by plugging away at a difficulty and sticking to it that one overcomes it; often it is by working on the one next to it. Some things and some people have to be approached obliquely, at an angle.

Gide, Andre

50.

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