Motivational Quotes

Ideas

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

Best Quotes about Ideas

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

Maritain, Jacques

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.

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

Trotsky, Leon

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

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

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

Pound, Ezra

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

Mann, Thomas

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

Bridgman, P. W.

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

10.

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

Sutton, Percy

11.

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

Koysis, Ted

12.

Every new idea is an impossibility until it is born.

Brown, Ron

13.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

14.

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

Keynes, John Maynard

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.

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

Victor Hugo

17.

Ideas are refined and multiplied in the commerce of minds. In their splendor, images effect a very simple communion of souls.

Bachelard, Gaston

18.

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

19.

Ideas control the world.

Garfield, James A.

20.

Ideas won't work unless you do.

21.

To love an idea is to love it a little more than one should.

Rostand, Jean

22.

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

23.

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

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.

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

Holmes, Oliver Wendell

26.

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.

27.

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

John Steinbeck

28.

An idea discovered is much better possessed.

Young

29.

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

Hortense Calisher

30.

Every composer knows the anguish and despair occasioned by forgetting ideas which one had no time to write down.

Hector Berlioz

31.

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

Rohn, Jim

32.

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

Holmes, Oliver Wendell

33.

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

34.

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

Rorty, Richard

35.

Long is the road from conception to completion.

Moliere

36.

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

Howard Aiken

37.

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

Glasgow, Arnold H.

38.

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

39.

A crank is someone with a new idea -- until it catches on.

Twain, Mark

40.

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

41.

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

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

42.

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.

43.

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

44.

There is no prosperity, trade, art, city, or great material wealth of any kind, but if you trace it home, you will find it rooted in a thought of some individual man. --

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

45.

Ideas are, in truth, force.

James, Henry

46.

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

47.

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

48.

A mind once stretched by a new idea never regains its original dimensions.

Holmes, Oliver Wendell

49.

So long as new ideas are created, sales will continue to reach new highs.

Brande, Dorothea

50.

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

Ernst, Morris L.