Motivational Quotes

Ideas

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

- Sutton, Percy

Best Quotes about Ideas

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

Ernst, Morris L.

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

Mann, Thomas

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

It's easy to come up with new ideas; the hard part is letting go of what worked for you two years ago, but will soon be out-of-date.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

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

Kettering, Charles F.

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

Holmes, Oliver Wendell

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

Whitehead, Alfred North

An idea is a point of departure and no more. As soon as you elaborate it, it becomes transformed by thought.

Picasso, Pablo

The way to combat noxious ideas is with other ideas. The way to combat falsehoods is with truth.

William O. Douglas

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.

Very simple ideas lie within the reach only of complex minds

Gourmont, Remy De

12.

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

Everson, Ray D.

13.

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

Victor Hugo

14.

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

Frost, Robert

15.

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

16.

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

Simpson, E. L.

17.

What you need is an idea.

Lear, William P.

18.

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

James, William

19.

Ideas won't work unless you do.

20.

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

Saunders, Richard

21.

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.

22.

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

Block, Henry

23.

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

24.

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

Rickover, Hyman G.

25.

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

Bunche, Ralph

26.

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

John Steinbeck

27.

The simple joy of taking an idea into one's own hands and giving it proper form, that's exciting.

Nelson, George

28.

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

29.

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

Hodges, Job E.

30.

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

31.

Man's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions.

Oliver Wendell Holmes

32.

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

Edison, Thomas A.

33.

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

Bridgman, P. W.

34.

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

Horton, Doug

35.

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

36.

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

Brande, Dorothea

37.

A great idea is usually original to more than one discoverer. Great ideas come when the world needs them. Great ideas surround the world's ignorance and press for admission.

Phelps, Elizabeth Stuart

38.

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

Brown, Les

39.

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

40.

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

Avery, Milton

41.

Ideas... they have the power

Hill, Napoleon

42.

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

Proust, Marcel

43.

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

Hyman Rickover

44.

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

Rohn, Jim

45.

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

Hortense Calisher

46.

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

Judith Brocklehurst

47.

When patterns are broken, new worlds can emerge.

Kupferberg, Tuli

48.

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

Samuel Goldwyn

49.

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

50.

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