Motivational Quotes

Ideas

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

- Twain, Mark

Best Quotes about Ideas

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

Proust, Marcel

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 move fast when their time comes.

Heilbrun, Carolyn

The human mind treats a new idea the same way the body treats a strange protein; it rejects it.

P. B. Medawar

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

Bovee, Christian Nevell

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.

An idea is the only level which moves the world.

Corey, Arthur F.

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

Maritain, Jacques

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

10.

The best ideas are common property.

Seneca

11.

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.

12.

Sometimes the best, and only effective, way to kill an idea is to put it into practice.

Harris, Sidney J.

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.

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

Simpson, E. L.

15.

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

Trotsky, Leon

16.

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

Hill, Napoleon

17.

Such as take lodgings in a head that's to be let unfurnished.

Butler, Samuel

18.

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

Williamson, Marianne

19.

There are only two kinds of scholars; those who love ideas and those who hate them.

Emile Chartier

20.

Ideas too are a life and a world.

Lichtenberg, Georg C.

21.

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

Nelson, George

22.

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

23.

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

Niblack, Griff

24.

Very simple ideas lie within the reach only of complex minds

Gourmont, Remy De

25.

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

John Cage

26.

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

Disraeli, Benjamin

27.

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

Everson, Ray D.

28.

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

William O. Douglas

29.

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

Penny, A. Owen

30.

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

Brown, Les

31.

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

32.

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

Sutton, Percy

33.

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

Rickover, Hyman G.

34.

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

35.

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

Whitehead, Alfred North

36.

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

Brande, Dorothea

37.

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

Hubbard, Elbert

38.

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

Cotvos

39.

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

Howard Aiken

40.

No one has ever had an idea in a dress suit.

Sir Frederick G. Banting

41.

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

Bunche, Ralph

42.

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

Alfred North Whitehead

43.

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

Mason, Ken

44.

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

Rivarol, Antoine

45.

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

Pauling, Linus

46.

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

47.

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

48.

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

Frost, Robert

49.

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

Victor Hugo

50.

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