Motivational Quotes

Ideas

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

- Hodges, Job E.

Best Quotes about Ideas

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

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

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

Rohn, Jim

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.

Great ideas originate in the muscles.

Edison, Thomas A.

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

Holmes, Oliver Wendell

Some people entertain ideas; others put them to work.

An idea is a putting truth in check-mate.

Gasset, Jose Ortega Y

It doesn't matter how new an idea is: what matters is how new it becomes.

Canetti, Elias

10.

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.

11.

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

12.

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

Trotsky, Leon

13.

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

Hubbard, Elbert

14.

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

15.

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

16.

Never hesitate to steal a good idea.

Neuharth, Al

17.

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

18.

Ideas are the roots of creation.

Dimnet, Ernest

19.

Ideas move fast when their time comes.

Heilbrun, Carolyn

20.

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

Bachelard, Gaston

21.

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.

22.

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

Edison, Thomas A.

23.

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

24.

Little words hurt big ideas.

Newton, Howard W.

25.

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.

26.

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

27.

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

Bovee, Christian Nevell

28.

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

29.

Many ideas are good for a limited time -- not forever.

Townsend, Robert

30.

Ideas control the world.

Garfield, James A.

31.

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

Mason, Ken

32.

One of the greatest pains to human nature is the pain of a new idea.

Walter Bagehot

33.

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

Ernst, Morris L.

34.

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

Glasgow, Arnold H.

35.

Ideas won't work unless you do.

36.

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

37.

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

38.

Ideas are, in truth, force.

James, Henry

39.

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

40.

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

James, William

41.

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

Saunders, Richard

42.

Long is the road from conception to completion.

Moliere

43.

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

Pauling, Linus

44.

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

45.

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

Picasso, Pablo

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.

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

Butler, Samuel

48.

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

Pound, Ezra

49.

The most important thing in science is not so much to obtain new facts as to discover new ways of thinking about them.

Bragg, Sir William

50.

Everything begins with an idea.