Motivational Quotes

Ideas

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

- Walter Bagehot

Best Quotes about Ideas

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

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

Munro, J. Richard

Everything begins with an idea.

Nightingale, Earl

Ideas control the world.

Garfield, James A.

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

Hortense Calisher

Very simple ideas lie within the reach only of complex minds

Gourmont, Remy De

The best ideas are common property.

Seneca

Ideas too are a life and a world.

Lichtenberg, Georg C.

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

Holmes, Oliver Wendell

10.

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

Howard Aiken

11.

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

Harris, Sidney J.

12.

Nothing is more dangerous than an idea, when you only have one.

Chartier, Alain

13.

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.

14.

Little words hurt big ideas.

Newton, Howard W.

15.

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

Ernst, Morris L.

16.

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

Disraeli, Benjamin

17.

Ideas are the roots of creation.

Dimnet, Ernest

18.

An idea is a putting truth in check-mate.

Gasset, Jose Ortega Y

19.

There is one thing stronger than all the armies in the world, and that is an idea whose time has come.

Hugo, Victor

20.

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

Pauling, Linus

21.

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

Pound, Ezra

22.

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

23.

Do not follow the ideas of others, but learn to listen to the voice within yourself. Your body and mind will become clear and you will realize the unity of all things.

Dogen

24.

Great people talk about ideas. Small people talk about other people.

Gibson, Tobias S.

25.

An idea is the only level which moves the world.

Corey, Arthur F.

26.

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

Rivarol, Antoine

27.

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

28.

The ideas of a time are like the clothes of a season: they are as arbitrary, as much imposed by some superior will which is seldom explicit. They are utilitarian and political, the instruments of smooth-running government.

Lewis, Wyndham

29.

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.

30.

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

31.

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

32.

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

Sutton, Percy

33.

Do something. If it doesn't work, do something else. No idea is too crazy.

Jim Hightower

34.

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

Simpson, E. L.

35.

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

Bunche, Ralph

36.

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

37.

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

Alfred North Whitehead

38.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

39.

Labor gives birth to ideas.

Rohn, Jim

40.

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

41.

All opening moves were the same, like in chess. You don't have to come up with anything new, there's no point, because you're both after the same thing anyway. The game soon finds its own way and it's only at that point that you need a strategy.

Paolo Giordano

42.

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

Bridgman, P. W.

43.

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

Rostand, Jean

44.

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

Holmes, Oliver Wendell

45.

It's a pretty good idea to be of good cheer but not all the time. Just at the most unexpected times.