Motivational Quotes

Ideas

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

- Oliver Wendell Holmes

Best Quotes about Ideas

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

Hodges, Job E.

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

Oliver Wendell Holmes

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

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

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

Canetti, Elias

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

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

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

Holmes, Oliver Wendell

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

10.

We are governed not by armies, but by ideas.

Caird, Mona

11.

Every new idea is an impossibility until it is born.

Brown, Ron

12.

It is by acts and not by ideas that people live.

Anatole France

13.

Long is the road from conception to completion.

Moliere

14.

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

Mason, Ken

15.

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

16.

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

John Cage

17.

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

Simpson, E. L.

18.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

19.

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

Rivarol, Antoine

20.

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

21.

We are not to make the ideas of contentment and aspiration quarrel, for God made them fast friends. A man may aspire, and yet be quite content until it is time to raise; and both flying and resting are but parts of one contentment. The very fruit of the gospel is aspiration. It is to the heart what spring is to the earth, making every root, and bud, and bough desire to be more. -

Beecher, Henry Ward

22.

An idea discovered is much better possessed.

Young

23.

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

Holmes, Oliver Wendell

24.

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

Bachelard, Gaston

25.

Ideas are the roots of creation.

Dimnet, Ernest

26.

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

Brande, Dorothea

27.

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

28.

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

29.

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

P. B. Medawar

30.

Ideas too are a life and a world.

Lichtenberg, Georg C.

31.

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

32.

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

Butler, Samuel

33.

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

Cotvos

34.

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

35.

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

Gibson, Tobias S.

36.

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

Rickover, Hyman G.

37.

An idea is worth nothing if it has no champion.

38.

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

Twain, Mark

39.

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

Maritain, Jacques

40.

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

Holmes, Oliver Wendell

41.

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

Niblack, Griff

42.

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

43.

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

Mann, Thomas

44.

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

45.

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

Jim Hightower

46.

Ideas... they have the power

Hill, Napoleon

47.

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

48.

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

49.

Some people entertain ideas; others put them to work.

50.

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