The greatest events of an age are its best thoughts. It is the nature of thought to find its way into action.
—Christian Nestell Bovee (1820–1904) American Writer, Aphorist
Hang ideas! They are tramps, vagabonds, knocking at the back-door of your mind, each taking a little of your substance, each carrying away some crumb of that belief in a few simple notions you must cling to if you want to live decently and would like to die easy!
—Joseph Conrad (1857–1924) Polish-born British Novelist
The wise only possess ideas; the greater part of mankind are possessed by them.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) English Poet, Literary Critic, Philosopher
Human life is driven forward by its dim apprehension of notions too general for its existing language.
—Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947) English Mathematician, Philosopher
Congealed thinking is the forerunner of failure…make sure you are always receptive to new ideas.
—George W. Crane (1901–95) American Psychologist, Physician
So long as new ideas are created, sales will continue to reach new highs.
—Dorothea Brande (1893–1948) American Writer, Editor
A great idea is usually original to more than one discoverer. Great ideas come when the world needs them. They surround the world’s ignorance and press for admission.
—Austin Phelps (1820–90) American Presbyterian Clergyman, Educator, Theologian
The value of an idea lies in the using of it.
—Thomas Edison (1847–1931) American Inventor, Scientist, Entrepreneur
You spend ten years of your life being trained to do one thing, and you’re being taught to think that it’s the most serious thing that anyone could possibly do, and then suddenly you find yourself doing something that in some respects is the epitome of frivolity.
—Jonathan Miller (1934–2019) English Theatre Director, Author
Ideas must work through the brains and the arms of good and brave men, or they are no better than dreams.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
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.
—Midge Decter (b.1927) American Journalist, Activist, Author
Ideas are elusive, slippery things. Best to keep a pad of paper and a pencil at your bedside, so you can stab them during the night before they get away.
—Earl Nightingale (1921–89) American Motivational Speaker, Author
All achievement, all earned riches, have their beginning in an idea!
—Napoleon Hill (1883–1970) American Author, Journalist, Attorney, Lecturer
My mind contains many good ideas, but it’s not always easy to squeeze one out.
—Ashleigh Brilliant (b.1933) British Cartoonist, Author
A new idea is first condemned as ridiculous and then dismissed as trivial, until finally, it becomes what everybody knows.
—William James (1842–1910) American Philosopher, Psychologist, Physician
Sometimes the best, and only effective, way to kill an idea is to put it into practice.
—Sydney J. Harris (1917–86) American Essayist, Drama Critic
Our ideas, like orange-plants, spread out in proportion to the size of the box which imprisons the roots.
—Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton (1803–73) British Novelist, Poet, Politician
Behind every advance of the human race is a germ of creation growing in the mind of some lone individual. An individual whose dreams waken him in the night while others lie contentedly asleep.
—Crawford Greenewalt (1902–93) American Engineer
It is not once nor twice but times without number that the same ideas make their appearance in the world.
—Aristotle (384BCE–322BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher, Scholar
An idea is worth nothing if it has no champion.
—Unknown
Ideas are like beards; men do not have them until they grow up.
—Voltaire (1694–1778) French Philosopher, Author
Most executives, many scientists, and almost all business school graduates believe that if you analyze data, this will give you new ideas. Unfortunately, this belief is totally wrong. The mind can only see what it is prepared to see.
—Edward de Bono (b.1933) Maltese-British Psychologist, Writer
Big ideas are little ideas that no-one killed too soon.
—Seth Godin (b.1960) American Entrepreneur
These people who are always briskly doing something and as busy as waltzing mice, they have little, sharp, staccato ideas, such as: “I see where I can make an annual cut of $3.47 in my meat budget.” But they have no slow, big ideas.
—Brenda Ueland (1891–1985) American Journalist, Editor, Writer, Teacher
Everything begins with an idea.
—Earl Nightingale (1921–89) American Motivational Speaker, Author
Ideas are invented only as correctives to the past. Through repeated rectification of this kind one may hope to disengage an idea that is valid.
—Gaston Bachelard (1884–1962) French Philosopher, Psychoanalyst, Poet
New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common.
—John Locke (1632–1704) English Philosopher, Physician
We don’t need men with new ideas as much as we need men who will put energy behind the old ideas.
—William Feather (1889–1981) American Publisher, Author
Our land is not more the recipient of the men of all countries than of their ideas.
—George Bancroft (1800–91) American Historian, Politician
Ideas that enter the mind under fire remain there securely and for ever.
—Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) Russian Marxist Revolutionary
Neither man nor nation can exist without a sublime idea.
—Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821–81) Russian Novelist, Essayist, Writer
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.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
To swear off making mistakes is very easy. All you have to do is swear off having ideas.
—Leo Burnett (1891–1971) American Advertising Executive
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 rise; 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.
—Henry Ward Beecher (1813–87) American Clergyman, Writer
He that will not apply new remedies, must expect new evils: for Time is the greatest innovator: and if Time, of course, alter things to the worse, and wisdom and counsel shall not alter them to the better, what shall be the end?
—Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English Philosopher
We must believe in free will — we have no choice.
—Isaac Bashevis Singer (1902–91) Polish-born American Children’s Books Writer, Novelist, Short Story Writer
You can judge your age by the amount of pain you feel when you come in contact with a new idea.
—John Nuveen
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!
—Orison Swett Marden (1850–1924) American New Thought Writer, Physician, Entrepreneur
Ideas in the mind are the transcript of the world; words are the transcript of ideas; and writing and printing are the transcript of words.
—Joseph Addison (1672–1719) English Essayist, Poet, Playwright, Politician
Ideas control the world.
—James A. Garfield (1831–81) American Head of State, Lawyer, Educator
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.
—Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) British Scientist, Science-fiction Writer
Nearly every man who develops an idea works at it up to the point where it looks impossible, and then gets discouraged. That’s not the place to become discouraged.
—Thomas Edison (1847–1931) American Inventor, Scientist, Entrepreneur
Labor gives birth to ideas.
—Jim Rohn (1930–2009) American Entrepreneur, Author, Motivational Speaker
To ask at what time a man has first any ideas is to ask when he begins to perceive; having ideas and perception being the same thing.
—John Locke (1632–1704) English Philosopher, Physician
You have to have an idea of what you are going to do, but it should be a vague idea.
—Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) Spanish Painter, Sculptor, Artist
You get ideas from daydreaming. You get ideas from being bored. You get ideas all the time. The only difference between writers and other people is we notice when we’re doing it.
—Neil Gaiman (b.1960) British Writer
Man’s mind stretched by a new idea, never goes back to its original dimensions.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–94) American Physician, Essayist
Opportunity ideas do not lie around waiting to be discovered. Such ideas need to be produced.
—Edward de Bono (b.1933) Maltese-British Psychologist, Writer
Ideas too are a life and a world.
—Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–99) German Philosopher, Physicist
They come into being not through demonstration but through revelation, through the medium of powerful personalities.
—Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born Physicist