Ideas quotes
16.4K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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"If I hadn’t spent so much time studying Earthlings," said the Tralfamadorian, "I wouldn’t have any idea what was meant by 'free will.' I've visited thirty-one inhabited planets in the universe, and I have studied reports on one hundred more. Only on Earth is there any talk of free will."
"A lack of seriousness has led to all sorts of wonderful insights."
"The massive, frustrated energies of a mainly young, disillusioned electorate that has long since abandoned the idea that we all have a duty to vote. This is like being told you have a duty to buy a new car, but you have to choose immediately between a Ford and a Chevy."
"I have no control over the audience. I have no idea what they think. My heart's pure. I can't do anything. I really can't do anything. I don't know what goes on in the crowd."
"I use the gallery as if it were a doctor. I come for ideas and help - to look at situations within painting, rather than paintings."
"The idea of equal rights was in the air."
"People often say that aesthetics is a branch of psychology. The idea is that once we are more advanced-all the mysteries of art-will be understood by psychological experiments. Exceedingly stupid at this idea is, this is roughly it."
"There definitely is that element of guys who like to party and have a good time and... putting off for as long as possible the idea that they'll actually have to settle down"
"As a scientist, I can not help feeling that all religions are on a tottering foundation. None is perfect or inspired.The idea that a good God would send people to a burning hell is utterly damnable to me. I don't want to have anything to do with such a God."
"When I have an idea, it goes from vague, cloudy notion to 100,000 words in a heartbeat."
"Often, the idea that there can be a wide range of translations of one text doesn't occur to people - or that a translation could be bad, very bad, and unfaithful to the original."
"You've never lived what you are thinking, and that isn't good. Only the ideas we actually live are of any value."
"Do you think it interests me that this painting represents two figures? These two figures existed, they exist no more. The sight of them gave me an initial emotion, little by little their real presence grew indistinct they became a fiction for me, then they disappeared, or rather, were turned into problems of all kinds. For me they are no longer two figures but shapes and colours, don't misunderstand me, shapes and colours, though, that sum up the idea of the two figures and preserve the vibration of their existence."
"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."
"That part of Rostrevor which overlooks Carlingford Lough is my idea of Narnia."
"The modern idea of a Great Man is one who stands at the lonely extremity of some single line of development--"
"The very idea of freedom presupposes some objective moral law which overarches rulers and ruled alike...Unless we return to the crude and nursery-like belief in objective values, we perish."
"The Christian idea of 'putting on Christ' is the whole of Christianity."
"You and I, as citizens, have the obligation to shape the debates of our time, not only with the votes we cast, but the voices we lift in defense of our most ancient values and enduring ideas."
"I think it was not a bad idea to wrap Barack Obama in the mantle of Teddy Roosevelt. He`s been assuming a sort of progressive mantle, and he ticked off some large and systemic problems that this country faces."
