Ideas quotes
16.4K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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"It is impossible to devise an experiment without a preconceived idea; devising an experiment, we said, is putting a question; we never conceive a question without an idea which invites an answer. I consider it, therefore, an absolute principle that experiments must always be devised in view of a preconceived idea, no matter if the idea be not very clear nor very well defined."
"Il ne fallait jamais faire des expériences pour confirmer ses idées, mais simplement pour les contrôler. We must never make experiments to confirm our ideas, but simply to control them."
"I found out that a lot of my liberal friends weren't liberal because they weren't liberal about approaching anybody else's ideas, or at least standing for it. They started getting really animalistic about, "I can't even associate with this guy. He's stupid. He's an idiot.""
"Young men especially - I don't know if young women feel much the same - but young men think they are immortal, automatically. They have no idea of time because they have so much energy and I was like that."
"I never had any idea that I would have a career quite honestly. You never really have any idea what is going to happen. You have an idea of what you would like to happen."
"I tend to write, either myself, or I sometimes write with a co-writer, my friend that lives up the road. It's usually a relatively solitary thing, but I do like coming up with ideas."
"I sit around and play acoustic guitar - usually acoustic, sometimes electric, occasionally piano, but more often guitar, just trying to come up with tunes. Ideas kind of pop into your head."
"I like movies. I've written screenplays as a sort of procrastination thing for me. Like I'll work for a couple months on this idea that's been kicking around and then like 30 pages in I'll just go try a novel because it's a lot easier. That's what I know. So why am I killing myself?"
"If I have three ideas and I'm working on one more than the others, that sort of tells me that I should work on that one."
"Donald Trump refuses to give details about his policy plans. Trump apologized by saying, 'When I announced I was running for president, I had no idea people would take me seriously.'"
"The core of literature is the idea of tragedy... You don't really learn much from the good things that happen to you."
"I love the academy in terms of the life of the mind and the world of ideas. I also love the streets. I love the churches and mosques and synagogues. I love the trade union centers. I love the community centers. I speak regularly at prisons and so forth."
"Throughout my work is the idea, over and over, that we must all learn to respect one another."
"Herman Cain is out there, he says a lot of provocative things. He said America should build its own Great Wall of China. Cain says it's a great idea because if there's one thing you don't see in China, it's Mexicans."
"What's really interesting is the introduction of the tablet - not just the iPad, but the Nook and the Kindle. While they aren't going to solve all of our problems, I do think they make it easier for people to pause, linger, read and really process very important ideas."
"Mostly what I'm focused on is finding people who are younger who haven't built companies before but have a good idea."
"I scorn your idea of love,' I could not help saying, as I rose up and stood before him, leaning my back against the rock. 'I scorn the counterfeit sentiment you offer: yes, St. John, and I scorn you when you offer it."
"All of her heart, a meaningless phrase, but correct and precise, too. She used her heart to love him, not her head, and not her words and not her thoughts or ideas or feelings or any other vehicle or object or device people use to deliver love or love-like things."
"i dunno," i said, "but i have an idea that people who don't think too much tend to look younger longer"
"I was drawn to all the wrong things: I liked to drink, I was lazy, I didn't have a god, politics, ideas, ideals."
