Ideas quotes
16.4K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
Explore further
Browse quotes that often appear alongside ideas — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
Quote collection
Follow a thought to its author, or read the full quote page.
"I don't carry notebooks and I don't consciously store ideas. I try not to think that I am a writer and I am pretty good at doing that. I don't like writers, but then I don't like insurance salesmen either."
"The resistance to a new idea increases by the square of its importance."
"In spreading his ideas, Plato was willing to employ emotional appeals, state propaganda, and the use of force."
"Ideas and principles that do harm are as a rule, though not always, cloaks for evil passions."
"The same source that gave you the idea, will give you the means to see it through."
"Xavier, who looks just like Zeus, not that I have any idea what Zeus looks like."
"People think about this idea that there's 122 million kids that are alive that would not be if that fatality rate had stayed at the 1990 level, that's 122 million families."
"Whenever you have a few setbacks, the idea that half as many children are dying now as back in 1990 and so... it was over 12 million a year, now it's less than 6 million a year. We have a clear path to get that under 3 million a year and we know what to do. And this generation of young Africans is a very large group."
"In Japan, you have no idea what they are saying, and they can't help you either. Nothing makes any sense. They're very polite, but you feel like a joke is being played on you the entire time you're there."
"We realized we weren't really using Odeo, we weren't investing our own time creating podcasts. We were building a tool that was a great idea for some other people. That's a dangerous way to go because if you don't actually use it yourself and love it, then you aren't going to be as fully invested in it from the start. That's what leads you to doing side projects."
"There's a lot of social input when you put these things out there. People's ideas cross with other people's thoughts."
"I got an idea: people like news why don't we write the news down on a piece of paper, and we'll gas them up and drive them to everyone's house. I mean, if you were going to say that now, it doesn't sound like a great idea, because there are other ways you can distribute the news."
"This idea that the open exchange of information can have a positive global impact is being proven over and over again around the world nearly on a daily basis - and for Secretary Clinton to recognize that, I think, is a huge step."
"I mean just look at haiku, the idea of it. We want to focus on that singularity, on that simplicity, but we still want to add features and add value, but we want to do it in a way that fits in with that mentality of simplicity. You have to spend a lot of time thinking about it."
"The thing that excites me, and the thing that excited me about Twitter, is the idea of a flock of birds moving around an object in flight."
"We have an idea of truth, invincible to all scepticism."
"Be tenacious. One thing that has allowed me to have some level of success is that I am fine with cold-calling people. It doesn't scare me to call someone who has no idea who I am and say I'd love to take you to lunch."
"People always ask me, when I had the idea for TOMS, did it change my life? As romantic and noble as it is, no it did not change my life. But when I went to Argentina on that first shoe-drop, it did change my life."
"It's sundown on the union And what's made in the USA Sure was a good idea 'Til greed got in the way."
"In a regular class I don't focus on the form, but I think that focus is helpful for brainstorming and coming up with ideas quickly, especially with autobiographical material."
