Ideas quotes

Ideas

16.4K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.

16.4K quotes

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Ideas quotes (page 191 of 821)

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Noam Chomsky Linguist, Philosopher, Activist
Ideas

"There is no evolutionary pressure to create minds capable of forming sciences; it just happened. Evolutionary pressure has not led to higher rates of reproduction for people capable of solving scientific problems or creating new scientific ideas. So if, in fact, the science-forming capacities evolved for other reasons, it would not be too surprising if those particular structures that have developed proved to be rather special in their nature, reflecting the contingencies of their evolution or the working of physical law."

Ideas Law Creating
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Noam Chomsky Linguist, Philosopher, Activist
Ideas

"The idea that Hezbollah is acting as an agent of Iran is very dubious. It's not accepted by specialists on Iran or specialists on Hezbollah. But it's the party line. Or sometimes you can put in Syria, i.e. "Syrian-supported Hezbollah," but since Syria is of less interest now you have to emphasize Iranian support."

Ideas Party Iran
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Noam Chomsky Linguist, Philosopher, Activist
Ideas

"International affairs is very much run like the mafia. The godfather does not accept disobedience, even from a small storekeeper who doesn't pay his protection money. You have to have obedience otherwise the idea can spread that you don't have to listen to the orders and it can spread to important places."

Ideas Running Order
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Noam Chomsky Linguist, Philosopher, Activist
Ideas

"We could not bring democracy and freedom to Vietnam at a cost acceptable to ourselves. The idea that that was what we were trying to do, is again, a tautology, it's true by definition because we were doing, and the state is noble by definition. That's called "extreme liberalism"."

Trying Ideas Democracy
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Noam Chomsky Linguist, Philosopher, Activist
Ideas

"Another recollection is that [ Paul Johnson] mostly kept away from ideas and dedicated activism, and concentrated on sex lives and other gossip."

Ideas Sex Gossip
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Leonardo DiCaprio Actor, Producer, Environmental Activist
Ideas

"I remember the 'Checkered Demon'. He's this little devil with this three-foot dong that just porks everybody. And that wa s my idea of what sex was about. And I was, "Oh, wow! I can't wait."

Ideas Sex Feet
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Leonardo DiCaprio Actor, Producer, Environmental Activist
Ideas

"There's so many intangible forces that come into play when making a film, I have no idea what the public will ultimately think of something that I do, let alone critics."

Thinking Ideas Play
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Leonardo DiCaprio Actor, Producer, Environmental Activist
Ideas

"I created my foundation as a result of that and my website, and I try to shed some light on some very topical issues right now. The idea is to try to get people to become obviously more knowledgeable about the issue and try to get corporations and individuals to contribute to these nonprofit organizations."

Ideas Light Organization
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James Joyce Novelist, Poet
Ideas

"What? Corpus. Body. Corpse. Good idea the Latin. Stupifies them first. Hospice for the dying. They don't seem to chew it; only swallow it down."

Ideas Dying Latin
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James Joseph Sylvester Mathematician
Ideas

"Chemistry has the same quickening and suggestive influence upon the algebraist as a visit to the Royal Academy, or the old masters may be supposed to have on a Browning or a Tennyson. Indeed it seems to me that an exact homology exists between painting and poetry on the one hand and modem chemistry and modem algebra on the other. In poetry and algebra we have the pure idea elaborated and expressed through the vehicle of language, in painting and chemistry the idea enveloped in matter, depending in part on manual processes and the resources of art for its due manifestation."

Art Ideas Hands
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Henry Adams Historian
Ideas

"I hate photographs abstractly, because they have given me more ideas perversely and immovably wrong, than I ever should get by imagination."

Ideas Hate Imagination
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Henry David Thoreau Writer, Philosopher
Ideas

"The true poem is not that which the public read. There is always a poem not printed on paper,... in the poet's life. It is what hehas become through his work. Not how is the idea expressed in stone, or on canvas or paper, is the question, but how far it has obtained form and expression in the life of the artist. His true work will not stand in any prince's gallery."

Art Ideas Expression
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Henry David Thoreau Writer, Philosopher
Ideas

"A man of rare common sense and directness of speech, as of action; a transcendentalist above all, a man of ideas and principles,Mthat was what distinguished him."

Men Ideas Common Sense
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Henry David Thoreau Writer, Philosopher
Ideas

"It is one of the signs of the times. We confess that we have risen from reading this book with enlarged ideas, and grander conceptions of our duties in this world. It did expand us a little."

Book Ideas Reading
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Henry David Thoreau Writer, Philosopher
Ideas

"A journal is a repository for all those fragmentary ideas and odd scraps of information that might otherwise be lost and which some day might lead to more "harmonious compositions.""

Ideas Might Information
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