"It is not primarily ideas that have a history; it is societies. And then what often seem opposed ideas can in the end be seen as parts of a single social process."
Read quote
12 likes
Ideas quotes
Ideas
16.4K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
Explore further
Topics related to Ideas
Browse quotes that often appear alongside ideas — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
Quote collection
Ideas quotes (page 47 of 821)
Follow a thought to its author, or read the full quote page.
"We are the creatives with teeth. We know ideas are more important than our personal wellbeing."
Read quote
12 likes
"Reconnaissance memoranda should always be written in the simplest style and be purely descriptive. They should never stray from their objective by introducing extraneous ideas."
Read quote
12 likes
"My idea of a true feminist is a woman who feels free enough to do whatever she wants."
Read quote
12 likes
"The sense organs, which are limited in scope and ability, randomly gather information. This partial information is arranged into judgments, which are based on previous judgments, which are usually based on someone else's foolish ideas. These false concepts and ideas are then stored in a highly selective memory system."
Read quote
12 likes
"The purpose of a fish trap is to catch fish, and when the fish are caught the trap is forgotten. The purpose of a rabbit snare is to catch rabbits. When the rabbits are caught, the snare is forgotten. The purpose of the word is to convey ideas. When the ideas are grasped, the words are forgotten. Where can I find a man who has forgotten words? He is the one I would like to talk to."
Read quote
12 likes
"First you give life and action and guidance to ideas, then they take on power of their own and sweep aside all opposition."
Read quote
12 likes
"Women say they have sexual thoughts too. They have no idea. It's the difference between shooting a bullet and throwing it. If they knew what we were really thinking, they'd never stop slapping us."
Read quote
12 likes
"Truth as a cultural ideal has functioned as an opiate, perhaps the only serious opiate of the modern world. Karl Marx said that religion was the opiate of the masses. Raymond Aron retorted that Marxist ideas were in turn the opiate of the intellectuals. There is perspicacity in both these polemical thrusts. But is perspicacity truth? I wish to suggest that perhaps truth has been the real opiate, of both the masses and the intellectuals."
Read quote
12 likes
"In any case, I married Feroze Gandhi. Once I get an idea in my head, no one in the world can make me change my mind."
Read quote
12 likes
"A theology which is not based on revelation as a given reality but treats God as an idea would be as mad as a zoology which is no longer sure of the physical, tangible existence of animals."
Read quote
12 likes
"Ideas do not need weapons, to the extent that they can convince the great masses."
Read quote
12 likes
"I never perceived a contradiction in the political revolutionary field between the ideas I maintained and the idea of that symbol, that extraordinary figure who had been so familiar to me since I began to reason."
Read quote
12 likes
"Music is the art... which most completely realizes the artistic idea and is the condition to which all the other arts are constantly aspiring."
Read quote
12 likes
"I have more of a vivid imagination than I have talent. I cook up ideas. It's just a characteristic."
Read quote
12 likes
"Time was invented by the Almighty God in order to give ideas a chance."
Read quote
12 likes
"The English are not a very spiritual people, so they invented cricket to give them some idea of eternity."
Read quote
12 likes
"Politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don't."
Read quote
12 likes
"The whole idea of the pursuit of goods and possessions has completely corrupted the human experience, along with religion, which I think limits the intellect."
Read quote
12 likes
"I think I should have no other mortal wants, if I could always have plenty of music. It seems to infuse strength into my limbs and ideas into my brain. Life seems to go on without effort, when I am filled with music."
Read quote
12 likes