Ideas quotes
16.4K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside ideas — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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"The concept of an education centered upon the care of the living being alters all previous ideas. Resting no longer on a curriculum, or a timetable, education must conform to the facts of human life."
"If the idea of the universe is presented to the child in the right way, it will do more for him than just arouse his interest, for it will create in him admiration and wonder, a feeling loftier than any interest and more satisfying."
"Mental development must be connected with movement and be dependent on it. It is vital that educational theory and practice should be informed by that idea."
"Up to that time I never realized that I possessed any particular gift of discovery, but Lord Rayleigh, whom I always considered as an ideal man of science, had said so and if that was the case, I felt that I should concentrate on some big idea."
"When I encounter a sunrise, a painting, a woman, or an idea that makes my heart bound like a young calf, then I know I am standing in front of happiness."
"Always admired men who had many women. It must be that to a child of a dissatisfied woman the idea of monogamy is hollow."
"Ideas are of themselves extraordinarily valuable, but an idea is just an idea. Almost anyone can think up an idea. The thing that counts is developing it into a practical product."
"The most important rule: Do not, I repeat, do not censor yourself in any way. Leave your editorial mind out of the loop. Just let the ideas come pouring out in any way, shape, or form they want to. Do not judge anything."
"Profundity of thought belongs to youth, clarity of thought to old age."
"Above all, there is no exception to this rule: that the idea of political superiority always resolves itself into the idea of psychological superiority."
"I don't have any idea of who or what God is. But I do believe in some great spiritual power. I feel it particularly when I’m out in nature. It’s just something that's bigger and stronger than what I am or what anybody is. I feel it. And it's enough for me."
"Why do you keep maintaining your ideas are right if you can't prove them?"
"The mark of highest originality lies in the ability to develop a familiar idea so fruitfully that it would seem no one else would ever have discovered so much to be hidden in it."
"Abandon the idea that you are ever going to finish."
"ideas are never scarce; it is only one's panic sense of limitation that blocks the way."
"Don’t feel like you have to take every suggestion people give you. Not every good idea is a God idea."
"The idea of the Bodhisattva is the one who out of his realization of transcendence participates in the world. The imitation of Christ is joyful participation in the sorrows of the world."
"Ownership of thought depends on the thinker not subordinating himself to a 'ruling thought'. This is particularly difficult, argues Stirner, ... for language itself is a network of 'fixed ideas'. Truths emerge only when language is reworked and possessed individually."
"And in Improvisation there is one hard and fast rule, and that rule is known as "Yes And." The term YES AND: to say yes, and not just yes, but to add information. In the adding of information you don't negate the other persons idea - but you build on it."
"I stood among them, but not of them: in a shroud of thoughts which were not their thoughts."
