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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"I hated the company of other children. I wanted to be a grownup person, to be taken seriously. I hated the idea of childhood; I thought it was a moment of endless stupidity."
"Revolutionaries must proclaim their ideas courageously ... and express their intentions so that no one is deceived."
"He who has it in his power to commit sin, is less inclined to do so. The very idea of being able, weakens the desire."
"Take the ideas of the masses (scattered and unsystematic ideas) and concentrate them (through study turn them into concentrated and systematic ideas), then go to the masses and propagate and explain these ideas until the masses embrace them as their own"
"Great people talk about ideas, average people talk about things, and small people talk about wine."
"I don't have ideas so much as there are things which constantly evolve... there are various threads or layers, if you like, which change."
"Few realize that the world of modern mathematics is rich with vivid images and provocative ideas."
"Poetry is the universal art of the spirit which has become free in itself and which is not tied down for its realization to external sensuous material; instead, it launches out exclusively in the inner space and the inner time of ideas and feelings."
"At first, my presence in my photos was fascinating and disturbing. But as time passed and I was more a part of other ideas in my photos, I was able to add a giggle to those feelings."
"Keep away from books and from men who get their ideas from books, and your own books will always be fresh."
"But when you're in front of an audience and you make them laugh at a new idea, you're guiding the whole being for the moment. No one is ever more him/herself than when they really laugh. Their defenses are down. It's very Zen-like, that moment. They are completely open, completely themselves when that message hits the brain and the laugh begins. That's when new ideas can be implanted. If a new idea slips in at that moment, it has a chance to grow."
"I've always been interested in exploring the concept of child prodigies. When I was younger, I wrote a story about Mozart as a child and I just always loved this idea of young people who are able to take control of their lives and bring a whole lot of change at such a young age."
"They've got no idea what happiness is, they don't know that without this love there is no happiness or unhappiness for us--there is no life."
"Creation implies authority in the sense of originator. The possibility of a 'Fall' is implied in a Covenant insofar as the idea of a Covenant implies the possibility of its being violated."
"New ideas come into this world somewhat like falling meteors, with a flash and an explosion."
"If you take this life to be simply what old religious folks pretend (I mean the effete, gone to seed in a drought, mere human galls stung by the devil once), then all your joy and serenity is reduced to grinning and bearing it. The fact is, you have got to take the world on your shoulders like Atlas, and "put along" with it. You will do this for an idea's sake, and your success will be in proportion to your devotion to ideas. It may make your back ache occasionally, but you will have the satisfaction of hanging it or twirling it to suit yourself."
"There is nothing easier than lopping off heads and nothing harder than developing ideas."
"Thank God, I'm actually infatuated and in love with what I do, therefore I am what I do. So I never have to forget [any of my ideas] because I never have to remember, I just am. I don't need to write stuff down."
"I think it's better to have ideas. You can change an idea. Changing a belief is trickier. Life should malleable and progressive; working from idea to idea permits that. Beliefs anchor you to certain points and limit growth; new ideas can't generate. Life becomes stagnant."
"Who but a brazen crazy person would go one-on-one with blank paper or canvas armed with nothing but ideas?"
