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 idea of infinity cannot be expressed in words or even described, but it can be apprehended through art, which makes infinity tangible. The absolute is only attainable through faith and in the creative act."
"There is in every madman a misunderstood genius whose idea, shining in his head, frightened people, and for whom delirium was the only solution to the strangulation that life had prepared for him."
"Knowing "why" (an idea) is more important than learning "what" (the fact)."
"Stillness is our most intense mode of action. It is in our moments of deep quiet that is born every idea, emotion, and drive which we eventually honor with the name of action. We reach highest in meditation, and farthest in prayer. In stillness every human being is great."
"Not just in commerce but in the world of ideas too our age is putting on a veritable clearance sale. Everything can be had so dirt cheap that one begins to wonder whether in the end anyone will want to make a bid."
"Microfinance is an idea whose time has come."
"Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them; and no man ever had a distinct idea of the trinity. It is the mere Abracadabra of the mountebanks calling themselves the priests of Jesus."
"Understand that you need to sell you and your ideas in order to advance your career, gain more respect, and increase your success, influence and income."
"To study is not to consume ideas, but to create and re-create them."
"There are many selfish people who are extremely original, then they take those pure ideas and use them to raise themselves up, that is an insincere move."
"Creativity is contagious. Pass it on."
"There are Muslims of all kinds. The idea of closing them into a single identity is wrong."
"To most outsiders, modern mathematics is unknown territory. Its borders are protected by dense thickets of technical terms; its landscapes are a mass of indecipherable equations and incomprehensible concepts. Few realize that the world of modern mathematics is rich with vivid images and provocative ideas."
"Whatever is fitted in any sort to excite the ideas of pain and danger, that is to say, whatever is in any sort terrible, or is conversant about terrible objects, or operates in a manner analogous to terror, is a source of the sublime; that is, it is productive of the strongest emotion which the mind is capable of feeling... When danger or pain press too nearly, they are incapable of giving any delight, and are simply terrible; but at certain distances, and with certain modifications, they may be, and they are, delightful, as we every day experience."
"Shouldn't someone tag Mr. Kennedy's bold new imaginative program with its proper age? Under the tousled boyish haircut is still old Karl Marx - first launched a century ago. There is nothing new in the idea of a Government being Big Brother."
"Because the GIs were sent massively to South Vietnam, maybe it's a good idea to have a broadcast for them."
"The word enlightenment conjures up the idea of some superhuman accomplishment, and the ego likes to keep it that way, but it is simply your natural state of felt oneness with Being."
"The idea that the future is unpredictable is undermined every day by the ease with which the past is explained."
"I always liked the idea that America is a big facade. We are all insects crawling across on the shiny hood of a Cadillac. We're all looking at the wrapping. But we won't tear the wrapping to see what lies beneath."
"People have an idea that the preacher is an actor on a stage and they are the critics, blaming or praising him. What they don't know is that they are the actors on the stage; he (the preacher) is merely the prompter standing in the wings, reminding them of their lost lines."
