Ideas quotes
16.4K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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"Men are not worried by things, but by their ideas about things. When we meet with difficulties, become anxious or troubled, let us not blame others, but rather ourselves. That is: our ideas about things."
"We hence acquire this sublime and interesting idea; that all the calcareous mountains in the world, and all the strata of clay, coal, marl, sand, and iron, which are incumbent on them, are MONUMENTS OF THE PAST FELICITY OF ORGANIZED NATURE!"
"Our vitality, and the vitality of each nation, rests on the sincerity and depth of the faith in the ideas which it announces, or pronounces."
"I want to be the best that I can be. I want to do and have and live in a way that is in harmony with my idea of the greatest goodness. I want to harmonize physically here in this body with that which I believe to be the best, or the good way, of life. If you will make those statements, and then do not take action unless you feel good, you will always be moving upon the path in harmony with your idea of that which is good."
"People find ideas a bore because they do not distinguish between live ones and stuffed ones on a shelf."
"If you're selling something on Craiglist, it's never a good idea to end the description with, May have lice."
"Everyone is in love with his own ideas"
"The values of science and the values of democracy are concordant, in many cases indistinguishable. Science and democracy began - in their civilized incarnations - in the same time and place, Greece in the seventh and sixth centuries B.C. . . . Science thrives on, indeed requires, the free exchange of ideas; its values are antithetical to secrecy. Science holds to no special vantage points or privileged positions. Both science and democracy encourage unconventional opinions and vigorous debate. Both demand adequate reason, coherent argument, rigorous standards of evidence and honesty."
"[N]o scientist likes to be criticized. ... But you don't reply to critics: "Wait a minute, wait a minute; this is a really good idea. I'm very fond of it. It's done you no harm. Please don't attack it." That's not the way it goes. The hard but just rule is that if the ideas don't work, you must throw them away. Don't waste any neurons on what doesn't work. Devote those neurons to new ideas that better explain the data. Valid criticism is doing you a favor."
"The idea, which constitutes the actual being of the human mind, is not simple, but compounded of a great number of ideas."
"Self-complacency is pleasure accompanied by the idea of oneself as cause."
"I didn't like the idea of being foolish, but I learned pretty soon that it was essential to fail and be foolish."
"There will be no mass-based feminist movement as long as feminist ideas are understood only by a well-educated few."
"Scary in the idea it could be a little overwhelming to have 70 or 100 clowns in a public space. Intriguing in that it could be something interesting. I'm up for any kind of public art."
"Painting' and 'religious experience' are the same thing. It is a question of the perpetual motion of a right idea."
"We are taught words, not ideas."
"I like the idea of a proportional tax. That way you pay according to your ability."
"When circumstances don't fit our ideas they become our difficulties"
"We have been trying to point out that this concept of an indefinitely favorable future is dangerous, even if it is true; because even if it is true you can easily overvalue the security, since you make it worth anything you want it to be worth. Beyond this, it is particularly dangerous too, because sometimes your ideas of the future turn out to be wrong. Then you have paid an awful lot for a future that isn't there. Your position then is pretty bad."
"The investor has the benefit of the stock market's daily and changing appraisal of his holdings, 'for whatever that appraisal may be worth', and, second, that the investor is able to increase or decrease his investment at the market's daily figure - 'if he chooses'. Thus the existence of a quoted market gives the investor certain options which he does not have if his security is unquoted. But it does not impose the current quotation on an investor who prefers to take his idea of value from some other source."
