"The well-meaning contention that all ideas have equal merit seems to me little different from the disastrous contention that no ideas have any merit."
Ideas quotes
Ideas
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Ideas quotes (page 93 of 821)
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"Science is much more than a body of knowledge. It is a way of thinking. This is central to its success. Science invites us to let the facts in, even when they don't conform to our preconceptions. It counsels us to carry alternative hypotheses in our heads and see which ones best match the facts. It urges on us a fine balance between no-holds-barred openness to new ideas, however heretical, and the most rigorous skeptical scrutiny of everything - new ideas and established wisdom."
"He who has a true idea, knows at that same time that he has a true idea, nor can he doubt concerning the truth of the thing."
"Love is nothing but joy accompanied with the idea of an eternal cause."
"I don't have any ideas; my coaches have them. I just pass the ideas on and referee the arguments."
"Yesterday I was thinking about the whole idea of genius and creative people, and the notion that if you create some magical art, somehow that exempts you from having to pay attention to the small things."
"The music is in the lead here, and a large part of this, I have no idea what I'm doing. I feel a closer bond with the craft of songwriting, stronger than I ever have."
"I've come to the realisation that I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing half the time..."
"I think TV promulgates the idea that good art is just art which makes people like and depend on the vehicle that brings them the art."
"Reason, in a strict sense, as meaning the judgment of truth and falsehood, can never, of itself, be any motive to the will, and can have no influence but so far as it touches some passion or affection. Abstract relations of ideas are the object of curiosity, not of volition. And matters of fact, where they are neither good nor evil, where they neither excite desire nor aversion, are totally indifferent, and whether known or unknown, whether mistaken or rightly apprehended, cannot be regarded as any motive to action."
"Upon the whole, necessity is something, that exists in the mind, not in objects; nor is it possible for us ever to form the most distant idea of it, consider'd as a quality in bodies. Either we have no idea of necessity, or necessity is nothing but that determination of thought to pass from cause to effects and effects to causes, according to their experienc'd union."
"A CAUSE is an object precedent and contiguous to another, and so united with it that the idea of the one determines the mind to form the idea of the other, and the impression of the one to form a more lively idea of the other."
"When I am convinced of any principle, it is only an idea which strikes more strongly upon me. When I give the preference to one set of arguments above another, I do nothing but decide from my feeling concerning the superiority of their influence."
"The seeds of greatness are ideas you learn from people who've been great in their service to others."
"We must revisit the idea that science is a methodology and not an ontology."
"I just kind of wake up with a new idea and new dreams every day, and I follow that dream, as they say."
"I believe it is customary to get one's washing over first in baths and bask afterwards; personally, I bask first. I have discovered that the first few minutes are the best and not to be wasted-- my brain always seethes with ideas and life suddenly looks much better than did."
"Before the group left, Gary asked for my phone number, and the next day he called to ask me to dinner that night. I had no idea he was married, but I found out that night."
"The idea was fantastically, wildly improbable. But like most fantastically, wildly improbable ideas it was at least as worthy of consideration as a more mundane one to which the facts had been strenuously bent to fit."
"Ideas more than once have prevailed against naked power. Guns and aircraft alone do not make a state powerful. Unless force is backed up by the will of the great body of people it loses its meaning."