Quotes on ideas

“Whenever I think of something but can't think of what it was I was thinking of, I can't stop thinking until I think I'm thinking of it again. I think I think too much.”

“Each voice carries a portion of value, no matter how unpalatable or distasteful that voice may be: no one person, government, ideology, transnational, or religious institution can own and dominate the whole.”

“The truth is sometimes a poor competitor in the market place of ideas – complicated, unsatisfying, full of dilemmas, always vulnerable to misinterpretation and abuse.”

“This workshop where ideals are manufactured--it seems to me it stinks of so many lies”

“The best ideas will eat at you for days, maybe even weeks, until something, some incident, some impulse, triggers you to finally express them.”

The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e., the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force.

A man may die, nations may rise and fall, but an idea lives on.

Our ideas are not isolated, but part of the great system of ideas.

It’s important to be open to new ideas in music; that’s how you grow as an artist.

There’s no such thing as a good idea that hasn’t been executed well.

A good book is a treasure trove of ideas waiting to be explored.

To live without an idea is to let oneself drift on the random surfaces of existence.

The philosophical gesture is always to disrupt the dominant order with the real force of a new idea.

Behind this mask there is more than just flesh. Beneath this mask, there is an idea, and ideas are bulletproof.

If you have an idea that’s really worth something, it should keep you awake at night.

Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come.

In short, I am content to affirm that as the mind is affected by the ideas it perceives, so is the reality of those ideas only within the mind.

Nature is a system of systems in which the ideas within us correspond to those outside us.

All our sensations, notions, and passions are all ideas in the mind.

We must have courage to bet on our ideas, to take the calculated risk, and to act.

An idea is just the starting point; actions make it real.

Even the best ideas can seem silly at first; embrace them and see where they lead.

Ideas about art don't matter. They collapse anyway in front of the painting.

A good idea, like a new seed, must be nurtured to grow, not just planted and left alone.

Let me lay my cards on the table. If I were to give an award for the single best idea anyone ever had, I'd give it to Darwin, ahead of even Newton or Einstein and everyone else.

Unrelated doesn't necessarily mean unrelated. Allow ideas to dwell with one another.

People don’t have ideas. Ideas have people.

I pressed down the mental accelerator. The old lemon throbbed fiercely. I got an idea.

I must say the idea of a United Africa was nonsense.

The mind that is not constantly challenged by new ideas will become stagnant.

People are always asking me, ‘What’s it all about, what are you trying to say with all this stuff?’ I think it’s about the value of ideas.