Ideas famous quotes
Last updated: Jul 22, 2024
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There is a fundamental conviction which some people never acquire, some hold only in their youth, and a few hold to the end of their days-the conviction that ideas matter . . . . That ideas matter means that knowledge matters, that truth matters, that one's mind matters . . .
-- Ayn Rand -
Ideas cannot be fought except by means of better ideas. The battle consists, not of opposing, but of exposing; not of denouncing, but of disproving; not of evading, but of boldly proclaiming a full, consistent, and radical alternative.
-- Ayn Rand -
Since there is no such entity as 'the public,' since the public is merely a number of individuals, the idea that 'the public interest' supersedes private interests and rights can have but one meaning: that the interests and rights of some individuals take precedence over the interests and rights of others.
-- Ayn Rand -
Ideas are the greatest and most crucially practical power on earth.
-- Ayn Rand -
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I am an innovator. This is a term of distinction, a term of honor, rather than something to hide or apologize for. Anyone who has new or valuable ideas to offer stands outside the intellectual status quo. But the status quo is not a stream, let alone a 'mainstream'. It is a stagnant swamp. It is the innovators who carry mankind forward.
-- Ayn Rand -
What objectivity and the study of philosophy requires is not an 'open mind,' but an active mind - a mind able and eagerly willing to examine ideas, but to examine them criticially.
-- Ayn Rand -
I'd heard a lot of Asian people were rooting for me, but I had no idea. I was stunned. They were... impassioned, especially compared to Japan. I couldn't even have anticipated that kind of welcome
-- Ayumi Hamasaki -
Why would anyone get married and have babies? That's the dumbest idea I've ever heard in my life. Or the scariest thing I've ever heard in my life.
-- Aziz Ansari -
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After you do a joke a few times, you have material that you know works. Although sometimes I have a joke that has worked a bunch of times and then one night it'll flop. And that's when I really take a hard look at myself and say: 'Well, that crowd is obviously wrong. That crowd has absolutely no idea what it's talking about.
-- Aziz Ansari -
In the long run, much public opinion is made in the universities; ideas generated there filter down through the teaching profession and the students into the general public.
-- B. Carroll Reece -
I've had only one idea in my life - a true idee fixe. To put it as bluntly as possible - the idea of having my own way. 'Control!' expresses it. The control of human behavior. In my early experimental days it was a frenzied, selfish desire to dominate. I remember the rage I used to feel when a prediction went awry. I could have shouted at the subjects of my experiments, 'Behave, damn you! Behave as you ought!
-- B. F. Skinner -
The only thing harder than getting a new idea into the military mind is to get an old one out.
-- B. H. Liddell Hart -
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...regrettable as it may seem to the idealist, the experience of history provides little warrant for the belief that real progress, and the freedom that makes progress possible, lies in unification. For where unification has been able to establish unity of ideas it has usually ended in uniformity, paralysing the growth of new ideas. And where the unification has merely brought about an artificial or imposed unity, its irksomeness has led through discord to disruption.
-- B. H. Liddell Hart -
Opposition to the truth is inevitable, especially if it takes the form of a new idea, but the degree of resistance can be diminished- by giving thought not only to the aim but to the method of approach. Avoid a frontal attack on a long established position; instead, seek to turn it by flank movement, so that a more penetrable side is exposed to the thrust of truth. But, in any such indirect approach, take care not to diverge from the truth- for nothing is more fatal to its real advancement than to lapse into untruth.
-- B. H. Liddell Hart -
To take in a new idea you must destroy the old, let go of old opinions, to observe and conceive new thoughts. To learn is but to change your opinion.
-- B. J. Palmer -
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Men are mortal. So are ideas. An idea needs propagation as much as a plant needs watering. Otherwise both will wither and die.
-- B. R. Ambedkar -
The basic idea underlying religion is to create an atmosphere for the spiritual development of the individual. This being the situation, it is clear that you cannot develop your personality at all in Hinduism.
-- B. R. Ambedkar -
The myth of Canada, its hidden story, is of a contemplative country, a place of inwardness, where people can question the idea of nationhood and ponder what values we wish to see expressed and achieved, and what solitudes of identity and reverie we wish to preserve.
-- B. W. Powe -
There is no difference in souls, only the ideas about ourselves that we wear.
-- B.K.S. Iyengar -
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You have to get rid of borders, limits, and classifications; then light comes. We see everything on the screen of our ideas. We must get rid of that screen to be able to see what is behind. X's ideas are limited, that is why he remains on the surface. Y got rid of the limits, so she always goes to the depths. We should always meet people and new subjects with no set frame of mind. We have to live like that even after long acquaintance. We must get rid of every set idea to approach everything and everyone with love.
-- B.K.S. Iyengar -
I lived with people who had varied opinions, some of whom did not accept my Nazi views. I encouraged this. If a man said something that was critical of me or my ideas, I wouldn't consider him an enemy.
-- Baldur von Schirach -
The more we can encourage entrepreneurship, particularly for young people, the more they have hope. That requires some reforms in these [African] governments: rooting out corruption, increased transparency and how government operates, making sure that regulations are not designed just to advantage elites, but are allowing people who have a good idea to get out there and get things done.
-- Barack Obama -
I'm willing to work with anyone of either party who has a good idea and the commitment to see through. And we should all expect you to hold us accountable for our progress or our failure to deliver.
-- Barack Obama -
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We need to internalize this idea of excellence. Not many folks spend a lot of time trying to be excellent.
-- Barack Obama -
We cannot allow internet service providers to restrict the best access or to pick winners and losers in the online marketplace for services and ideas.
-- Barack Obama -
If you give up on the idea that your voice can make a difference, then other voices will fill the void
-- Barack Obama -
This week I've travelled more than 15,000 miles from America to China to Burma to Australia. I have no idea what time it is right now.
-- Barack Obama -
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There is sometimes a peculiar confusion in the West that equates progress to whatever is recent or whatever is new, and it is time we understood that progress has nothing to do with the chronology of an idea.
-- Barbara Amiel -
I have got up at truly deplorable hours in the morning to confront Vancouver's Jack Webster on television because I have been told that is the place to get exposure for ideas.
-- Barbara Amiel -
The problem is, many of the people in need of saving are in churches, and at least part of what they need saving from is the idea that God sees the world the same way they do.
-- Barbara Brown Taylor -
Believe in something larger than yourself... get involved in the big ideas of your time.
-- Barbara Bush -
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Employers have gone away from the idea that an employee is a long-term asset to the company, someone to be nurtured and developed, to a new notion that they are disposable.
-- Barbara Ehrenreich -
War cannot be used as a means to prevent or abolish wars. ... The idea of a war to prevent war is one of its oldest, and cruelest, tricks.
-- Barbara Ehrenreich -
Learning astrology is like learning any foreign language. You already have the ideas, concepts, and experiences of your life within you; you are just learning a new language for what you are already experiencing.
-- Barbara Goldsmith -
There are no original ideas. There are only original people.
-- Barbara Grizzuti Harrison -
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Beware of people carrying ideas. Beware of ideas carrying people.
-- Barbara Grizzuti Harrison -
Before I start carving the idea must be almost complete. I say 'almost' because the really important thing seems to be the sculptor's ability to let his intuition guide him over the gap between conception and realization without compromising the integrity of the original idea; the point being that the material has vitality - it resists and makes demands...
-- Barbara Hepworth -
Whenever I am embraced by land and seascape I draw ideas for new sculptures; new forms to touch and walk around, new people to embrace, with an exactitude of form that those without sight can hold and realize... ...It is essentially practical and passionate.
-- Barbara Hepworth -
Creative thinking inspires ideas. Ideas inspire change.
-- Barbara Januszkiewicz -
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Ideas come through us, not from us.
-- Barbara Januszkiewicz -
Creativity is not being afraid to be different. It takes madness to jump at an idea that no one else believes in.
-- Barbara Januszkiewicz -
What we have to do is strike a balance between the idea that government should do everything and the idea, the belief, that government ought to do nothing. Strike a balance.
-- Barbara Jordan -
Let each person do his or her part. If one citizen is unwilling to participate, all of us are going to suffer. For the American idea, though it is shared by all of us, is realized in each one of us.
-- Barbara Jordan -
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Let's all understand that these guiding principles cannot be discarded for short-term political gains. They represent what this country is all about. They are indigenous to the American idea. And these are principles which are not negotiable.
-- Barbara Jordan -
Feeling that morality has nothing to do with the way you use the resources of the world is an idea that can't persist much longer. If it does, then we won't.
-- Barbara Kingsolver -
I'm trying to deal with ideas about histories, fame, hearsay, and how public identities are constructed.
-- Barbara Kruger -
Art is as heavy as sorrow, as light as a breeze, as bright as an idea, as pretty as a picture, as funny as money, and as fugitive as fraud!
-- Barbara Kruger -
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Things change and work changes. Right now I like the idea of enveloping a space and getting messages across that connect to the world in ways that seem familiar but are different.
-- Barbara Kruger -
How have you arrived at your thinking? Where do your ideas and knowledge come from, and why do you credit some knowledge and discredit others?
-- Barbara Marciniak -
Once again a new world view is arising ... This idea is the culmination of all human history. It holds the promise of fulfilling the great aspirations of the past and heralds the advent of the next phase of our evolution. It is the idea of conscious evolution.
-- Barbara Marx Hubbard -
Synergistic convergence is the most important idea we have at our disposal to prevent collapse scenarios and move forward in a nonlinear manner toward an evolutionary society.
-- Barbara Marx Hubbard -
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I have learned that particularly clever ideas do not always stand up under close scrutiny.
-- Barbara Mertz -
Getting an idea for a book is not the problem, but you need 300 ideas - an idea a page.
-- Barbara Mertz -
The ills and disorders of the 14th century could not be without consequence. Times were to grow worse over the next fifty-odd years until at some imperceptible moment, by the some mysterious chemistry, energies were refreshed, ideas broke out of the mold of the Middle Ages into new realms, and humanity found itself redirected.
-- Barbara Tuchman -
Christianity in its ideas was never the art of the possible.
-- Barbara Tuchman -
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A Hot Fudge Sundae and a trashy novel is my idea of heaven.
-- Barbara Walters -
We were giving advice for the single-worst idea to come forward from a group that's been rife with them, it would be this: The idea is this: Let's make the tax code of America better for very rich people; let's give substantial tax relief to the richest people we can find. Forget about the person making $40,000 a year and paying Social Security payroll tax. Forget about all those other people paying income tax; we're here to give tax relief to the richest 2% of America.
-- Barney Frank -
We ought to be very cautious in the prosecution of magic and heresy. The attempt to put down these two crimes may be extremely perilous to liberty, and may be the origin of a number of petty acts of tyranny if the legislator be not on his guard; for as such an accusation does not bear directly on the overt acts of a citizen, but refers to the idea we entertain of his character.
-- Baron de Montesquieu -
Stories are not about ideas, gimmicks, or places. Stories are about people. People are about feelings!
-- Barry B. Longyear -
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The entertainment business hasn't had a new idea in years.
-- Barry Diller -
Well, the Internet is this miracle. It is an absolutely extraordinary idea that you can press a send button, and you are publishing to the world.
-- Barry Diller -
The idea of a company that's earning money, not losing money, that's not, let's say 'industrially endangered,' to have just cutbacks so they can earn another $12 million or $20 million or $40 million in a year where no one's counting is really a horrible act when you think about it on every level. First of all, it's certainly not necessary. It's doing it at the worst time. It's throwing people out to a larger, what is inevitably a larger unemployment heap for frankly no good reason.
-- Barry Diller -
When you write a song you have an idea of how it should be sung but it doesn't work out that way if someone else records it
-- Barry Gibb -
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There's very little to be said for learning a piece note by note, reading the rhythmic markings, practising the fingerings and following your instructor's suggestions, if you haven't any idea how the music will eventually sound and feel. If you learn a piece mechanically, you may have to 'unlearn' it before you can play it with expression and feeling.
-- Barry Green -
When I began to think about the head of the family, the storyteller, the rise of television which became the new storyteller, the break-up of the American family as an idea and then Avalon came.
-- Barry Levinson -
Are you stalking me, Mr. Fulton?" The idea both amused and horrified Jazz.
-- Barry Lyga -
. . . but there's a restraining order in place.' She speaks slowly, choosing her words carefully. 'I'm not supposed to be this close to you.' You were never supposed to be this close to me,' I say, and I have no idea why.
-- Barry Lyga -
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I'm still hungry. I've still got a million ideas. I'm still strong and ready to create.
-- Barry Manilow -
Most "original" ideas aren't completely original, but instead are the result of two basic methods for generating ideas: problems in search of solutions and solutions in search of problems.
-- Barry Nalebuff -
Be not astonished at new ideas; for it is well known to you that a thing does not therefore cease to be true because it is not accepted by many.
-- Baruch Spinoza -
The order and connection of ideas is the same as the order and connection of things.
-- Baruch Spinoza -
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The idea, which constitutes the actual being of the human mind, is not simple, but compounded of a great number of ideas.
-- Baruch Spinoza -
Self-complacency is pleasure accompanied by the idea of oneself as cause.
-- Baruch Spinoza -
Ultimately, you have to pursue your own path, not someone's idea of the right path. You need to stay on your path.
-- Baz Luhrmann -
Type well used is invisible as type, just as the perfect talking voice is the unnoticed vehicle for the transmission of words, ideas.
-- Beatrice Warde -
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People who love ideas must have a love of words. They will take a vivid interest in the clothes that words wear.
-- Beatrice Warde -
I loved Jay Thomas as Eddie LeBec. But there was a point where they [thought] maybe we would live together, and I didn't like the idea of Carla being with somebody because that would make you feel like [you're] not part of the people in the bar.
-- Bebe Neuwirth -
When I watched Lifetime original movies, it took me a day or two to get over the idea that the cute boy next door is actually a serial killer.
-- Becca Fitzpatrick -
I shook my head. “I don’t think so. This isn’t a good idea. This isn’t right.†“There’s all kinds of right,†he murmured. “On the spectrum, we’re still in the safe zone.†... “Definitely right. Usually right,†Patch continued. “Mostly right. Maybe right.
-- Becca Fitzpatrick -
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Are you keeping anything else from me?†“I’m keeping a lot of things from you.†“Like?†“Like the way I feel about being locked up in here with you. You have no idea what you do to me.
-- Becca Fitzpatrick -
Sea Change was so specific. From the beginning it was set what it was going to be. All the other ideas that I had at the time I had to put to the side.
-- Beck -
This was the very purpose of creation that each unique, individual being should participate in its own way in the divine Being, should realize its eternal 'idea' in God, should 'become' God by participation, God expressing himself through that unique being.
-- Bede Griffiths -
Folk melodies are the embodiment of an artistic perfection of the highest order; in fact, they are models of the way in which a musical idea can be expressed with utmost perfection in terms of brevity of form and simplicity of means.
-- Bela Bartok -
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Life-transforming ideas have always come to me through books.
-- Bell Hooks -
There will be no mass-based feminist movement as long as feminist ideas are understood only by a well-educated few.
-- Bell Hooks -
I am passionate about everything in my life--first and foremost, passionate about ideas. And that's a dangerous person to be in this society, not just because I'm a woman, but because it's such a fundamentally anti-intellectual, anti-critical thinking society. --bell hooks
-- Bell Hooks -
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My idea of a delicious time is to read a book that is wonderful. But the ruling passion of my life is being a seeker after truth and the divine.
-- Bell Hooks -
Once you do away with the idea of people as fixed, static entities, then you see that people can change, and there is hope.
-- Bell Hooks -
Within a capitalist consumer society, the cult of personality has the power to subsume ideas, to make the person, the personality into the product and not the work itself.
-- Bell Hooks -
I think there is something about L.A., fortunately: once you get one role people think, 'Oh well, someone employed her, so maybe we can.' I mean, that's my idea of it, anyway. 'She can put one foot in front of the other and say a line.
-- Bella Heathcote -
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Jen came first, and then they wanted to cast somebody that would... Kevin liked the idea of having a kind of The Ghost of That Character kind of haunt the movie in a way throughout, by having Raquel look so much like her. And also, it was sort of serendipity. I mean, she was also the best actress. I mean, as you can see Raquel has a pretty appealing, engaging kind of precocious, sparkly quality that's... it was just luck really that she happened to the film.
-- Ben Affleck -
To answer the question, though: I didn't always want to direct. I just liked the idea of it. If a friend was making a short and needed someone who knew screen direction, I would jump in. It would be horrible, but it led to a short, then another, and another. It was like student films.
-- Ben Affleck -
If you really understand something, you can: 1) explain it using a clear metaphor and 2) explain the strongest counter-argument to the idea.
-- Ben Casnocha -
There is this peculiar blind spot in the culture of academic medicine around whether withholding trial results is research misconduct. People who work in any industry can reinforce each others' ideas about what is okay.
-- Ben Goldacre -
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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.
-- Ben Harper -
I was an executive running a pretty substantial group before becoming CEO, and I had no idea what it was like. When something goes wrong, people say, 'It's all your fault.' Your reaction is, 'It's not my fault.' But what do you mean? I was the founder, I hired everybody in the company, I was managing it.
-- Ben Horowitz -
Note to self: It’s a good idea to ask, “What am I not doing?
-- Ben Horowitz -
The trouble with innovation is that truly innovative ideas often look like bad ideas at the time.
-- Ben Horowitz -