Quotes About Ideas

The acts of the mind, wherein it exerts its power over simple ideas, are chiefly these three: 1. Combining several simple ideas into one compound one, and thus all complex ideas are made. 2. The second is bringing two ideas, whether simple or complex, together, and setting them by one another so as to take a view of them at once, without uniting them into one, by which it gets all its ideas of relations. 3. The third is separating them from all other ideas that accompany them in their real existence: this is called abstraction, and thus all its general ideas are made.

If we are in Christ the whole basis of our goings is God, not conceptions of God, not ideas of God, but God Himself. We do not need any more ideas about God, the world is full of ideas about God, they are all worthless, because the ideas of God in anyone’s head are of no more use than our own ideas. What we need is a real God, not more ideas about Him.

Just like I described in health care, yeah, somebody comes in, they got new ideas, maybe ideas that are completely opposite of my ideas. Maybe some of it goes, maybe some of that progress goes back. Maybe they think of some things we didn't think of, and so in some other areas - we can learn something.

It's three disparate elements: the stop sign, the stage paintings, and the skeleton paintings. Those are three sharp ideas, although none of them are necessarily good ideas. Tons of artists have made whole careers out of those three ideas.

Nowadays, photographers start out with ideas, and their photos become the expression of an idea. To my way of thinking, a photo should not depend on ideas, should go beyond ideas.

I am often talking about the ideas collected in Normal Life in contexts that are not academic, or that are full of people who are not primarily engaging as theorists or theory-readers. Being able to make ideas visual, especially critical ideas about movements that can be difficult to hear because of attachments we have to certain national narratives, or because of ways that we see ourselves, is especially useful.

I've learned mainly by reading myself. So I don't think I have any original ideas. Certainly, I talk about reading Graham. I've read Phil Fisher. So I've gotten a lot of my ideas from reading. You can learn a lot from other people. In fact, I think if you learn basically from other people, you don't have to get too many new ideas on your own. You can just apply the best of what you see.

Cities need old buildings so badly it is probably impossible for vigorous streets and districts to grow without them.... for really new ideas of any kind--no matter how ultimately profitable or otherwise successful some of them might prove to be--there is no leeway for such chancy trial, error and experimentation in the high-overhead economy of new construction. Old ideas can sometimes use new buildings. New ideas must use old buildings.

Human beings are accustomed to think of intellect as the power of having and controlling ideas and of ability to learn as synonymous with ability to have ideas. But learning by having ideas is really one of the rare and isolated events in nature.

Be a collector of good ideas, but don't trust your memory. The best collecting place for all of the ideas and information that comes your way is your journal.

If you are any competent musician, if you have creative ideas, ideas of songs, of arrangements, in a band like the Stones, where these 2 people do all the things, there is no freedom.

A good scientist is a person with original ideas. A good engineer is a person who makes a design that works with as few original ideas as possible. There are no prima donnas in engineering.

The person who is capable of producing a large number of ideas per unit of time, other things being equal, has a greater chance of having significant ideas.

The words represent ideas first of all. That is something you have to understand. I mean, it is not just an object, but it is an object with a history and it is loaded with all kinds of implications and ideas. They exist in the world in a very special way. So they kind of represent some aspect of the world that we perceive, as do photographs, as do drawings of trees or whatever. And they are not a one to one. They are not the world, but they kind of refer to the world and they also exist in the world.

Hate's a growing thing like anything else. It's the inevitable outcome of forcing ideas onto life, of forcing one's deepest instincts; our deepest feelings we force according to certain ideas.

The most fundamental fact about the ideas of the political left is that they do not work. Therefore we should not be surprised to find the left concentrated in institutions where ideas do not have to work in order to survive.

Our volitional habits depend, then, first, on what the stock of ideas is which we have; and, second, on the habitual coupling of the several ideas with action or inaction respectively.

Some of the best ideas I get seem to happen when I'm doing mindless manual labor or exercise. I'm not sure how that happens, but it leaves me free for remarkable ideas to occur.

I think I am too interested in my own ideas to copy anyone else's, but I find that other people's imagery, the flow of language in the outside world, games with words, and ideas about relationships are all most important to me.

When it comes to ideas - and religions are, among other things, ideas - there is no right not to be offended. ... In fact, if you need laws ... to protect your faith, maybe your faith is weak.

There had been observed in this country certain streams of influence which are causing a marked deterioration in our literature, amusements, and social conduct...a nasty Orientalism which had insidiously affected every channel of expression...The fact that these influences are all traceable to one racial source [Judaism] is something to be reckoned with...Our opposition is only in ideas, false ideas, which are sapping the moral stamina of the people.

I always think it's better to take your time and go through a lot of ideas - and dismiss a lot of ideas - before figuring out where to land. It's a good way to care for your audience, too. If you spend hours and hours and days and weeks coming up with the ending, then there's a chance the fans won't figure it out on their own.

I often compare open source to science. To where science took this whole notion of developing ideas in the open and improving on other peoples' ideas and making it into what science is today and the incredible advances that we have had. And I compare that to witchcraft and alchemy, where openness was something you didn't do.

Today certain definite ideas are developing out of the Egyptian ideas. What is called Darwinism today did not arise because of external reasons. We are the same souls who, in Egypt, received the pictures of the animal forms of man's forebears. The old views have awakened again, but man has descended more deeply into the material world.

Virtually all bad ideas come from universities, bad ideas that only survive when insulated from reality.

We never get upset over what happens. Never. We get upset because of preconceived ideas as to what we think should happen, what we want to happen. When our preference clashes with the reality, we get hurt. Rid yourself of all preconceived ideas as to what should happen. You are then at peace whatever happens.

In short, we can see Karpov as an exploiter of other people’s ideas. His ability to use these ideas is not at issue, but he himself is about as fertile as a woman who has been sterilized is.

Seriously. It was running out at Rolling Stone. First of all, they didn't feel the need for a dissident conservative voice in a world where certain conservative aspects had become intellectually dominant. I would actually argue against that, but on the surface of it, in the [Bill] Clinton years the market economy triumphed, certain libertarian ideas became ordinary, and certain early-20th-century ideas about centralization of government and economic planning and socialism with a small "s" had obviously gone out the window. The Cold War was over, blah blah blah.

If you would be a writer, first be a reader. Only through the assimilation of ideas, thoughts and philosophies can one begin to focus his own ideas, thoughts and philosophies.

The way to combat noxious ideas is with other ideas. The way to combat falsehoods is with truth.

I don't know exactly where ideas come from, it's just a matter of us figuring out how to receive the ideas waiting to be heard.

've had notebooks, but they are nondescript. All I care about is that they fit in my hand. I scribble down ideas. The problem is my best ideas come while I'm driving or showering.

Innate ideas are in every man, born with him; they are truly himself. The man who says that we have no innate ideas must be a fool and knave, having no conscience or innate science.

At school, new ideas are thrust at you every day. Out in the world, you'll have to find your inner motivation to seek for new ideas on your own.

Quick condemnation of all that is not ours, of views with which we disagree, of ideas that do not attract us, is the sign of a narrow mind, of an uncultivated intelligence. Bigotry is always ignorant, and the wise boy, who will become the wise man, tries to understand and to see the truth in ideas with which he does not agree.

Scientists surely have a special responsibility. It is their ideas that form the basis of new technology. They should not be indifferent to the fruits of their ideas. They should forgo experiments that are risky or unethical.

Ideas are interesting to me, and religions are a place where ideas have been very subtly embodied for thousands of years. All literature started as sacred literature.

Poems have ideas. The ideas of poems come out of their emotions and their emotions are carried on images.

To the liberal ideas of the age must be opposed the moral ideas of all ages.

If you want to have good ideas you must have many ideas.

But once we recognize that many ideas that are taken to be quintessentially Western have also flourished in other civilizations, we also see that these ideas are not as culture-specific as is sometimes claimed. We need not begin with pessimism, at least on this ground, about the prospects of reasoned humanism in the world.

The genuine rationalist does not think that he or anyone else is in possession of the truth; nor does he think that mere criticism as such helps us achieve new ideas. But he does think that, in the sphere of ideas, only critical discussion can help us sort the wheat from the chaff.

Popper and Nabokov are very different people in some ways - and I'm ready to devote large chunks of my life to both of them. Popper didn't think much of words but thought ideas mattered, and Nabokov didn't think much of ideas, but words mattered, and so on. But both of them had a sense that this is a world of infinite discovery, unending discovery. That quest to discover more in any direction is what I think drives me, and what drives humans, when they're doing the most interesting things.

You must find the ideas that have some promise in them... It is not enough to just have ideas.

I truly believe that writing is a continuum--so the different genres and forms are simply stops along the same continuum. Different ideas that need to be expressed sometimes require different forms for the ideas to float better.

Big ideas don't make them selves known as big. They begin with the little, ridiculous ideas that most people would discard or reject. Every successful picture I've done has really been based on taking a very flimsy, fleeting little idea, grabbing hold of it, and taking it seriously.

Introverts need to trust their gut and share their ideas as powerfully as they can. This does not mean aping extroverts; ideas can be shared quietly, they can be communicated in writing, they can be packaged into highly produced lectures, they can be advanced by allies. The trick for introverts is to honor their own styles instead of allowing themselves to be swept up by prevailing norms.

The clarification of our political ideas insensibly changes into and becomes indistinguishable from the history of political ideas.