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Quotes about ideas

115 quotes from 89 people

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It is always better to have no ideas than false ones; to believe nothing, than to believe what is wrong.
Thomas Jefferson1743–1826Letter From Thomas Jefferson to the Rev. James Madison, 19 July 1788
- Truth & Lies
Whenever a theory appears to you as the only possible one, take this as a sign that you have neither understood the theory nor the problem which it was intended to solve.
Karl Popper1902–1994Objective Knowledge: An Evolutionary Approach (1972)
- Thinking
We are most likely to get angry and excited in our opposition to some idea when we ourselves are not quite certain of our own position, and are inwardly tempted to take the other side.
Thomas Mann1875–1955Buddenbrooks [Buddenbrooks: Verfall einer Familie, Roman] (1901). Pt 8, Ch. 2
- Anger
He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.
Thomas Jefferson1743–1826Letter to Isaac McPherson (1813)
- Knowledge
A little mouse of thought appears in the room, and even the mightiest potentates are thrown into panic.
Winston Churchill1874–1965“The Defence of Freedom and Peace (The Lights are Going Out)”, radio broadcast to the United States and to London (16 October 1938).
- Power
Invention, it must be humbly admitted, does not consist in creating out of void, but out of chaos.
Mary Shelley1797–1851Frankenstein (1818), Introduction to the 1831 edition of FrankensteinIn context
To me, when we talk about the world, we are talking about our ideas of the world. Our ideas of organisation, our different religions, our different economic systems, our ideas about it are the world.
Alan Mooreborn 1953De Abaitua interview (1998)
If those in charge of our society — politicians, corporate executives, and owners of press and television — can dominate our ideas, they will be secure in their power.
Howard Zinn1922–2010Declarations of Independence: Cross-Examining American Ideology (1991): “American Ideology”
- Power
Our species is the only creative species, and it has only one creative instrument, the individual mind and spirit of a man.
John Steinbeck1902–1968East of Eden (1952), Part 2, Ch. 13. i
I simply claim that what ideas I have, I have a right to express; and that any man who denies that right to me is an intellectual thief and robber. That is all.
Robert G. Ingersoll1833–1899The Liberty of Man, Woman and Child (1877)
- Freedom
Once the miracle of creation has taken place, the group can build and extend it, but the group never invents anything. The preciousness lies in the lonely mind of a man.
John Steinbeck1902–1968East of Eden (1952), Part 2, Ch. 13. i
To us he is no more a person
Now but a whole climate of opinion.
W. H. Auden1907–1973“In Memory of Sigmund Freud”, Another Time (1940)
Vladimir Ilyich, your concrete actions are completely unworthy of the ideas you pretend to hold.
Peter Kropotkin1842–1921Letter to Vladimir Lenin (21 December 1920); as quoted in Peter Kropotkin: From Prince to Rebel (1990) by George Woodcock and Ivan Avakumovic, p. 426
Imagination is a force of nature.
Saul Bellow1915–2005Henderson the Rain King (1959) [Viking/Penguin, 1984, ], ch. XVIII, p. 271
I believe that faith is a precursor of all our ideas.
Charlie Chaplin1889–1977My Autobiography (1964), p. 291
- Faith