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Quotes about ideas

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At any given moment there is an orthodoxy, a body of ideas which it is assumed that all right-thinking people will accept without question.
George Orwell1903–1950“The Freedom of the Press”, unused preface to Animal Farm (1945), published in Times Literary Supplement (15 September 1972)
- Thinking
The idea of a single eureka moment is a dangerous lie. It makes us feel inadequate since we haven’t had ours. It prevents people with seeds of good ideas from getting started.
Mark Zuckerbergborn 1984Harvard Graduation Speech (2017)
Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist.
John Maynard Keynes1883–1946The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (1936), Ch. 24, p. 383
- Economics
Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution.
Albert Einstein1879–1955Cosmic Religion: With Other Opinions and Aphorisms (1931), p. 97
- Knowledge
Ideas are a golden, savage landscape that we wander unaware, without a map.
Alan Mooreborn 1953“What Is Reality?” (written for television)
There is a concept which corrupts and upsets all others. I refer not to Evil, whose limited realm is that of ethics; I refer to the infinite.
Jorge Luis Borges1899–1986“Avatars of the Tortoise” (1939), collected in Discussion (1957 edition)
- Philosophy
Gods die. And when they truly die they are unmourned and unremembered. Ideas are more difficult to kill than people, but they can be killed, in the end.
Neil Gaimanborn 1960American Gods (2001), Ch. 3
- Religion
Ideas are like fish.
If you want to catch little fish, you can stay in the shallow water. But if you want to catch the big fish, you’ve got to go deeper.
David Lynch1946–2025Catching the Big Fish (2006), Introduction, p. 1
Suppressing ideas never succeeds in making them go away.
Barack Obamaborn 1961A New Beginning (June 2009)
- Freedom
Mandela demonstrated that action and ideas are not enough. No matter how right, they must be chiseled into law and institutions.
Barack Obamaborn 1961Eulogy of Nelson Mandela (December 2013)
- Laws
It is characteristic of the unlearned that they are forever proposing something which is old, and because it has recently come to their own attention, supposing it to be new.
Calvin Coolidge1872–1933From ‘Address at Holy Cross’ (25 June 1919), published in Have Faith In Massachusetts: A Collection of Speeches and Messages (2nd Ed.), Coolidge, Houghton Mifflin, p. 231.
- Knowledge
Songs can be Trojan horses, taking charged ideas and sneaking past the ego’s defenses and into the open mind.
John Mayerborn 1977Esquire magazine (November 1, 2004)
- Music
Somehow it seems to fill my head with ideas⁠—only I don’t exactly know what they are!
Lewis Carroll1832–1898Through the Looking-Glass (1871), Chapter IIn context
- Poetry
Very simple was my explanation, and plausible enough⁠—as most wrong theories are!
H. G. Wells1866–1946The Time Machine (1895), Chapter VIIn context
In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts; they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty.
Ralph Waldo Emerson1803–1882Self-Reliance (1841)In context
- Genius