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Topics/Thinking

Quotes about ideas

115 quotes from 89 people

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Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
T. S. Eliot1888–1965The Hollow Men (1925)In context
My worthy friend, gray are all theories,
And green alone Life’s golden tree.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe1749–1832Faust (1808), Scene IV, spoken by MephistophelesIn context
- Experience
The ruling ideas of each age have ever been the ideas of its ruling class.
Karl Marx1818–1883The Communist Manifesto (1848)In context
- Power
Now, the value of an idea has nothing whatsoever to do with the sincerity of the man who expresses it. Indeed, the probabilities are that the more insincere the man is, the more purely intellectual will the idea be, as in that case it will not be coloured by either his wants, his desires, or his prejudices.
Oscar Wilde1854–1900The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891), Chapter IIn context
By what strange law of mind is it that an idea long overlooked, and trodden under foot as a useless stone, suddenly sparkles out in new light, as a discovered diamond?
Harriet Beecher Stowe1811–1896Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852), Volume II, Chapter XXXVIIIIn context
One’s ideas must be as broad as Nature if they are to interpret Nature
Arthur Conan Doyle1859–1930A Study in Scarlet (1887), Part I, Chapter VIn context
- Nature
Great and strange ideas transcending experience often have less effect upon men and women than smaller, more tangible considerations.
H. G. Wells1866–1946The Invisible Man (1897), Chapter XIn context
At first people refuse to believe that a strange new thing can be done, then they begin to hope it can be done, then they see it can be done⁠—then it is done and all the world wonders why it was not done centuries ago.
Frances Hodgson Burnett1849–1924The Secret Garden (1911), Chapter XXVIIIn context
- Change
It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain; but once conceived, it haunted me day and night.
Edgar Allan Poe1809–1849The Tell-Tale Heart (1843)In context
- Thinking
Necessity is the mother of invention.
Aesop620–564 BCAesop’s Fables (6th century BC), The Kites and the Swans – The Monkey and the DolphinIn context
- Intelligence