Quotes about ideas and thoughts
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“God will not pour fresh, creative ideas and blessing into old attitudes.”

Joel Osteen (1963) American televangelist and author

Source: Your Best Life Now: 7 Steps to Living at Your Full Potential

“I can't believe he took you to an actual resteraunt. I assumed his idea od a date would be making you watch him play World of Warcraft with his nerd friends.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Fallen Angels

Source: City of Fallen Angels

World

“Even though Cammie is fluent in fourteen languages and capable of killing a man seven different ways with her bare hands, she has no idea what to do when she meets an ordinary boy who thinks she's an ordinary girl.”

Ally Carter I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You

Source: I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You

Way, Girl, Boy, Thinking

“I often arrive at quite sensible ideas and judgements, on the spur of the moment. It is when I stop to think that I become foolish.”

Jerome K. Jerome book Diary of a Pilgrimage

Source: Diary of a Pilgrimage

Thinking

“Never try to convey your idea to the audience — it is a thankless and senseless task. Show them life, and they'll find within themselves the means to assess and appreciate it.”

Andrei Tarkovsky book Sculpting in Time

Source: Sculpting in Time (1986), p. 152

Life

“Do you have any idea how hard it is to tail an eighty year-old woman Its hard. Really hard. Really… slow.

-Grabrielle”

Ally Carter (1974) American writer

Source: Uncommon Criminals

“Immersed in solitude, he would dream or read far into the night. By protracted contemplation of the same thoughts, his mind grew sharp, his vague, undeveloped ideas took on form.”

Joris-Karl Huysmans (1848–1907) French novelist and art critic

Source: Against Nature

Dreams, Solitude, Reading, Night

“My idea of feminism is self-determination, and it's very open-ended: every woman has the right to become herself, and do whatever she needs to do.”

Ani DiFranco (1970) musician and activist

“I have noticed that doing the sensible thing is only a good idea when the decision is quite small. For the life-changing things, you must risk it.”

Jeanette Winterson (1959) English writer

Source: Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?

Life, Decision, Change

“It bewildered Ig, the idea that a person could not be interested in music. It was like not being interested in happiness.”

Joe Hill (1879–1915) Swedish-American labor activist, songwriter, and member of the Industrial Workers of the World

Source: Horns

Happiness, Music, Personality

“The idea that each corporation can be a feudal monarchy and yet behave in its corporate action like a democratic citizen concerned for the world we live in is one of the great absurdities of our time”

Kim Stanley Robinson book Antarctica

Source: Antarctica

World, Time

“In politics, my dear fellow, you know, as well as I do, there are no men, but ideas — no feelings, but interests; in politics we do not kill a man, we only remove an obstacle, that is all.”

Alexandre Dumas book The Count of Monte Cristo

Source: The Count of Monte Cristo

Men, Feeling

“If politics is like show business, then the idea is not to pursue excellence, clarity or honesty but to appear as if you are, which is another matter altogether.”

Neil Postman (1931–2003) American writer and academic

Source: Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business

Business, Appearance

“Wise men put their trust in ideas and not in circumstances.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

Men

“I have lots of ideas. Trouble is, most of them suck.”

George Carlin (1937–2008) American stand-up comedian

“You’re the one who unleashed him. (Savitar)
Yeah, well, let’s move on from the blame game. I was having suicidal thoughts and it seemed like a good idea at the time. In retrospect, not so much. (Stryker)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: One Silent Night

Game, Suicide, Time

“It was nice to see someone who appreciated her for her character, no matter how disgusted Christian was by the idea of ANYONE dating his aunt. And I actually kind of liked seeing Christian so obviously tormented. It was good for him.”

Richelle Mead book Last Sacrifice

Source: Last Sacrifice

“Damn, you have no idea what I have been through today."

"Actually I have a pretty good idea.”

Richelle Mead book The Fiery Heart

Source: The Fiery Heart

“the strange ideas we derive today will one day be our celebrated truths”

Dan Brown book The Lost Symbol

Source: The Lost Symbol

Truth

“Look, I know you meant well creating the world and all, but how could you let it get away from you like this? How come you couldn't stick with your original idea of paradise? People's lives were a mess.”

Sue Monk Kidd book The Secret Life of Bees

Source: The Secret Life of Bees

People, World

“This is the biggest mistake I could think would save me. I wanted to give up the idea that I had any control. Shake things up. To be saved by chaos. To see if I could cope, I wanted to force myself to grow again. To explode my comfort zone.”

Chuck Palahniuk (1962) American novelist, essayist

Thinking

“Our idea of God tells us more about ourselves than about Him.”

Thomas Merton (1915–1968) Priest and author

God

“Often the difference between a successful person and a failure is not one has better abilities or ideas, but the courage that one has to bet on one's ideas, to take a calculated risk - and to act.”

André Malraux (1901–1976) French novelist, art theorist and politician

Failure, Courage, Success, Personality

“People fear anyone who differs from what is considered normal, and in a small town the idea of normal can be as narrow as the streets.”

Elizabeth Chandler (1954) writer

Source: The Back Door of Midnight

People, Fear

“I’m a girl. Every girl pretends she’s a princess at one point, no matter how little her life is like that. And I like the idea of ‘happily ever after.”

Alex Flinn book Beastly

Source: Beastly

Life, Girl, Princess

“In so doing, the idea forces itself upon him that religion is comparable to a childhood neurosis, and he is optimistic enough to suppose that mankind will surmount this neurotic phase, just as so many children grow out of their similar neurosis.”

Sigmund Freud book The Future of an Illusion

Source: 1920s, The Future of an Illusion (1927), Ch. 10

Children, Religion, Childhood

“Violence requires few ideas, but nonviolence requires imagination.”

Mark Kurlansky (1948) American journalist

1968: The Year That Rocked the World

Imagination

“I passionately hate the idea of being with it, I think an artist has always to be out of step with his time.”

Orson Welles (1915–1985) American actor, director, writer and producer

Hate, Thinking, Passion, Time

“Sometimes it's a good idea to think about what youfrom a situation, and try to get it, rather than just blurt out the first thing that comes into your head.”

E. Lockhart (1967) American writer of novels as E. Lockhart (mainly for teenage girls) and of picture books under real name Emily J…

Source: The Boyfriend List: 15 Guys, 11 Shrink Appointments, 4 Ceramic Frogs and Me, Ruby Oliver

Thinking

“I have no idea what that is, but yawn, anyway, just on principle. Eat up. Pancakes is brain food.
Apparently not grammar food.
Wow. You college girls are mean.”

Rachel Caine (1962) American writer

Source: Bite Club

Food, Girl

“Knowledge is merely brilliance in organization of ideas and not wisdom. The truly wise person goes beyond knowledge.”

Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher

Wisdom, Knowledge, Personality

“There's a difference between really loving someone and loving the idea of her.”

Gillian Flynn book Gone Girl

Source: Gone Girl

Love

“No mother is ever, completely, a child's idea of what a mother should be, and I suppose it works the other way around as well. But despite everything, we didn't do too badly by one another, we did as well as most.”

Margaret Atwood book The Handmaid's Tale

Source: The Handmaid's Tale

Way

“That was the thing. You never got used to it, the idea of someone being gone. Just when you think it's reconciled, accepted, someone points it out to you, and it just hits you all over again, that shocking.”

Sarah Dessen book The Truth About Forever

Source: The Truth About Forever

Thinking

“I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.
- Atticus Finch”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Pt. 1, ch. 11
Atticus Finch
Variant: Courage is not a man with a gun in his hand. It's knowing you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do.
Source: To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
Context: I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do.

Courage, Courageous

“Too bad Jason wasn’t a metal automaton. At least then Leo would have some idea of how to help his best friend. But with humans … Leo felt helpless. They broke way too easily.”

Rick Riordan book The Blood of Olympus

Source: The Blood of Olympus

Way, Help

“The truth is sometimes a poor competitor in the market place of ideas – complicated, unsatisfying, full of dilemmas, always vulnerable to misinterpretation and abuse.”

George F. Kennan (1904–2005) American advisor, diplomat, political scientist and historian

Truth

“…when the person beside you is making you alert and keen and the idea of being with anyone else is not imaginable…”

Steve Martin (1945) American actor, comedian, musician, author, playwright, and producer

Source: An Object of Beauty

Imagination, Personality

“Every jackass going the roads thinks he has ideas.”

James Joyce (1882–1941) Irish novelist and poet

Thinking

“If I get a new idea today—or any day—I won't run from it. I won't trash it. If it's something I really want to do—I'll do it.”

Jerry Spinelli (1941) American children's writer

Source: Today I Will: A Year of Quotes, Notes, and Promises to Myself

“We do not need to operate according to the idea of a predetermined program for our lives.”

John O'Donohue (1956–2008) Irish writer, priest and philosopher

Source: Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom

“Ideas aren't magical; the only tricky part is holding on to one long enough to get it written down.”

Lynn Abbey (1948) American writer

Parting

“I missed her, the idea of her.”

Cecelia Ahern book A Place Called Here

Source: A Place Called Here

“Eventually everything connects - people, ideas, objects… the quality of the connections is the key to quality per se.”

Charles Eames (1907–1978) American designer, half of duo the Eames

Attributed to Charles Eames in: Georgia Bizios (1998) Architecture Reading Lists and Course Outlines. p. 494

People

“If at first the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Hope

“For if there is ever a moment when we are most vulnerable, it’s when we’re closest to the idea of the attained desire, and thus farthest from ourselves, which is when we’ll tread through any flame.”

Chang-rae Lee (1965) Novelist

Source: On Such a Full Sea

“Those who believe that they believe in God, but without passion in their hearts, without anguish in mind, without uncertainty, without doubt, without an element of despair even in their consolation, believe only in the God idea, not God Himself.”

Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936) 19th-20th century Spanish writer and philosopher

God, Passion, Heart, Despair

“But I still has enough longing for that concept that I didn't want to dispel it completely. Meaning: I didn't want to tell Lily that I felt we'd all been duped by Plato and the idea of a soul mate. Just in case it turned out that she was mine.”

David Levithan (1972) American author and editor

Source: Dash & Lily's Book of Dares

Soul

“I can’t for the life of me not eat something that I want to eat. You know how if you turned on a faucet in your sink to wash your hands, the idea of leaving the bathroom without turning it off is insane? That’s how I am about ignoring delicious food.”

Mindy Kaling book Why Not Me?

Source: Why Not Me?

Life, Food

“All of the life-changing awesome
words and pictures and ideas
inside your library are useless
without just one word outside
your library: Open.”

Mo Willems (1968) American children's illustrator and writer

Life, Change

“It took a lot of women like that, a lot of women who said "I'm not going to do what you expect me to do, because you have no idea what I'm capable of. I'm going to get dirty and use tools and live the way I want" to move the world forward.”

Maureen Johnson (1973) writer from the USA

Source: The Last Little Blue Envelope

Women, World, Way

“Women never bought Freud's idea of penis envy: who would want a shotgun when you can have an automatic?”

Natalie Angier (1958) American writer

Source: Woman: An Intimate Geography

Women, Envy

“It depends. If I don't let you in, will you huff and puff and blow my house down?"
She had no idea. "I'm more of a kick the door open and cut everyone inside to ribbons kind of wolf.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Bayou Moon

Wolf, Housing, Dependency

“The idea of formulated 'rights… comes not from John Locke and Thomas Jefferson… but from the canon law of the Catholic Church.”

Thomas E. Woods Jr. (1972) American academic

Law

“Mary, you know I hate parties. My idea of hell is a very large party in a cold room where everybody has to play hockey properly.”

Stella Gibbons book Cold Comfort Farm

Source: Cold Comfort Farm

Hate, Hell, Hockey

“No army can withstand the strength of an idea whose time has come.”

Victor Hugo (1802–1885) French poet, novelist, and dramatist

Variant: No force on earth can stop an idea whose time has come

Time

“I like the idea of someone else’s love safely sealed in a song or a book.”

Henry Rollins (1961) American singer-songwriter

Source: Solipsist

Love, Books

“I'm not afraid of heights, but the idea of falling from them, well, that I'm afraid of.”

Laurell K. Hamilton book Cerulean Sins

Source: Cerulean Sins

“A little bit of one story joins onto an idea from another, and hey presto,… not old tales but new ones. Nothing comes from nothing.”

Salman Rushdie Haroun and the Sea of Stories

Source: Haroun and the Sea of Stories

“I'm done. I'm going to go to bed and read important books about theater."
"It would would be easier if you just said porn," Scarlett said.
"No idea what you're talking about. But knock first if you need me.”

Maureen Johnson (1973) writer from the USA

Source: Suite Scarlett

Books, Reading

“The learned ignore the evidence of their senses to preserve the coherence of the ideas of their imagination.”

Adam Smith (1723–1790) Scottish moral philosopher and political economist

Imagination, Sense, Learning

“I am not fond of the idea of my shrubberies being always approachable.”

Jane Austen book Persuasion

Source: Persuasion

“I've learned never to close my mind to an idea simply because it seems miraculous.”

Dan Brown book The Lost Symbol

Source: The Lost Symbol

Learning

“There is this idea that you either read to escape or you read to find yourself.”

Matt Haig book Reasons to Stay Alive

Variant: There is this idea that you either read to escape or you read to find yourself. I don't really see the difference.
Source: Reasons to Stay Alive

Reading

“The whole campfire idea freaked Piper out. It made her think of that huge purple bonfire in the dreams, and her father tied to a stake.
What she got instead was almost as terrifying: a sing-along.”

Rick Riordan (1964) American writer

Dreams, Thinking, Singing

“An idea is a greater monument than a cathedral. And the advance of man's knowledge is a greater miracle than all the sticks turned to snakes or the parting of the waters.”

Jerome Lawrence Inherit the Wind

Source: Inherit the Wind

Knowledge, Water, Parting

“The idea is to write it so that people hear it and it slides through the brain and goes straight to the heart.”

Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American author and poet

People, Heart

“When I tell her what I’m thinking and she tells me what she’s thinking, our each ideas jumping into the other’s head, like coulouring blue crayon on top of yellow that makes green.”

Emma Donoghue Room

Source: Room

Thinking

“My ideas usually come not at my desk writing but in the midst of living.”

Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica

“What is your idea of earthly happiness? To be vindicated in my own lifetime.”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

Source: Hitch-22: A Memoir

Happiness

“Others go to bed with their mistresses; I with my ideas.”

José Martí (1853–1895) Poet, writer, Cuban nationalist leader

Letter (1890)

“He had quite liked the dwarfs. He often had no idea what they were talking about, but for a group of homicidal, class-obsessed small people, they were really rather good fun.”

John Connolly The Book of Lost Things

Source: The Book of Lost Things

People

“A hundred people is rather a large handful for the four of us to take on," Malcolm pointed out. "Do you have any ideas about how we're going to handle that task?"
"Simple," Halt told him. "We'll surround them.”

John Flanagan (1873–1938) Irish-American hammer thrower

Source: Halt's Peril

People

“mr youse needn't be so spry
concernin questions arty

each has his tastes but as for i
i likes a certain party

gimme the he-man's solid bliss
for youse ideas i'll match youse

a pretty girl who naked is
is worth a million statues”

E.E. Cummings (1894–1962) American poet

Girl, Question

“I am so busy doing nothing… that the idea of doing anything - which as you know, always leads to something - cuts into the nothing and then forces me to have to drop everything.”

Jerry Seinfeld (1954) American comedian and actor

Business

“Kyle want to be a rockstar. I think hes working the one-name thing. Like Rihanna."
"I have no idea what you're talking about.”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Thinking

“Good idea. I'll do it.”

Mary Connealy (1956) Author

Sharpshooter in Petticoats

“It's been so long that I think I was unsettled by the idea of feeling like I belonged anywhere. But you made me feel like I belong.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Bones

Jace to Clary, pg. 482
Source: The Mortal Instruments, City of Bones (2007)

Feeling, Thinking

“This stupid weapons-shopping idea. Last time I take dating advice from Jace.” “You let Jace plan our date?”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Source: Pale Kings and Princes

Stupidity, Time

“Your lifeline…oh, the burning stick. Right.” Leo resisted the urge to set his hand ablaze and yell: Bwah ha ha! The idea was sort of funny, but he wasn’t that cruel.”

Rick Riordan The Mark of Athena

Source: The Mark of Athena

“I couldn't stand the idea of a woman having to have a single pure life and a man being able to have a double life, one pure and one not.”

Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer

Life

“For the last year his grandma had been slipping in and out of reality. One minute she was as clear as a bell and the next she was calling him Simon. Who was Simon? He had no idea.”

Suzanne Collins book Gregor the Overlander

Source: Gregor the Overlander

Reality, Grandma

“Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen.”

John Steinbeck (1902–1968) American writer

Interview with Robert van Gelder (April 1947), as quoted in John Steinbeck : A Biography (1994) by Jay Parini

Learning

“There is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come.”

Victor Hugo (1802–1885) French poet, novelist, and dramatist

Often attributed to Hugo as a paraphrase of a similar idea in his Histore d'un Crime (1877): "One resists the invasion of armies; one does not resist the invasion of ideas", the wording of this famous statement actually more closely resembles a passage from the relatively obscure Les Francs-Tireurs (1861) by Gustave Aimard, p. 68 https://books.google.com/books/about/Les_francs_tireurs.html?id=mKI4AQAAIAAJ: Il y a quelque chose de plus puissant que la force brutale des baïonnettes: c'est l'idée dont le temps est venu et l'heure est sonnée. There is something more powerful than the brute force of bayonets: it is the idea whose time has come and hour struck. Translated into English as The Freebooters : A Story of the Texan War (1861) https://archive.org/details/freebootersstory00aima, p. 57, Ward & Lock edition Misattributed Variant: More powerful than the mighty armies is an idea whose time has come.

Time