“The way to get good ideas is to get lots of ideas, and throw the bad ones away.”
Variant: The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas.
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Linus Pauling 19
American scientist 1901–1994Related quotes
As quoted by Francis Crick in his presentation "The Impact of Linus Pauling on Molecular Biology" http://oregonstate.edu/dept/Special_Collections/subpages/ahp/1995symposium/crick.html (1995).
1990s
“An average idea enthusiastically embraced will go further than a genius idea no one gets.”
Source: Disrupt You! (2015), p.93
“The idea of the thing was attacked by good and bad men, in good faith and bad.”
Source: Fourth Mansions (1969), Ch. 4
Context: "There was a later time when sincere men tried to build an organization as wide as the world to secure the peace of the world. It had been tried before and it had failed before. Perhaps if it failed this time it would not be tried again for a very long while. The idea of the thing was attacked by good and bad men, in good faith and bad. The final realization of it was so close that it could be touched with the fingertips. A gambler wouldn't have given odds on it either way. It teetered, and it almost seemed as though it would succeed. Then members of that group interfered."
"And it failed, O'Claire?"
"No. It succeeded, Foley, as in the other case. It succeeded in so twisted a fashion that the Devil himself was puzzled as to whether he had gained or lost ground by it. And he isn't easily puzzled."
Source: Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity (2001), Ch. 3
“Now, where did we ever get the idea that there is such a thing as 'good government?'”
That is a contradiction in terms as ridiculous as 'constructive rape.'
p. 14
Good Government: Hope or Illusion? (1978)
translation from Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018, version in original Dutch (citaat van Gerrit Benner, in het Nederlands:) Een schilderij is goed als het niet af is. Net als bij ideeën. Ideeën die af zijn, zijn dood.. .Alles vloeit, net als in het leven – dat komt ook nooit klaar.
Quote of Gerrit Benner, in: Gerrit Benner, G. Westenberg en E. van Dooren , Harlingen 2005, p. 4; as cited in Lucht in de Nederlandse kunst sinds 1850 https://www.franshalsmuseum.nl/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Catalogus_Lucht.pdf, Antoon Erftemeijer; catalogue of Frans Halsmuseum Haarlem, 2014, p 45
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