“The first idea is an imagined thing.”

“An idea is salvation by imagination”

Frank Lloyd Wright (1867–1959) American architect (1867-1959)

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

Mark Kurlansky (1948) American journalist

“You've no idea how long life goes on and how many, many changes it brings. Young people seem to imagine that it's over in a flash, that they do this thing, or that thing, and then die, but I can assure you they are quite wrong.”

Nancy Mitford (1904–1973) British writer

“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

“Jesus could not have imagined such an idea as Albert Einstein's theory of relativity.”

John Shelby Spong (1931) American bishop

“I paint ideas, not things. My intention is less to paint works that are pleasing to the eye than to suggest great thoughts which will speak to the imagination and the heart and will arouse all that is noblest and best in man.”

George Frederick Watts (1817–1904) British painter and sculptor

“Contrary to the generally accepted theory the will is not the invincible force it is claimed to be; in fact, whenever imagination and will come into conflict it is always imagination that triumphs. Try to do something while you are repeating: "I cannot do it," and you will see this truth confirmed. The mere idea of inability to accomplish a thing paralyzes the will power.”

Emile Coué (1857–1926) French psychologist and pharmacist

“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

“It is not a thing that you can imagine. It only is. After that, there can be no imagining.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Everything Is Illuminated