Famous Quotes & Sayings

Gordon Waller

A good idea for lyrics and a melody to expand on.

Gordon Strachan

Are there Martians out there? I haven't got a clue. Is there life out there? I have no idea.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

There are no new ideas.

Louis Sachar

An idea doesn't die," said Trapp. "It exists somewhere, in its own dimension, waiting to be perceived.

Louis Pasteur

It is a matter of fact; I approached without a preconceived idea, too ready to declare, if the experiment had imposed upon me the confession, that there was a spontaneous generation, of which I am convinced today that those who assure it are blindfolded.

Lord Byron

What is fame? The advantage of being known by people of whom you yourself know nothing, and for whom you care as little.

Lord Acton

The history of institutions is often a history of deception and illusions; for their virtue depends on the ideas that produce and on the spirit that preserves them, and the form may remain unaltered when the substance has passed away.

Lord Acton

Government by idea tends to take in everything, to make the whole of society obedient to the idea. Spaces not so governed are unconquered, beyond the border, unconverted, a future danger.

Jim Rogers

If anybody laughs at your idea, view it as a sign of potential success!

John Ciardi

Tell me how much a nation knows about its own language, and I will tell you how much that nation knows about its own identity.

John Cleese

If I can get you to laugh with me, you like me better, which makes you open to my ideas

John Cleese

The really good idea is always traceable back quite a long way, often to a not very good idea which sparked off another idea that was only slightly better, which somebody else misunderstood in such a way that they then said something which was really rather interesting.

John Cleese

We don't know where we get our ideas from. What we do know is that we do not get them from our laptops.

Lusia Strus

What draws me to the theatre, and what appealed to me about Too Much Light, is that you have no idea what's going to happen. That's the most exciting part of theatre, it's never the same. If it were, it would be like watching a movie.

Luther Burbank

As a scientist, I can not help feeling that all religions are on a tottering foundation. None is perfect or inspired.The idea that a good God would send people to a burning hell is utterly damnable to me. I don't want to have anything to do with such a God.

John Boyne

We all are [normal]. Their idea of normal just happens to be different to some other people's idea of normal. But this is the world we live in. Some people simply cannot accept something that is outside of their experience.

John Boehner

The idea that carbon dioxide is a carcinogen that is harmful to our environment is almost comical. Every time we exhale, we exhale carbon dioxide. Every cow in the world, you know, when they do what they do, you've got more carbon dioxide.

John Ambrose Fleming

We are apt to consider that invention is the result of spontaneous action of some heavenborn genius, whose advent we must patiently wait for, but cannot artificially produce. It is unquestionable, however, that education, legal enactments, and general social conditions have a stupendous influence on the development of the originative faculty present in a nation and determine whether it shall be a fountain of new ideas or become simply a purchaser from others of ready-made inventions.

John Archibald Wheeler

It from Bit symbolizes the idea that every item of the physical world has at bottom an immaterial source and explanation... that all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and that this is a participatory universe.

John Armstrong

Sometimes pantheists will use the term "pandeism" to underscore that they share with the deists the idea that God is not a personal God who desires to be worshipped.

Matthew Arnold

The governing idea of Hellenism is spontaneity of consciousness ; that of Hebraism, strictness of conscience .

Matthew Arnold

Morality represents for everybody a thoroughly definite and ascertained idea: the idea of human conduct regulated in a certain manner.

Matthew Arnold

For poetry the idea is everything; the rest is a world of illusion, of divine illusion. Poetry attaches its emotion to the idea; the idea is the fact. The strongest part of our religion today is its unconscious poetry.

Matthew Arnold

For poetry the idea is everything; the rest is a world of illusion.

Matthew Arnold

Life is the application of noble and profound ideas to life.

Matt Lauer

Not only is it a great concept and a great idea -- helping people -- it's good pizza too!

Matt Taibbi

One of the great cliches of campaign journalism is the notion that American elections have long since ceased to be about issues and ideas.

Matt Taibbi

People are beginning to become disturbingly comfortable with a kind of official hypocrisy. Bizarrely, for instance, we've become numb to the idea that rights aren't absolute but are enjoyed on a kind of sliding scale.

Meg Wolitzer

For me, a novel relying too heavily on a single idea might be a dry, deadly thing unless it possesses an animating force.

Meg Rosoff

At the time, I didn't have the insight to wonder at the transient nature of despair, but now that I'm older I've seen how little it takes to turn a person's life around for better or worse. An event will do, or an Idea. Another person. An idea of a person.

Maximilien Robespierre

Atheism is aristocratic; the idea of a great Being that watches over oppressed innocence and punishes triumphant crime is altogether popular.

Maxine Hong Kingston

The images of peace are ephemeral. The language of peace is subtle. The reasons for peace, the definitions of peace, the very idea of peace have to be invented, and invented again

Maxwell Maltz

Your present negative beliefs were formed by thought PLUS feelings. Generate enough emotion, or deep feeling and your new thoughts and ideas will cancel them out.