Today we operate in what Peter Drucker, a great business philosopher, called the “knowledge economy.” We have shifted from an agricultural economy, to an industrial economy to one that is now driven by education and knowledge. Technological, pharmaceutical and nano innovation comes from ideas as they didn’t exist in any “natural form” on this Earth 30 years ago. These segments of the economy stem from people’s education and their ability to think, create and then share their ideas with others. With that in mind I thought I would share some great quotes about ideas I’ve shared on Twitter over the last year as well as a few that couldn’t “fit” under 120 characters
You will find that the quotes come from a wide array of reading/topics/authors.
- No man was ever wise by chance-Seneca
- Ideas must work through the brains and arms of men, or they are no better than dreams-Ralph Waldo Emerson (poet)
- The best ideas come as jokes. Make your thinking as funny as possible-David M. Ogilvy (advertising)
- Any ideas, plan, or purpose may be placed in the mind through repetition of thought-Napoleon Hill (personal development pioneer)
- You can dramatize your ideas in business or in any other aspect of your life. It’s easy-Dale Carnegie (personal development)
- The best ideas are common property-Seneca (philosopher)
- Great minds discuss ideas; Average minds discuss events; Small minds discuss people-Eleanor Roosevelt (1884 – 1962)
- Only the wise possess ideas; the greater part of mankind are possessed by them-Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772 – 1834)
- It is useless to send armies against ideas-George Brandes
- No army can withstand the strength of an idea whose time has come-Victor Hugo
- A mind once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions- Oliver Wendell Holmes
- A man may die, nations may rise and fall, but an idea lives on-John F. Kennedy (former U.S. President)
- There’s no good idea that can’t be improved on-Michael Eisner (former CEO of Disney)
- Some of the best ideas come out of the blue- @RichardBranson (Chairman of Virgin Group)
- You can have brilliant ideas but if you can not get them across, your ideas will go nowhere-Lee Iacocca (former CEO of Chrysler)
- There are not that many original ideas out there-Steve Wynn (CEO of Wynn Resorts)
- You can kill a man but you can’t kill an idea-Meg Whitman (former CEO of E-Bay)
- I think that it’s always possible to have a great company if you have great ideas-Jerry Yang (former CEO/co-founder of Yahoo)
- We bring together the best ideas-turning the meetings of our top managers into intellectual orgies- @Jack Welch (former CEO of GE)
- A mediocre idea that generates enthusiasm will go farther than a great idea that inspires no one-Mary Kay Ash (businesswoman)
- Daring ideas are like chessmen moved forward. They may be beaten, but they may start a winning game-Goethe
- Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple, learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen-John Steinbeck (author)
- Follow the path of the unsafe, independent thinker. Expose your ideas to the dangers of controversy. Speak your mind and fear less the label of ‘crackpot’ than the stigma of conformity. And on issues that seem important to you, stand up and be counted at any cost-Thomas J. Watson (inventor/businessman)
- The difficulty lies, not in the new ideas, but in escaping from the old ones, which ramify, for those brought up as most of us have been, into every corner of our minds-John Maynard Keynes (famous economist)
Did the above quotes intrigue you? If so, I would greatly appreciate it if you would re-tweet the post or comment below. Have some other great quotes about ideas/thoughts to share with everyone? Please post them below, send them to me at dan {at} BetterBizIdeas.com.
Other resources: Step-by-step guide on how to become a buyers agent