Quotes on Ideas

Noble dragons don't have friends. The nearest they can get to the idea is an enemy who is still alive.

Not my idea of God, but God. Not my idea of H., but H. Yes, and also not my idea of my neighbour, but my neighbour. For don't we often make this mistake as regards people who are still alive -- who are with us in the same room? Talking and acting not to the man himself but to the picture -- almost the précis -- we've made of him in our own minds? And he has to depart from it pretty widely before we even notice the fact.

Regimes planted by bayonets do not take root... Our military strength is a prerequisite to peace, but let it be clear we maintain this strength in the hope it will never be used, for the ultimate determinant in the struggle that's now going on in the world will not be bombs and rockets but a test of wills and ideas, a trial of spiritual resolve, the values we hold, the beliefs we cherish, the ideals to which we are dedicated.

Love should be allowed. I’m all for it. Now that I’ve got a pretty good idea what it is.

Rationalism is the idea that we can ever understand anything about the state of being. It's a deathtrip. It always has been. . . . And if rationalism is a deathtrip, then irrationalism might very well be a lifetrip . . . at least until it proves otherwise.

I think that perhaps if I had had to slow down the ideas so that I could capture them on paper I might have stifled some of them.

My friend wants to get moving and so do I,' Eddie said. 'We've got miles to go yet.' I know that. It's on your face, son. Like a scar.' Eddie was fascinated by the idea of duty and ka as something that left a mark, something that might look like decoration to one eye and disfigurement to another. Outside, thunder cracked and lightning flashed.

I have spent my life watching, not to see beyond the world, merely to see, great mystery, what is plainly before my eyes. I think the concept of transcendence is based on a misreading of creation. With all respect to heaven, the scene of the miracle is here, among us. The eternal as an idea is much less preposterous than time, and this very fact should seize our attention.

Voldemort himself created his worst enemy, just as tyrants everywhere do! Have you any idea how much tyrants fear the people they oppress? All of them realize that, one day, amongst their many victims, there is sure to be one who rises against them and strikes back!

To hold in the mind forever two ideas which seemed to be in opposition. The first . . . acceptance totally without rancor, of life as it is, and men as they are [;] . . . the second . . . that one must never, in one's life, accept . . . injustices as commonplace but must fight them with all one's strength.

We've placed a lot of emphasis in this country on the idea of people's rights. That's how it should be, but it makes no sense to talk about rights without also talking about responsibilities.

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

Books are flesh-and-blood ideas and cry out, silently, when put to the torch.

If it's a good movie, the sound could go off and the audience would still have a perfectly clear idea of what was going on.

I have no idea why I write. The old standards are: I like to express my feelings, stretch my imagination, earn money.

One must marry one's feelings to one's beliefs and ideas. That is probably the only way to achieve a measure of harmony in one's life.

Any idea, plan, or purpose may be placed in the mind through repetition of thought.

I resent the idea that people would blame the messenger for the message, rather than looking at the content of the message itself.

My idea of good company is the company of clever, well-informed people who have a great deal of conversation; that is what I call good company.

France was a land, England was a people, but America, having about it still that quality of the idea, was harder to utter - it was the graves at Shiloh and the tired, drawn, nervous faces of its great men, and the country boys dying in the Argonne for a phrase that was empty before their bodies withered. It was a willingness of the heart.

Long afterward Amory thought of sophomore spring as the happiest time of his life. His ideas were in tune with life as he found it; he wanted no more than to drift and dream and enjoy a dozen new-found friendships through the April afternoons.