Explore Quotes on Ideas

[To the cultures of Asia and the continent of Africa] it is the Western impact which has stirred up the winds of change and set the processes of modernization in motion. Education brought not only the idea of equality but also another belief which we used to take for granted in the West-the idea of progress, the idea that science and technology can be used to better human conditions. In ancient society, men tended to believe themselves fortunate if tomorrow was not worse than today and anyway, there was little they could do about it.

The big idea we start with is: "How is the genome interpreted, and how are stable decisions that affect gene expression inherited from one cell to the next?" This is one of the most competitive areas of molecular biology at the moment, and the students are reading papers that in some instances were published this past year. As a consequence, one of the most common answers I have to give to their questions is, "We just don't know."

President Obama's approach embodies the values, the ideas and the direction America has to take to build the 21st-century version of the American Dream: a nation of shared opportunities, shared responsibilities, shared prosperity, a shared sense of community.

It was during my enchanted days of travel that the idea came to me, which, through the years, has come into my thoughts again and again and always happily-the idea that geology is the music of the earth.

[In research on bacteria metabolism] we have indeed much the same position as an observer trying to gain an idea of the life of a household by careful scrutiny of the persons and material arriving or leaving the house; we keep accurate records of the foods and commodities left at the door and patiently examine the contents of the dust-bin and endeavour to deduce from such data the events occurring within the closed doors.

I am unable to accept the idea that I should be an obedient subject of a gang of corrupt, unprincipled thugs who pontificate about freedom while enslaving the population.

When anything is pointed out, our only idea is to go from wrong to right; in spite of the fact that it has taken us years to get to wrong we try to get right in a moment.

Parents must get across the idea that "I love you always, but sometimes I do not love your behavior."

The idea of the universe as an interconnected whole is not new; for millennia it's been one of the core assumptions of Eastern philosophies. What is new is that Western science is slowly beginning to realize that some elements of that ancient lore might be correct.

Few persons enjoy real liberty; we are all slaves to ideas or habits.

The idea is that instead of going to an online retail site ... and buying a physical CD and having it shipped to you, you actually can buy the song and download the song to your computer hard drive.

There is no hope for the fanciful idea of reaching the moon because of insurmountable barriers to escaping the earth's gravity

The last few decades have belonged to a certain kind of person with a certain kind of mind-computer programmers who could crank code, lawyers who could craft contracts, MBAs who could crunch numbers. But the keys to the kingdom are changing hands.The future belongs to a very different kind of person with a very different kind of mind-creators and empathizers, pattern recognizers and meaning makers.These people-artists, inventors, designers, storytellers, caregivers, consolers, big picture thinkers-will now reap society's richest rewards and share its greatest joys.

There is more dynamite in an idea than in many bombs.

I am shocked at how much time I spend in the White House. I mean, you know, for people on the outside, the idea of going to the White House for a meeting must seem like the most important, serious, even glamorous kind of thing to do.

The pictures were painted directly through me, without preliminary drawings and with great power. I had no idea what the pictures would depict and still I worked quickly and surely without changing a single brush-stroke.

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.

Nothing is more confused than to be ordered into a war to die or to be maimed for life without the faintest idea of what's going on.

I'm painting an idea not an ideal. Basically I'm trying to paint a structured painting full of controlled, and therefore potent, emotion.

These martyrs of patriotism gave their lives for an idea.

It is useless to close the gates against ideas; they overlap them.