Great Throughts Treasury

"While grasping eternal truth, ideas get into the whirlpool of consideration, and thus are raised to the sphere of pure spirit and arrive at the realm of high sublimity where the souls are resting in the shadow of Divine Majesty." - Hunein ibn Ishak, also Hunain or Hunein

"Great ideas need landing gear as well as wings." - Charles Douglas Jackson, aka C.D.

"[Ideas] gain favor when they enter the service of interests and instincts." - Bertrand de Jouvenel, fully Bertrand de Jouvenel des Ursins

"The public interest is best served by the free exchange of ideas." - John Kane, fully John L. Lane Jr.

"The sense of boredom which… appears in analysis is simply an expression of the monotony and poverty of ideas, not of the unconscious… but of the analyst." - Carl Jung, fully Carl Gustav Jung

"Violence is an admission that one’s ideas and goals cannot prevail on their own merits." - Ted Kennedy, fully Edward Moore "Ted" Kennedy

"For governing a country well thee is nothing better than moderation. The mark of a moderate man is freedom from his own ideas. Tolerant like the sky, all-pervading like sunlight, firm like a mountain, supple like a tree in the wind, he has no destination in view and makes use of anything life happens to bring his way. Nothing is impossible for him. Because he has let go, he can care for the people’s welfare as a mother cares for her child." - Lao Tzu, ne Li Urh, also Laotse, Lao Tse, Lao Tse, Lao Zi, Laozi, Lao Zi, La-tsze

"This is the nature of the unenlightened mind: the sense organs, which are limited in scope and ability, randomly gather information. This partial information is arranged into judgments, which are based on previous judgments, which are usually based on someone’s else’s foolish ideas. These false concepts and ideas are then stored in a highly selective memory system. Distortion upon distortion: the mental energy flows constantly through contorted and inappropriate channels, and the more one uses the mind, the more confused one becomes." - Lao Tzu, ne Li Urh, also Laotse, Lao Tse, Lao Tse, Lao Zi, Laozi, Lao Zi, La-tsze

"The stock of ideas which mankind has to work with is very limited, like the alphabet, can at best have an air of freshness given it by new arrangements and combinations, or by application to new times and circumstances." - James Russell Lowell

"I don’t like to keep any man on a job so long that his ideas and forethoughts go no further than mine." - George Marshall, fully George Catlett Marshall, Jr.

"The world’s inability to achieve a unity of thought and to end spiritual divisions is the real reason society is so deeply unhappy, so poor in ideas and enthusiasm, and so lacking in shared spiritual concepts which are its own inner joy, nobility and strength." - Barrett McGurn

"Any man who afflicts the human race with ideas must be prepared to see them misunderstood." -

"The whole drift of our law is toward the absolute prohibition of all ideas that diverge in the slightest from the accepted platitudes, and behind that drift or law there is far more potent force of growing custom, and under that custom there is a national philosophy which erects conformity into the noblest of virtues and the free functioning of personality into a capital crime against society." -

"Not all ideas and beliefs and ideals have equal merit." - Jason A. Merchey

"Ideas are the real substance of human life. Ideas guide our actions and even control our movements. It is just as well to put them in order first and then to display their anatomy." - Jonathan Miller, fully Sir Jonathan Wolfe Miller

"To approach the living question with the mind alone is impossible. The intellect must be coupled with feeling in order to stir a person to authentic inquiry. Real philosophy recognizes that ideas have sensations and emotions connected with them, and that one responds to them with the whole of oneself." - Jacob Needleman

"Judaism can be viewed as the evolution of a people in the grip of two toweringly great ideas. The first is the idea of One God - imageless, primordially creative, and utterly transcendent - who, nevertheless, cares for the creation. The second is the idea of human dignity: men and women become fully human only by responding to the moral intuitions divinely etched in their hearts." - Philip Novak

"How are we to bring children to the spirit of citizenship and humanity which is postulated by democratic societies? By the actual practice of democracy at school. It is unbelievable that at a time when democratic ideas enter into every phase of life, they should have been so little utilized as instruments of education." - Jean Piaget

"An open mind should be more than a catch-all receptacle. It should have a screening mechanism to keep out the trivial, a sorting capacity to organize ideas and reconcile contradictions, and a critical tool to help us decide what we believe. That’s the difference between a mind that receives information and a mind that thinks." - Letty Cottin Pogrebin

"Profound but contradictory ideas may exist side by side, if they are constructed from different materials and methods and have different purposes. Each tells us something important about where we stand in the universe, and it is foolish to insist that they must despise each other." - Neil Postman

"Learning to learn is to know how to navigate in a forest of facts, ideas and theories, a proliferation of constantly changing items of knowledge. Learning to learn is to know what to ignore but at the same time not rejecting innovation and research." - Raymond Queneau

"The fact that man is unable or unwilling to acknowledge God, means only that he cannot accept ideas and beliefs about God framed by men, the false gods which obscure the living and ineffable God." - Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, fully Sir or Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan

"In a moment of extreme danger things can be done which have previously been thought impossible. Mortal danger is an effective antidote for fixed ideas." - Erwin Rommel, fully Erwin Johannes Eugen Rommel

"Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there. When the soul lies down in the grass, the world is too full to talk about. Ideas, language, even the phrase each other doesn’t make sense." - Rumi, fully Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rumi NULL

"Believe Big. The size of your success is determined by the size of your belief. Think little goals and expect little achievements. Think big goals and win big success. Remember this, too! Big ideas and big plans are often easier – certainly no more difficult – than small ideas and small plans." - David J. Schwartz, fully David Joseph Schwartz

"A new public opinion must be created privately and unobtrusively. The existing one is maintained by the Press, by propaganda, by organization, and by financial and other influences which are at its disposal. This unnatural way of spreading ideas must be opposed by the natural one, which goes from man to man and relies solely on the truth of the thoughts and the hearer’s receptiveness for new truth." - Albert Schweitzer

"The fundamental conflicts in human life are not between competing ideas – one of which is true and the other false, but rather, between those that hold power and use it to oppress others, and those who are oppressed by power and seed to free themselves of it." -

"Knowing yourself has nothing to do with whatever ideas are floating around in your mind. Knowing yourself is to be rooted in Being, instead of lost in your mind." - Eckhart Tolle, born Ulrich Leonard Tolle

"All human history from the earliest times to our own day may be considered as a movement of consciousness both of individuals and of homogeneous groups from lower ideas to higher ones." - Leo Tolstoy, aka Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy or Tolstoi

"Where do correct ideas come from? Do they drop from the skies? No. Are innate in the mind? No. They come from social practice, and from it alone." - Mao Tse-tung, alternatively Zedong, Ze dong, aka Chairman Mao

"When we think of the creative mind, we think of the generative mind, full of ideas and brilliant new insights. But the creative mind is both full and empty. It is able to create within itself a space for the new to arise. It is a mind that is constantly opening itself to the internal and external world." - Frank Barron, Alfonso Montuori & Anthea Barron

"A committee is a cul-de-sac down which ideas are lured and then quietly strangled." - Barnett Cocks, fully Sir Thomas George Barnett Cocks

"I know quite certainly that I myself have no special talent; curiosity, obsession and dogged endurance, combined with self-criticism have brought me to my ideas." - Albert Einstein

"The only sure way to avoid making mistakes is to have no new ideas." - Albert Einstein

"The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise." -

"Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people." -

"The answer to [our social problems] lies in democratic free thought where ideas may be generated, challenged, and accepted or rejected on the basis of scientific examination and verification, and evaluated on the basis of the highest human values that emerge from the developing society." - Gerald Alexander Larue

"We do not make photographs with our cameras. We make them with our minds, with our hearts, with our ideas." -

"It is certain that the two World Wars in which I have participated would not have occurred had we been prepared. It is my belief that adequate preparation on our part would have prevented or materially shortened all our other wars beginning with that of 1812. Yet, after each of our wars, there has always been a great hue and cry to the effect that there will be no more wars, that disarmament is the sure road to health, happiness, and peace; and that by removing the fire department, we will remove fires. These ideas spring from wishful thinking and from the erroneous belief that wars result from logical processes. There is no logic in wars. They are produced by madmen. No man can say when future madmen will reappear. I do not say that there will be no more wars; I devoutly hope that there will not, but I do say that the chances of avoiding future wars will be greatly enhanced if we are ready." -

"Good ideas are not adopted automatically. They must be driven into practice with courageous patience." - Hyman George Rickover

"The smallest bookstore still contains more ideas of worth than have been presented in the entire history of television." - Andrew Ross

"There is nothing mysterious or natural about authority. It is formed, irradiated, disseminated; it is instrumental, it is persuasive; it has status, it establishes canons of taste and value; it is virtually indistinguishable from certain ideas it dignifies as true, and from traditions, perceptions and judgments it forms, transmits, reproduces. Above all, authority can, indeed must, be analyzed." - Edward Wadie Saïd

"Nietzsche’s approach developed eventually into a program for radically questioning all the foundations of Western thought. We are slaves to convention, he says - we base our whole lives on attitudes and ideas whose premises, if we ever get round to actually examining them, we reject. This makes ours an inauthentic way of living, a dead way of living. We must re-evaluate our values in the light of what we honestly do believe and feel." - J. P. Stern, fully Joseph Peter Maria Stern

"Sacredness of human life! The world has never believed it! It has been with life that we settled our quarrels, won wives, gold, and land, defended ideas, imposed religions. We have held that a death toll was a necessary part of every human achievement, whether sport, war, or industry. A moment's rage over the horror of it; and we have sunk into indifference." -

"If a man wants to succeed in his work he must bring his ideas into correspondence with the laws of the external world; if they do not correspond he will fail." -

"A man who listens because he has nothing to say can hardly be a source of inspiration. The only listening that counts is that of the talker who alternatively absorbs and expresses ideas." - Agnes Repplier

"A man who listens because he has nothing to say can hardly be a source of inspiration. The only listening that counts is that of the talker who alternatively absorbs and expresses ideas." -

"A man who listens because he has nothing to say can hardly be a source of inspiration. The only listening that counts is that of the talker who alternatively absorbs and expresses ideas." -

"This sharpening of skills is the real value of competition. Many have lost sight of the purpose of healthy competition, which helps us to draw forth inner strength and encourages us to transcend our ideas of personal limitation. The real competition, however, is within the person, and not between people... In essence, competition is cooperation." - Alan Cohen

"This sharpening of skills is the real value of competition. Many have lost sight of the purpose of healthy competition, which helps us to draw forth inner strength and encourages us to transcend our ideas of personal limitation. The real competition, however, is within the person, and not between people... In essence, competition is cooperation." -