Ideas Quotes - Page 330

In many ways ideas are more important than people - they are much more permanent.

The typical eye sees the ten per cent bad of an idea and overlooks the ninety per cent good.

Opinions become dangerous to a state only when persecution makes it necessary for the people to communicate their ideas under the bond of secrecy.

I am aware that the assumed instinctive belief in God has been used by many persons as an argument for his existence. The idea of a universal and beneficent Creator does not seem to arise in the mind of man, until he has been elevated by long-continued culture.

We must suit the flattery to the mind and taste of the recipient. We do not put essences into hogsheads, nor porter into phials. Delicate minds may be disgusted by compliments that would please a grosser intellect; as some fine ladies who would be shocked at the idea of a dram will not refuse a liqueur.

All men are, at times, influenced by inexplicable sentiments. Ideas haunt them in spite of all their efforts to discard them. Prepossessions are entertained, for which their reason is unable to discover any adequate cause. The strength of a belief, when it is destitute of any rational foundation, seems, of itself, to furnish a new ground for credulity. We first admit a powerful persuasion, and then, from reflecting on the insufficiency of the ground on which it is built, instead of being prompted to dismiss it, we become more forcibly attached to it.

I do not deny God, because that word conveys to me no idea, and I cannot deny that which presents to me no distinct affirmation, and of which the would-be affirmer has no conception. I cannot war with a nonentity. If, however, God is affirmed to represent an existence which is distinct from the existence of which I am a mode, and which it is alleged is not the noumenon of which the word I represents only a speciality of phenomena, then I deny God, and affirm that it is impossible God can be.

A leaf that falls into a stream (or a leaf we intentionally drop into a stream) just where the water disappears into the ground...will come out again at the next opening, because the underground stream has faithfully carried it there, though during this journey it has been beyond the reach of any outside interference. In the same way, an idea that has been introduced into our minds (or that we ourselves have intentionally introduced) will produce its effects after longer or shorter subconscious development.

Let the ideas clash but not the hearts.

One of America's strengths has always been its openness to the new: both new ideas and new people.

Being overseas at the time it all kind of happened was perfect because I had no idea that it was going to attract so much media attention and provoke these lovely people calling in and offering up their opinions and advice.

None of us have much idea where we are. Perhaps all our lives are too concerned with where, and not enough with who.

Investigation?" Isabelle laughed. "Now we're detectives? Maybe we should all have code names." "Good idea," said Jace. "I shall be Baron Hotschaft Von Hugenstein.

Rage flared up in Tessa and she considered belting Woolsey with the poker whether he came near her or not. He had moved awfully quickly while fighting Will, though, and she didn’t fancy her chances. “You don’t know James Carstairs. Don’t speak about him.” “Love him, do you?” Woolsey managed to make it sound unpleasant. “But you love Will, too.” Tessa froze. She had known that Magnus knew of Will’s affection for her, but the idea that what she felt for him in return was written across her face was too terrifying to contemplate.

When a performance isn't working, it's usually because the actor is trying to do something and they're not able to express their idea very well. It's a muddled expression.

The very idea that there is some kind of conflict between science and religion is completely mistaken. Science is a method for investigating experience... Religion is the fundamental, necessary internalization of our system of more permanent values.

I had no idea how greedy my heart really was.

Women are allowed to enter the spaces of the senses, the space of the body, the spaces opened by sensations, all kinds of feelings, but women are not allowed to enter the spaces of reason to the same extent, that is to say the space of ideas, political ideas.

I do think that's one of the reasons that acting appealed to me so much: the idea of letting go of control in a controlled environment. Being able to go through the range of intense emotions and jump off the cliff, metaphorically, but in a creative way, and in a way where the structure was really solid.

Architects and painters know precisely what they are about as long as they deal with material phenomena.... But when they come to the aesthetics of their work, when they aim at a particular effect on the mind or on the senses, the rules dissolve into nothing but vague ideas.

Science is much more than a body of knowledge. It is a way of thinking. This is central to its success. Science invites us to let the facts in, even when they don't conform to our preconceptions. It counsels us to carry alternative hypotheses in our heads and see which ones best match the facts. It urges on us a fine balance between no-holds-barred openness to new ideas, however heretical, and the most rigorous skeptical scrutiny of everything - new ideas and established wisdom.

The well-meaning contention that all ideas have equal merit seems to me little different from the disastrous contention that no ideas have any merit.

The Platonic world of ideas corresponds to Thinking and Sensation on the mystical level.

The fact is that certain ideas exist almost everywhere and at all times and can even spontaneously create themselves quite independently of migration and tradition.

Man positively needs general ideas and convictions that will give a meaning to his life and enable him to find a place for himself in the universe.