Ideas

An idea can turn to dust or magic, depending on the talent that rubs against it.
~ William Bernbach, in The New York Times (6 October 1982).

An important idea not communicated persuasively is like having no idea at all.
~ Bill Bernbach, Bill Bernbach said ... (1989).

Logic and overanalysis can immobilize and sterilize an idea. It's like love -- the more you analyze it the faster it disappears.
~ Bill Bernbach, Bill Bernbach said ... (1989).

We don't ask research to do what it was never meant to do, and that is to get an idea.
~ William Bernbach, Bill Bernbach said ... (1989).

The human mind likes a strange idea as little as the body likes a strange protein and resists it with a similar energy.
~ William Ian Beardmore (W.I.B.) Beveridge, The Art of Scientific Investigation (1950).

I never said I had no idea about most of the things you said I said I had no idea about.
~ William Avery "Billy" Bishop

Grandeur of ideas is founded on precision of ideas.
~ William Blake, in The Life of William Blake, Volume I (1863). Notes on Reynolds' Discourses (written c. 1798-1808; aka Annotations to The Works of Sir Joshua Reynolds).

We are embarked as pioneers upon a new science and industry in which our problems are so new and unusual that it behooves no one to dismiss any novel idea with the statement, "It can't be done."
~ William E. Boeing

When you get an idea don't run off into the woods with it lest somebody take it away from you. Put it on the anvil and bid the world hit it with the heaviest sledge. Give all dissenters an opportunity to try it with fire. It is the truth we want, and truth is indestructible.
~ William Cowper Brann, in The Complete Works of Brann, the Iconoclast, Vol. III (1919). A Wayside Sermon

All ideas having even the slightest redeeming social importance -- unorthodox ideas, controversial ideas, even ideas hateful to the prevailing climate of opinion -- have the full protection of the [First Amendment] guaranties, unless excludable because they encroach upon the limited area of more important interests.
~ William Joseph Brennan, Jr. (majority opinion), Roth v. United States, 354 U.S. 476 (1957).

In sum, just as access to ideas makes it possible for citizens generally to exercise their rights of free speech and press in a meaningful manner, such access prepares students for active and effective participation in the pluralistic, often contentious society in which they will soon be adult members.
~ William Joseph Brennan, Jr. (concurring opinion), Board of Education v. Pico, 457 U.S. 853 (1982).

There is no adequate defense, except stupidity, against the impact of a new idea.
~ Percy Williams (P.W.) Bridgman, The Intelligent Individual and Society (1938).

There are no ideas in things.
~ William Bronk, in Sagetrieb 7.3 (Winter 1988). A Conversation with William Bronk

Ideas have to go into exchange to become or remain operative; and the medium of such exchange is the printed word.
~ William F. Buckley, Jr., in National Review (19 November 1955). Publishers Statement

[Ideas] are the mightiest influences on earth. One great thought breathed into a man may regenerate him.
~ William Ellery Channing (D.D.), Lectures On The Elevation Of The Labouring Portion Of The Community (1840). Lecture I (delivered in Boston MA; 9 January 1840)

Ideas, through which we know the past and the future, exist only for those who are alive in the present.
~ Wilhelm Dilthey, in Gesammelte Schriften, VII (Collected Works, Volume VII; 1927). Establishing the Historical World in the Human Sciences

Ideas are the most mysterious things in a mysterious world. ... They are beyond prediction. They appear to have a life of their own, independent of space and time, and to come and go at their own pleasure. ... Ideas, like individuals, live and die. They flourish, according to their nature, in one soil or climate and droop in another. They are the vegetation of the mental world.
~ William (W.) MacNeile Dixon, from The Human Situation: The Gifford lectures delivered in the University of Glasgow, 1935-1937 (1937).

Let's give it a try!
~ William Joseph "Wild Bill" Donovan

Ideas are indeed the most dangerous weapons in the world. Our ideas of freedom are the most powerful political weapons man has ever forged.
~ William Orville Douglas, An Almanac of Liberty (1954).

Ideas are dangerous; and the traffic in them has been the concern of all dictators. Political or religious dissenters are, indeed, the plague of every totalitarian regime.
~ William Orville Douglas, We the Judges (1956).

Ideas, like the people who have them, need expression.
~ William Orville Douglas, in Nieman Reports, vol. 7, no. 1 (Jan. 1953; from a speech to the Authors Guild Council in New York, December 3, 1952). The One Un-American Act

If a clever man can figure out how to hold up a cow by its ears, even a moron can milk it.
~ William Crapo ("Billy") Durant

Keep the idea simmering. Your subconscious mind will work on it while you're eating, sleeping, doing chores. Don't give up. Your hunches may be your future.
~ William D. Ellis, in Reader's Digest, Volume 102 (1973). Your Hunches May Be Your Future

With a big idea you have to go the whole route of market surveys, pre-tests and post-tests to protect a huge investment. But with the little idea you can afford a leap of intuition.
~ William D. Ellis, in Reader's Digest, Volume 111 (1977). Put That Small Idea to Work

Almost any idea is good if a man has ability and is willing to work hard. The best idea is worthless if the creator is a loafer and ineffective.
~ William Feather

An idea isn't worth much until a man is found who has the energy and ability to make it work.
~ William Feather

I think a lot of people have good ideas and dismiss them. They assume that if they really had a good idea, someone else would have already thought of it first. ... But if you have an idea and you want to succeed with it, in business or science or anything else, you have to be persistent. You have to believe in yourself.
~ William H. Frey II, Washington University in St. Louis Magazine (Summer 2001). Treating Alzheimer's: A Researcher's Dream

And it came out of just spitballing ideas.
~ William Friedkin, The Harold Lloyd Master Seminar Series at the American Film Institute (16 March 1994).

The informing idea of what you want to say and do, that's what will take you from film school to professional -- the idea. That's what is original to you.
~ William Friedkin, The Harold Lloyd Master Seminar Series at the American Film Institute (16 March 1994).

So I mean listen I got this neat idea hey, you listening? Hey? You listening ...?
~ William Gaddis, JR (1975).

If I'd had some set idea of a finish line, don't you think I would have crossed it years ago?
~ Bill Gates

The greatest ideas are the simplest.
~ William Golding, Lord of the Flies (1954).

The ideas of which we are conscious, belong not to us, but to absolute intelligence.
~ Sir William Hamilton, 9th Baronet, from Discussions on Philosophy and Literature, Education and University Reform (1852).

There is no prescribed route to follow to arrive at a new idea. You have to make the intuitive leap. But the difference is that once you've made that intuitive leap you have to justify it by filling in the intermediate steps.
~ Stephen William Hawking, quoted in Webster's Electronic Quotebase (1994).

Any idea is a universalising, and this process belongs to thinking. To make something universal is to think.
~ Georg Wilhelm Friedrich (G.W.F.) Hegel, The Philosophy of Right (1821). Section 4

If a man is burdened with an idea, he not only desires to express it, he ought to express it.
~ William Ernest (W.E.) Hocking, Freedom of the Press: A Framework of Principle (1947).

Man belongs to a better world than that of reality, viz. the realm of ideas.
~ Wilhelm von Humboldt

Nothing comes into anybody's head! It is persistent love of a thing that tells finally.
~ William Morris (W.M.) Hunt, from Talks on Art (1875).

You have to create a track record of breaking your own mold, or at least other people's idea of that mold.
~ William Hurt, in The New York Times (4 September 1994). FILM; William Hurt Resurfaces, as a Character Actor

A new idea is first condemned as ridiculous and then dismissed as trivial, until finally, it becomes what everybody knows.
~ William James

An idea, to be suggestive, must come to the individual with the force of a revelation.
~ William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902). Lectures IV and V: The Religion of Healthy-Mindedness

Ideas are so much flat psychological surface unless some mirrored matter gives them cognitive lustre.
~ William James, in Philosophical Review (1908). The Pragmatist Account of Truth and Its Misunderstanders

In general, whether a given idea shall be a live idea, depends more on the person into whose mind it is injected than on the idea itself.
~ William James, Presidential Address, American Philosophical Association. Columbia University (28 December 1906). The Energies of Men

Our ideas must agree with realities, be such realities concrete or abstract, be they facts or be they principles, under penalty of endless inconsistency and frustration.
~ William James, from Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking (1907). Lecture VI. Pragmatism's Conception of Truth

[T]he ideas gained by men before they are twenty-five are practically the only ideas they shall have in their lives.
~ William James, The Principles of Psychology, Volume 2 (1890). Chapter XXIV. Instinct

True ideas are those that we can assimilate, validate, corroborate and verify. False ideas are those that we can not.
~ William James, from Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking (1907). Lecture VI. Pragmatism's Conception of Truth

Truth happens to an idea. It becomes true, is made true by events.
~ William James, from Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking (1907). Lecture VI. Pragmatism's Conception of Truth

If he ever had a bright idea, it would be beginner's luck.
~ William Lashner, Veritas (1997).

What you need is an idea.
~ William Powell Lear

The study of an idea is, of necessity, the story of many things. Ideas, like large rivers, never have just one source. Just as the water of a river near its mouth, in its final form, is composed largely of many tributaries, so an idea, in its final form, is composed largely of later additions. And because this is so, it is often difficult to find the source of a river or the beginnings of an idea.
~ Willy Ley, Rockets, Missiles, And Space Travel (1951 edition).

There are few minds in a century that can look upon a new idea without terror. Fortunately for the rest of us there are very few new ideas about.
~ W. Somerset Maugham, from A Writer's Notebook (1949). 1896 entry

No directions came with this idea.
~ William Keepers Maxwell, Jr.

[A] young man must let his ideas grow, and not be continually rooting them up to see how they are getting on.
~ William McFee, Harbours of Memory (1921). The Idea

Listen to anyone with an original idea, no matter how absurd it might sound at first.
~ William L. McKnight

One man with an idea in his head is in danger of being considered a madman: two men with the same idea in common may be foolish, but can hardly be mad; ten men sharing an idea begin to act, a hundred draw attention as fanatics, a thousand and society begins to tremble, a hundred thousand and there is war abroad, and the cause has victories tangible and real; and why only a hundred thousand? Why not a hundred million and peace upon the earth? You and I who agree together, it is we who have to answer that question.
~ William Morris, Art Under Plutocracy (1883).

Ideas are great arrows, but there has to be a bow. And politics is the bow of idealism.
~ Bill Moyers, in Time Magazine (29 October 1965).

No matter how good the idea of the other fellow may be, there is always a better one!
~ William Rockhill Nelson

We often refuse to accept an idea merely because the tone of voice in which it has been expressed is unsympathetic to us.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

When we are tired, we are attacked by ideas we conquered long ago.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

Ideas go booming through the world louder than cannon. Thoughts are mightier than armies. Principles have achieved more victories than horsemen and chariots.
~ William M. Paxton

Innovation and empowerment go hand in hand.
~ C. William Pollard, The Soul of the Firm (December 1996).

Too often ideas are studied and analyzed until they are suffocated.
~ C. William Pollard, The Soul of the Firm (December 1996).

[T]he denial of access to ideas inhibits one's own acquisition of knowledge only when that denial is relatively complete. If the denied ideas are readily available from the same source in other accessible locations, the benefits to be gained from exposure to those ideas have not been foreclosed by the State.
~ William H. Rehnquist (dissenting opinion), Board of Education v. Pico, 457 U.S. 853 (1982).

If you have a bright idea and you do the right kind of experiment, you may get pretty decisive results pretty soon.
~ William Bradford Shockley, in Esquire (1973).

We are ultimately in the power of our ideas.
~ William Henry Smith, Thorndale: Or, The Conflict of Opinions (1857). Book I. Chapter II. Truisms

Ideas make the wise man; the want of them make the fool.
~ William Makepeace Thayer, Success: Oracle of the Age (1892). LXXXIII. Worth of an Idea

Idealistic reformers are dangerous because their idealism has no roots in love, but is simply a hysterical and unbalanced rage for order amidst their own chaos.
~ William Irwin Thompson, Evil and World Order (1977).

No one has a monopoly on ideas. You can always think of something.
~ Bill Veeck, Jr., in Marketing Your Dreams: Business And Life Lessons From Bill Veeck, Baseball's Marketing Genius (2000).

People don't resist their own ideas.
~ William Werther, in Nation's Business (March 1988).

[Fundamental ideas are] not a consequence of experience, but a result of the particular constitution and activity of the mind, which is independent of all experience in its origin, though constantly combined with experience in its exercise.
~ William Whewell, Vol. 1 (1840). Book II. Chapter II: Of the Idea of Space

No ideas but in things.
~ William Carlos Williams, from Selected Poems (1948). A Sort of Song (written in 1944)

[T]he fates of ideas living against the grain in a nondescript world have always held me breathless.
~ William Carlos Williams, The Autobiography of William Carlos Williams (1948). Foreward

To any one possessing a clear and vigorous mind, the acquisition of an idea which helps to explain things is a source of intense pleasure.
~ Alexander William Williamson, A Plea for Pure Science: Being the Inaugural Lecture at the Opening of the Faculty of Science, in University College, London (4 October 1870).

When an idea reaches critical mass, there is no stopping the shift its presence will induce.
~ Marianne Williamson, A Woman's Worth (1993).

Think for thyself one good idea, but known to be thine own, is better than a thousand gleaned from fields by others sown.
~ Alexander Wilson

If an idea cannot be expressed in terms of people, it is a sure sign it is irrelevant to the real problem of life.
~ Colin Henry Wilson, in Declaration (1958).

All new ideas go through three phases. They're first ridiculed or ignored. Then they meet outrage. Then they are said to have been obvious all along.
~ Edward Osborne (E.O.) Wilson, in the Boston Globe (17 April 2011). Where does good come from? Harvard's Edward O. Wilson tries to upend biology, again

I had as many ideas as I have now, only I did not know how to choose from among them those that belonged to my life.
~ William Butler Yeats, from The Autobiography of William Butler Yeats (1935). Reveries Over Childhood and Youth (1914)