Like Achilles, the hero who forgot his heel, or like Icarus who, flying close to the sun, forgot that his wings were made of wax, we should be wary when triumphant ideas seem unassailable, for then there is all the more reason to predict their downfall.
After passionately nursing this idea for about an hour, I suddenly had another idea: no I wouldn't. Of course I wouldn't make an entire city out of cereal boxes in the basement. The moment I had this second thought, I knew this was the real one.
Once a day, especially in the early years of life and study, call yourselves to an account what new ideas, what new proposition or truth you have gained, what further confirmation of known truths, and what advances you have made in any part of knowledge.
They talk about human rights until the rights include things they personally do not like as alternatives. There needs to be Frank discussions. And Shirley can join too because the pun works. The ideas of human beings of all demeanor and venues are at stake here.
A person who does not read cannot think. He may have good mental processes, but he has nothing to think about. You can feel for people or natural phenomena and react to them, but they are not ideas. You cannot think about them."[Life magazine, December 10, 1965]
If I ever conceive any original idea, it will be because I have been abnormally prone to confuse ideas ... and I have thus found remote analogies and relations which others have not considered! Others rarely make these confusions, and proceed by precise analysis.
The scientific man does not aim at an immediate result. He does not expect that his advanced ideas will be readily taken up. His work is like that of the planter—for the future. His duty is to lay the foundation for those who are to come, and point the way.
Stunning is the fact that a novel idea proposed by a person ordinary is initially not liked often by his or her friends any, but suddenly many of them like if the same or similar nature work is espoused or endorsed by a wealthy person of money. Isn't it cunning?
Very often, gleams of light come in a few minutes' sleeplessness, in a secondperhaps; you must fix them. To entrust them to the relaxed brain is like writing on water; there is every chance that on the morrow there will be no slightest trace left of any happening.
I saw that there is no Nature,That Nature doesn’t exist,That there are hills, valleys, plains,That there are trees, flowers, weeds,That there are rivers and stones,But there is not a whole these belong to,That a real and true wholenessIs a sickness of our ideas.
Young minds - young brains - need stories and ideas like the ones in those [censored and banned] books in order to grow. They need ideas that you disagree with. They need ideas that I disagree with. Or they'll never be able to figure out what ideas they believe in.
Ce n'est pas la première fois que je remarque combien, en France particulièrement, les mots ont plus d’empire que les idées."("It's not the first time I've noticed how much more power words have than ideas, particularly in France.")
At every period of history, people have believed things that were just ridiculous, and believed them so strongly that you risked ostracism or even violence by saying otherwise. If our own time were any different, that would be remarkable. As far as I can tell it isn't.
We inter-change ideas. You can stay in the United States and inspire people in Indonesia. You can stay in Ghana and inspire people in Turkey. You can stay in Nigeria and inspire people in cote'd voire. You can stay in Senegal and inspire people in China and vice versa.
In truth, ideas and principles are independent of men; the application of them and their illustration is man's duty and merit. The time will come when the author of a view shall be set aside, and the view only taken cognizance of. This will be the millennium of Science.
