An idea must not be condemned for being a little shy and incoherent; all new ideas are shy when introduced first among our old ones. We should have patience and see whether the incoherency is likely to wear off or to wear on, in which latter case the sooner we get rid of them the […]
Ideas Quotes
(John) Sparrow had no interest in ideas. Presented with any problem, his acute mind would unerringly light on the outer periphery, there to play with some marginal triviality.
I can’t understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I’m frightened of the old ones.
I suggest that the anthropomorphic god-idea is not a harmless infirmity of human thought, but a very noxious fallacy, which is largely responsible for the calamities the world is at present enduring.
Nothing dies harder than a bad idea.
Ideas, as distinguished from events, are never unprecedented.
Every man with an idea has at least two or three followers.
When, however, the lay public rallies round an idea that is denounced by distinguished but elderly scientists and supports that idea with great fervor and emotion – the distinguished but elderly scientists are then, after all, probably right.
On two occasions I have been asked (by Members of Parliament), ‘Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?’ I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.
Everything you see and touch was once an invisible idea until someone chose to bring it into being. Any powerful idea is absolutely fascinating and absolutely useless until we choose to use it.
