Old Ideas Quotes

• It's not that we need new ideas, but we need to stop having old ideas.

  Edwin Land

  Business, Ideas, Entrepreneur

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• The mind, once stretched by a new idea, never returns to its original dimensions.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Inspirational, Life, Inspiring

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  The difficulty lies, not in the new ideas, but in escaping from the old ones.

  John Maynard Keynes

  Inspirational, Change, Lying

  "The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money". Book by John Maynard Keynes (Preface), 1936.

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• You can't use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.

  Maya Angelou

  Inspirational, Positive, Art

  "Conversations with Maya Angelou". Book by Jeffrey M. Elliot, 1989.

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• I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones.

  John Cage

  Inspirational, Motivational, Change

  "Conversing with Cage". Book by Richard Kostelanetz, 1988.

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• If you want something new, you have to stop doing something old

  Peter Drucker

  Inspiring, Business, Creativity

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• The creative person wants to be a know-it-all. He wants to know about all kinds of things-ancient history, nineteenth century mathematics, current manufacturing techniques, hog futures. Because he never knows when these ideas might come together to form a new idea. It may happen six minutes later, or six months, or six years. But he has faith that it will happen.

  Carl Ally

  Creativity, Bad Ass, Ideas

  43 Copy quote

• Old ideas can sometimes use new buildings. New ideas must use old buildings.

  Jane Jacobs

  Ideas, Old Buildings, History

  Jane Jacobs (2016). “The Death and Life of Great American Cities”, p.188, Vintage

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• People who teach you cram old ideas, old views, old ways, into you. Like covering plants with layer after layer of old earth; it's no wonder the poor things so rarely come up fresh and green.

  John Fowles

  Views, Ideas, People

  John Fowles (1980). “The collector”, Dell Pub Co

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• Those who have most at stake in the old culture, or are most rigid in their beliefs, try to summon people back to the old ideas.'

  Marilyn Ferguson

  Learning, Ideas, People

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• Security can only be achieved through constant change, through discarding old ideas that have outlived their usefulness and adapting others to current facts.

  William O. Douglas

  Change, Ideas, Facts

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• The agricultural co-operative movement has been a severe ideological and political struggle from the very beginning. No cooperative can be established without going through such a struggle. Before a brand-new social system can be built on the site of the old, the site must be swept clean. Invariably, remnants of old ideas reflecting the old system remain in people's minds for a long time, and they do not easily give way. After a co-operative is established, it must go through many more struggles before it can be consolidated. Even then, the moment it relaxes its efforts it may collapse.

  Mao Zedong

  Struggle, Ideas, Long

  Zedong Mao (1972). “Quotations from Chairman Mao Tsetung”, p.33, China Books

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• Old ideas give way slowly; for they are more than abstract logical forms and categories. They are habits, predispositions, deeply ingrained attitudes of aversion and preference.

  John Dewey

  Attitude, Acceptance, Ideas

  John Dewey, Larry A. Hickman (2007). “The Influence of Darwin on Philosophy and Other Essays in Contemporary Thought”, p.11, SIU Press

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• It was a reaction from the old idea of "protoplasm", a name which was a mere repository of ignorance.

  John B. S. Haldane

  Ignorance, Science, Names

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• The idea that it is funny to see wild animals coerced into acting like clumsy humans, or thrilling to see powerful beasts reduced to cringing cowards by a whip-cracking trainer, is primitive and medieval. It stems from the old idea that we are superior to other species and have the right to hold dominion over them.

  Desmond Morris

  Powerful, Animal, Ideas

  "Rose-Tinted Menagerie" by William Johnson, (p. 10), 1990.

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• Keep recognizing that reality is changing and that your ideas have to change. Don’t get stuck in old ideas.

  Grace Lee Boggs

  Reality, Ideas, Stuck

  "Remembering Grace Lee Boggs (1915-2015): 'We Have to Change Ourselves in Order to Change the World'". www.democracynow.org. October 06, 2015.

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• I find so many people struggling, often working harder, simply because they cling to old ideas. They want things to be the way they were; they resist change. I know people who are losing their jobs or their houses, and they blame technology or the economy or their boss. Sadly they fail to realize that they might be the problem. Old ideas are their biggest liability. It is a liability simply because they fail to realize that while that idea or way of doing something was an asset yesterday, yesterday is gone.

  Robert Kiyosaki

  Jobs, Struggle, Technology

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• We must constantly encourage ourselves and each other to attempt the heretical actions that our dreams imply and so many of our old ideas disparage.

  Audre Lorde

  Dream, Ideas, Action

  Audre Lorde (2012). “Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches”, p.38, Crossing Press

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• The old idea of a composer suddenly having a terrific idea and sitting up all night to write it is nonsense. Nighttime is for sleeping.

  Benjamin Britten

  Inspiring, Sleep, Writing

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• A new breeze is blowing, and a world refreshed by freedom seems reborn; for in man's heart, if not in fact, the day of the dictator is over. The totalitarian era is passing, its old ideas blown away like leaves from an ancient, lifeless tree.

  George H. W. Bush

  Heart, Men, Ideas

  Presidential Inaugural Address, delivered 20 January 1989

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• Nobody can be so amusingly arrogant as a young man who has just discovered an old idea and thinks it is his own.

  Sydney J. Harris

  Men, Thinking, Ideas

  Sydney J. Harris (1953). “Strictly personal”

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• The capacity for people to kid themselves is huge. Living on illusions or delusions, and the re-establishing of these illusions or delusions requires a big effort to keep them from being seen through. But a very old idea is at work behind our current state of affairs: enantiodromia, or the Greek notion of things turning into their opposite.

  James Hillman

  Kids, Opposites, Ideas

  "America and the Shift in Ages: An Interview with Jungian James Hillman". Interview With Pythia Peay, www.huffingtonpost.com. February 26, 2011.

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• Being stuck is a position few of us like. We want something new but cannot let go of the old - old ideas, beliefs, habits, even thoughts. We are out of contact with our own genius. Sometimes we know we are stuck; sometimes we don't. In both cases we have to DO something.

  Rush Limbaugh

  Letting Go, Ideas, Want Something

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• The idea that more taxes and more government spending is the best way to help hardworking middle class taxpayers - that's an old idea that's failed every time it's been tried.

  Marco Rubio

  Government, Class, Ideas

  "FULL TEXT: Marco Rubio's Response To Obama's State Of The Union" by Grace Wyler, www.businessinsider.com. February 12, 2013.

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  We have a powerful potential in our youth, and we must have the courage to change old ideas and practices so that we may direct their power toward good ends.

  Mary McLeod Bethune

  Courage, Powerful, Unlimited Potential

  Mary McLeod Bethune, Audrey Thomas McCluskey, Elaine M. Smith (2001). “Mary McLeod Bethune: Building a Better World : Essays and Selected Documents”, p.61, Indiana University Press

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