Old Ideas Quotes - Page 2

• Old ideas are continually being slain by new facts. There is nothing stable in the conclusions of the mind, and it is impossible that there ever should be unless we hold that the universe is made to the measure of the human mind, an assumption for which nothing in the past gives any warrant.

  Edith Hamilton

  Past, Ideas, Giving

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• The difference between writing a story and simply relating past events is that a story, in order to be acceptable, must have shape and meaning. It is the old idea that art is the bringing of order out of chaos.

  Katherine Paterson

  Art, Writing, Past

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• Critics of the Wall Street protesters claim that they have old ideas, nothing new, and they're never going to work. Wait a minute., that sounds like this show.

  David Letterman

  Wall, Ideas, Waiting

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• Permission from the government is an expensive commodity. New ideas rarely have this kind of support. Old ideas often have deep legislative connections to defend them against the new.

  Lawrence Lessig

  Government, Ideas, Support

  Lawrence Lessig (2002). “The Future of Ideas: The Fate of the Commons in a Connected World”, p.76, Vintage

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• I think we need to find a way to provide people with a reason that the average man on the street can grasp and embrace, that would cause him to move away from the centuries-old idea of the individual and individualism, and move toward a different concept of what it means to be human in a collective society. Unless he has that reason, unless he has a fundamental reason to do that, it's going to be very difficult to cause him to make that shift, in my view.

  Neale Donald Walsch

  Moving, Mean, Men

  Source: www.kabbalah.info

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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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• Land began to be seen as something to be owned privately and exploited for private interests, and never was entirely reconciled with the old ideas that land should be utilized in common for the good of all.

  Neil Abercrombie

  Land, Ideas, Common

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• One thing has always been true: That book or that person who can give me an idea or a new slant on an old idea is my friend.

  Louis L'Amour

  Book, Ideas, Giving

  Louis L'Amour (2008). “Education of a Wandering Man”, p.12, Bantam

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• Working on a new idea is kind of like getting married. Then a new idea comes along and you think, 'Man, I'd really like to go out with her.' But you can't. At least not until the old idea is finished.

  Stephen King

  Men, Thinking, Ideas

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• And fantasy it was, for we were not strong, only aggressive; we were not free, merely licensed; we were not compassionate, we were polite; not good, but well behaved. We courted death in order to call ourselves brave, and hid like thieves from life. We substituted good grammar for intellect; we switched habits to simulate maturity; we rearranged lies and called it truth, seeing in the new pattern of an old idea the Revelation and the Word.

  Toni Morrison

  Strong, Lying, Maturity

  Toni Morrison (2014). “The Bluest Eye”, p.161, Random House

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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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• 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 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• Why shouldn't rap be esoteric, able to take in current events, history and criticism? I guess it's this old idea of containment - that rappers, because they're black, can't and shouldn't aspire to look outside the ghetto for influence.

  Saul Williams

  Rap, Ghetto, Ideas

  "A new beginning for the word" by Burhan Wazir, www.theguardian.com. August 5, 2001.

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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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  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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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