Image: David Crotty / Patrick MCmullan via Getty Images
Creativity comes from a conflict of ideas.
—Donatella Versace
Italian fashion designer
An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all.
—Oscar Wilde
Irish poet and playwrightBe less curious about people and more curious about ideas.
—Marie Curie
Polish and French physicist and chemistNo army can withstand the strength of an idea whose time has come.
—Victor Hugo
French poet and novelistIf you want something new, you have to stop doing something old.
—Peter Drucker
Austrian-American educatorIf I have a thousand ideas and only one turns out to be good, I am satisfied.
—Alfred Nobel
Swedish scientist
Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen.
—John Steinbeck
American authorThe test of first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.
—F Scott Fitzgerald
American novelistIdeas shape the course
of history.
—John Maynard Keynes
English economistI can’t understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I’m frightened of the old ones.
—John Cage
American composerThe best ideas come as jokes. Make your thinking as funny as possible.
—David Ogilvy
British advertising tycoonMen are mortal. So are ideas. An idea needs propagation as much as a plant needs watering. Otherwise both will wither and die.
—BR Ambedkar
Jurist and economist
(This story appears in the 05 November, 2021 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)