IdeasRare. in logic, a contrary.
the body of doctrines, philosophical bases, symbols, etc., associated with a particular social or political movement, large group, or individual. — ideological, adj. — ideologist, n.
the concept that ideas and thoughts are instruments of action and that their usefulness determines their truth. — instrumentalist, adj.
1. the exercise or use of the intellect.
2. a particular act or process of the intellect.
an abnormal dislike for new ideas.
a modern person; one accepting new ideas and practices.
a person who forms schemes; a projector or promoter.
the science of ideas.
1. the methods and tools that a society has developed in order to facilitate the solution of its practical problems.
2. any specific application of such. — technological, adj. — technologist, n.
the branch or part of any field of learning or knowledge that is concerned with theories or hypotheses, as contrasted with practical application.
a person who forms theories or who specializes in the theory of a particular subject.
Ideas - As flowers grow in more tropical luxuriance in a hothouse, so do wild and frenzied ideas flourish in the darkness —Stefan Zweig
- Every conjecture exploded like a pricked bubble —Stefan Zweig
- The flow of ideas is broad, continuous, like a river —Gustave Flaubert
In a letter to George Sand, Flaubert thus refers to her easy writing style. About his own style, he said, “It’s a tiny trickle.”
- Get ideas like other men catch cold —Diane Ackerman
- Getting an idea should be like sitting down on a pin; it should make you jump up and do something —E.L. Simpson
- His fancy … ran along with him, like the sails of a small boat, from which the ballast is thrown overboard —Isak Dinesen
- The history of ideas is a history of mistakes —Alfred North Whitehead
Whitehead follows this simile with “But through all mistakes is also the history of the gradual purification of conduct.”
- The idea came … like a ray of light —Vladimir G. Korolenko
- The idea danced before us as a flag —Edgar Lee Masters
- An idea, like a ghost … must be spoken to a little before it will explain itself —Charles Dickens
- The idea remained, roaming in the dark of his mind … like a rat in the basement, too canny to be poisoned or trapped —John Gardner
- Ideas are free. But while the author confines them to his study, they are like birds in a cage, which none but he can have a right to let fly; for, till he thinks proper to emancipate them, they are under his own dominion —Sir Joseph Yates
- Ideas are like beards; men do not have them until they grow up —Voltaire
- Ideas came with explosive immediacy, like an instant birth. Human thought is like a monstrous pendulum; it keeps swinging from one extreme to the other —Eugene Field
- Ideas come and go; they appear on the horizon as fleeting as rainbows, they rise and fall again like hemlines —Lynne Sharon Schwartz See Also: TRANSIENCE
- Ideas die, like men —Marguerite Yourcenar
- Ideas good as a fat wallet —Richard Ford
See Also: MONEY
- Ideas, like women’s clothes and rich men’s illnesses, change according to fashion —Lawrence Durrell
- Ideas of your own are like babies. They are all right if you can keep them quiet —Anon
- Ideas rose out of him, streamed through his hair like wildflowers —Pat Conroy
See Also: ABUNDANCE
- Ideas should be received like guests, in a friendly way, but with the reservation that they are not to tyrannize their host —Albert Moravia
- Ideas that … in the light of day, may hide but never quite go away. Like mice in old houses, one knows they’re there —David R. Slavitt See Also: PERSISTENCE
- Ideas winged their way swiftly like martins round the bell at dawn —Ivan Turgenev
- The imagination is like the drunk man who lost his watch, and must get drunk again to find it. It is as intimate as speech and custom, and to trace its ways we need to reeducate our eyes —Guy Davenport
- Imagination is like a lofty building reared to meet the sky —Gelett Burgess
- Imagination … must be immediate and direct like the gaze that kindles it —Italo Calvino
- Lack ideas … as if someone had tied a tourniquet around the left side of his brain —Anon
- Like good yeast bread, a good idea needs time to proof —Erik Sandberg-Diment, New York Times, August 24, 1986
- (Olga’s mind was sensuously slow: she) lingered over an idea like someone lingering in a hot tub —Wilfrid Sheed
- Old ideas, like old clothes, put carefully away, come out again after a time almost as good as new —Punch, 1856
- Picking up the idea by its corner like a soiled hanky —Rosellen Brown
- Planted ideas … as a gardener will plant sticks for climbing sweet pea —Lawrence Durrell
- A shortsighted concept … rather like a bankrupt saying he’s invested his capital in debts —Frank Ross
- The theory arrived neither full-blown, like an orphan on the doorstep, nor sharply defined, like a spike through a shoe; nor did it develop as would a photographic print, crisp images gradually memerging from a shadowy soup. Rather, it unwound like a turban, like mummy bandage —Tom Robbins
- What America needs now are ideas like shafts of light —Ellen Gilchrist, National Public Radio, September 22, 1986