Quote Library

Ideas

Ideas have consequences. -- Richard Weaver

No idea is so outlandish that it should not be considered with a searching but at the same time steady eye. -- Winston Churchill Source: The Art of Creative Thinking - book by Robert Olson (1986)

"Innovation is the engine behind making the world better for everyone. If you can imagine a world without computers, automobiles, indoor plumbing, electric lights or the Post-it note, then you can begin to see where we'd be without innovation." - Joel Barker, author and futurist

"The significant mistake of the traditionalists is they require the people to start where the church is instead of the church starting where the people are. Innovators begin by asking, 'What do we need to do to reach the people where they are?'" - Leith Anderson, Wooddale Church, Eden Prairie, Minnesota

"Innovation is not imitation. If you seek to be cutting-edge, you should not imitate what other people do." - Trevor Bron, The Next Level Church, Denver, Colorado

Idiots

Football fanatic Bobby Ward impulsively spent $5,000 and traveled 7,790 miles from Melborne, Australia to San Francisco to watch his favorite team the 49ers play against the Carolina Panthers. Ward, 32, hailed a cab from the airport to San Francisco’s 3Com Park then quickly realized something was wrong when he got to the stadium and the parking lot was empty. Ward, all decked-out in crimson and gold, holding a 49ers pennant, approached the stadium and asked a clerk for a ticket. The clerk laughed at Ward and told him the game against the Panthers was scheduled to start in one hour -- at Erickson Stadium in Charlotte, North Carolina -- 2,500 miles away. "I guess I read the schedule wrong," Ward said.

Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence. --Albert Einstein

I am a Bear of Very Little Brain, and long words bother me. --A. A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

Ignorance

We are all ignorant -- but just in different areas." -- Mark Twain

Illness

There is nothing that wastes the body like worry, and one who has any faith in God should be ashamed to worry about anything whatsoever." -- Mahatma Gandhi

Imagination

Imagination is more important than knowledge. --Albert Einstein 

Everything you can imagine is real. --Picasso 

Immediacy

Things don’t happen overnight, they happen now! -- Kathy Klohr

Impossibilities

The Wright Brothers flew right through the smoke screen of impossibility. -- Charles Kettering

Incarnation

The only God I know is the God made flesh. -- Martin Luther, Marburg Colloquy, 1529

For anything to be real it must be local. -- G. K. Chesterton

The central idea of the great part of the Old Testament may be called the idea of the loneliness of God. -- G. K. Chesterton

Our mission is not to escape from our world or to fix things by remote control, looking at charts and pushing buttons, and pulling levers, but to fall in love with the world. -- Joanna Macy

Individual Contributions

The world is moved along not only by the mighty shoves of its heroes, but also by the aggregate of the tiny pushes of each honest worker. -- Helen Keller

Individuality

What we do best or most perfectly is what we have most thoroughly learned by the longest practice, and at length it falls from us without our notice, as a leaf from a tree. -- Henry David Thoreau

If a man advances confidently in the direction of his dreams to live the life he has imagined, the will meet with a success unexpected in common hours -- Henry David Thoreau

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away." -- Henry David Thoreau

When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other. -- Eric Hoffer

Ineffectiveness

There is nothing so useless as doing effectively that which should not be done at all. -- Peter Drucker

Influence

One life stamps and influences another, which in turn stamps and influences another, on and on, until the soul of human experience breathes on in generations we’ll never even meet. -- Mary Kay Blakely

Initiative

Begin, and you are halfway there. -- Alfred A. Montapert

Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person. -- Mother Teresa

We are very different from the rest of the world. Our only natural resource is the hard work of our people. -- Japanese business executive

When strangers start acting like neighbors... communities are reinvigorated." -- Ralph Nader

If there is any kindness I can show, or any good thing I can do to any fellow being, let me do it now, and not deter or neglect it, as I shall not pass this way again." -- William Penn

Man stand for long time with mouth open before roast duck fly in." -- Chinese Proverb

The heart that breaks open can contain the whole universe." -- Joanna Macy

Inner Peace

First keep the peace within yourself, then you can also bring peace to others. -- Thomas a Kempis

Inner Strength

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies with us. -- Emerson

Inspiration

Everyone, when they are young, has a little bit of genius; that is, they really do listen... Then they grow a little older and many of them get tired and listen less and less. But some, a very few, continue to listen. And finally they get very old and they do not listen anymore. That is very sad; let us not talk about it. -- Gertrude Stein, as reported by Thornton Wilder

A dest is a dangerous place from which to view the world. -- John Le Carre

An idea can turn to dust or magic, depending on the talent that rubs against it. -- Basho Source: Courtesy of Breffni Baggot

Integrity

Weaseling out of things is important to learn. It's what separates us from the animals... except the weasel. -- Homer Simpson

Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful. --Samuel Johnson

Intimacy with Christ

Even spiritual exercises and disciplines can be terribly hollow. The real center is hearing God’s voice and obeying his Word. -- Richard Foster

Investment Mentality

My business is not to remake myself, but make the absolute best of what God made. -- Robert Browning

Life consists not in holding good cards, but in playing those you do hold well. -- Josh Billings

Irritations

Little things affect little minds. -- Benjamin Disraeli

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