Wisconsin idea Quotes

“Good ideas never require guns; and if an idea requires guns, it is not a good idea!”

“I feel as though, if I were to extend my hand just a little toward the pool where the ideas ferment, I could grab at the idea and pull it out of the pool and onto the floor where ideas must stand before the jury of the brain. There, it must present itself, still from the pool, and a bit shivery because new ideas are not given a towel to dry off with, towels being reserved for proven theories; new ideas are simply pulled and stood up, and asked to explain themselves - not a very pleasant thing really, which is why so many people go into the room where the pool is. The exercise is exhausting not to mention a bit difficult to watch, if you are at all a sympathetic creature. What was my idea, anyways?”

“If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange these apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas.”

“Old ideas can sometimes use new buildings. New ideas must use old buildings.”

“Go idea machine on your doubts.”

“An idea is only an idea until you breathe life into it.”

“my dearin an idea, by an idea, living through in idea, we are our own prisoners .”

“There has never been any great tangible thing without any minute or great intangible thing. The great works we see were just ideas until they received the real energy which transforms ideas into real and tangible artifacts. When you conceive an idea, find its energy. A great idea is just like the camphor, it sublimes with time if it is not nurtured well”

“Ideas are powerful things; we should take more care with them. I know there are some who would disagree - those who think ideas are like food they can taste and spit out if they don't like it. But ideas are stronger than that. You can get a taste of an idea inside you, and the next thing you know, it won't leave. Until you do something about it.”