Bad Ideas Quotes

You can never discard too many bad ideas. ~ Ashleigh Brilliant

There aren't bad ideas but yes bad thoughts ~ Valgame

The only way to oppose a bad idea is to replace it with a good idea. ~ Jack Kemp

But I don't understand God. I don't understand how he could see the way people treat one another, and not chalk up the whole human race as a bad idea. ~ Jim Butcher

If you give people literacy, bad ideas can be attacked and experiments tried, and lessons will accumulate. ~ Steven Pinker

The Republicans are the party of bad ideas. The Democrats are the party of no ideas. ~ Lewis Black

I have learned over the course of my many years that it is a bad idea, usually, to investigate piteous weeping but always a fine thing to look into a giggle. ~ Lois Lowry

This is not (as you have charged) to paint religion with a broad brush. I am very quick to distinguish gradations of bad ideas; some clearly have no consequences at all (or at least not yet); some put civilization itself in peril. The problem with dogmatism, however, is that one can never quite predict how terrible its costs will be. To use one of my favorite examples, consider the Christian dogma that human life begins at the moment of conception: On its face, this belief seems likely to only improve our world. After all, it is the very quintessence of a life-affirming doctrine.

Enter embryonic stem-cell research. Suddenly, this "life begins at the moment of conception" business becomes the chief impediment to medical progress. Who would have thought that such an innocuous idea could unnecessarily prolong the agony of tens of millions of people? This is the problem with dogmatism, no matter how seemingly benign: it is unresponsive to reality. Dogmatism is a failure of cognition (as well as a commitment to such failure); it is the state of being closed to new evidence and new arguments. And this frame of mind is rightly despised in every area of culture, on every subject, except where it goes by the name of "religious faith." In this guise, parading its most grotesque faults as virtues, it is granted a special dispensation, even in the pages of Nature. ~ Sam Harris

Luckily for us, I've never met a bad idea I did not immediately embrace like the dearest of friends. ~ Jennifer Lynn Barnes

It was possible, he understood, for a person's life to become just a long series of mistakes, and that the end, when it came, was just one more mistake in a chain of bad choices. The thing was, most of these mistakes were actually borrowed from other people. You took their bad ideas, and for whatever reason, made them your own. ~ Justin Cronin

There's no such thing as good ideas and bad ideas. There are only your own ideas and other people's. If you want someone to like your idea, tell him he said it first last week and you just remembered it. ~ Scott Adams

You can make a film with a phone and a computer if you want, if you have the time. So it's a world that is saturated with films and all kind of stuff, so it's such a blessing to be able to make a film and people care, and even if they say that it's a bad idea, at least they care and they're talking about it. ~ Fede Alvarez

Really bad ideas, but they're ideas. Today ~ Andy Weir

I got some bad ideas in my head. ~ Robert De Niro

Hold on to me!" Tedros yelled, hacking briars with his training sword.Dazed, Agatha clung to his chest as he withstood thorn lashes with moans of pain. Soon he had the upper hand and pulled Agatha from the Woods towards the spiked gates, which glowed in recognition and pulled apart, cleaving a narrow path for the two Evers. As the gates speared shut behind them,Agatha looked up at limping Tedros, crisscrossed with bloody scratches, blue shirt shredded away.
"Had a feeling Sophie was getting in through the Woods," he panted, hauling her up into slashed arms before she could protest. "So Professor Dovey gave me permission to take some fairies and stakeout the outer gates. Should have known you'd be here trying to catch her yourself."
Agatha gaped at him dumbly.
"Stupid idea for a princess to take on witches alone," Tedros said, dripping sweat on her pink dress.
"Where is she?" Agatha croaked. "Is she safe?"
"Not a good idea for princesses to worry about witches either," Tedros said, hands gripping her waist. Her stomach exploded with butterflies.
"Put me down," she sputtered -
"More bad ideas from the princess."
"Put me down!"Tedros obeyed and Agatha pulled away.
"I'm not a princess!" she snapped, fixing her collar.
"If you say so," the prince said, eyes drifting downward.Agatha followed them to her gashed legs, waterfalls of brilliant blood. She saw blood blurring - Tedros smiled.
"One . . . two . . . three . . ."She f ~ Soman Chainani

It's a really bad idea to be in a band and get involved with each other. ~ Ann Wilson

Stick around. I'm full of bad ideas. ~ Isaac

Two radical ideas have been introduced into human thought. One of them is that energy and matter are pretty much the same sort of stuff. That's Einstein. The other is that revenge is a bad idea. Revenge is an enormously popular idea but, of course, Jesus came along with the radical idea of forgiveness. If you're insulted, you have to square accounts. So this invention by Jesus is as radical as Einstein's. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

While she could hardly fathom what had just happened to her that night, she reached some conclusions before she fell asleep, certain things now made perfect sense; Moon River didn't sound so syrupy, mistletoe wasn't such a bad idea, and perhaps dating was not such a frivolous waste of time after all. ~ E.A. Bucchianeri

As Oscar Wilde should have said, when bad ideas have nowhere else to go, they emigrate to America and become university courses. ~ Frederic Raphael

The problem with smart people is that they like to be right and sometimes will defend ideas to the death rather than admit they're wrong... Until they come face to face with someone who is tenacious enough to dissect their logic, and resilient enough to endure the thinly veiled intellectual abuse they dish out during debate, they're never forced to question their ability to defend bad ideas. ~ Scott Berkun

I've literally opened it up to suggestions and it's totally chaotic and kind of a bad idea. You don't need the actual feedback to get a sense. When you're showing a song for the first time, people can feel that newness. ~ Andrew Bird

When I'm on the set, I'll come up with ideas if I'm sort of just between responsibilities, because there's a lot of sitting around on set. Invariably, though, the stuff I come up with on the set tends to be bad. ~ Bruce Eric Kaplan

No matter what you tell me - " his lips curved into a sexy smile " - I'll still want you."


"But you'll at least understand why it's a bad idea."


He tipped his head back under the water. "Oh, Doc…" He ran his hands through his hair and met her eyes again. "I'm the king of bad ideas. ~ Lisa Kessler

The problem, this book will argue, is not just that law schools generate so many bad ideas - mistaken and benighted ideas, impractical and socially destructive ideas - but that those ideas follow a predictable pattern. They confer power on legal intellectuals and their allies - at least the power to prescribe, often the power to litigate. The movement that results - whether couched as public interest law, as minority empowerment law, or as international human rights law - is in fact a bid for power, whether naked or cleverly disguised. ~ Walter Olson

The night was vibrating with new potential, the beautiful after-haze of adrenaline and bad ideas fully embraced. Ugly thoughts crept in, forcing me to write off a growing list of concerning data: My old dealer gone mad and roaming the sewers; Egbert's hand - notably short on its middle and ring fingers - reaching out to me with three tiny pill baggies; gas-masked kids dodging conscious thought like a plague; a trafficked tranny more concerned with evading cops than finding love. ~ Jeremy Robert Johnson

The lobby of the Nelson Hotel always smells of the river
it's in the pores of the place
but this evening the smell is heavier than usual. It's a smell that makes us think of bad ideas, blown investments, forged checks, deteriorating health, stolen office supplies, unpaid alimony, empty promises, skin tumors, lost ambition, abandoned sample cases filled with cheap novelties, dead hope, dead skin, and fallen arches.
This is the kind of place you don't come to unless you've been here before and all your other options are pretty much foreclosed. It's a place where men who left their families two decades before now lie on narrow beds with pee-stained mattresses, coughing and smoking cigarettes. ~ Stephen King

You have to have a lot of ideas. First, if you want to make discoveries, it's a good thing to have good ideas. And second, you have to have a sort of sixth sense-the result of judgment and experience-which ideas are worth following up. I seem to have the first thing, a lot of ideas, and I also seem to have good judgment as to which are the bad ideas that I should just ignore, and the good ones, that I'd better follow up. ~ Linus Pauling

After all, if you have the majority of customers, then what you do becomes the standard. Your competitors have little choice but to follow. If you are the leader, then having a nonstandard infrastructure is a bad idea. Ultimately, it leads to extinction. ~ Douglas Gwyn

It's not my cow. It's a sheep with a pitchfork. Unfortunately, it goes quack. ~ Terry Pratchett

Idea-Advocacy Matrix highlights a couple of things: that good ideas need to be "sold" if they are ever going to see the light of day and bad ideas sometimes do quite well because of the skills of the proponent to sell them. ~ John Daly

I have witnessed boards that continued to waste money on doomed projects because no one was prepared to admit they were failures, take the blame and switch course. Smaller outfits are more willing to admit mistakes and dump bad ideas. ~ Luke Johnson

It's better not to try to learn all the lines by rote. It's a very bad idea, in fact. You have to do it by using the process, and as I say, the process is to learn during rehearsals, and that's how you'll do it. ~ Angela Lansbury

My idea of what's good and bad and right and wrong is maybe greyer than most, and I like writing about that. ~ Shaun Cassidy

Guys usually like a very natural look. I think it's bad idea to wear a strong lip on a first date - or for the first few dates. I'm always too nervous he'll kiss it off - if I'm lucky enough to get a kiss! I also think soft, sexy hair is important. ~ Emmy Rossum

Do the books that writers don't write matter? It's easy to forget them, to assume that the apocryphal bibliography must contain nothing but bad ideas, justly abandoned projects, embarrassing first thoughts. It needn't be so: first thoughts are often best, cheeringly rehabilitated by third thoughts after they've been loured at by seconds. Besides, an idea isn't always abandoned because it fails some quality control test. The imagination doesn't crop annually like a reliable fruit tree. The writer has to gather whatever's there: sometimes too much, sometimes too little, sometimes nothing at all. And in the years of glut there is always a slatted wooden tray in some cool, dark attic, which the writer nervously visits from time to time ~ Julian Barnes

Stopping a piece of work just because it's hard, either emotionally or imaginatively, is a bad idea. Sometimes you have to go on when you don't feel like it, and sometimes you're doing good work when if feels like all you're managing is to shovel sh*t from a sitting position. ~ Stephen King

My advice to would-be young authors is to read a lot, write a lot, and not worry about creating a finished product. Keeping a journal is not a bad idea either. ~ Kevin Henkes

The only bad ideas are the ones never tried. ~ Michael Buckley

The Republicans released their 'Pledge to America.' It's 21 pages of phony charts and bad ideas. Sarah Palin got a copy, and she said, 'How am I supposed to fit all this crap on my hand? ~ Bill Maher

Of course not," said Sturmhond. "Anything worth doing always starts as a bad idea. ~ Leigh Bardugo

It's not that I don't know that it's a bad idea. It's that, lately, bad ideas have a particular hold over me. ~ Holly Black

One thing I know is that it is a bad idea to marry someone who had bad parents. If they hated their mother, if they were hated by their mother or father, your marriage will pay for it in ways both obvious and subtle. When the chips are down, when someone is sick or loses their job or gets scared, the old patterns will kick in and he will treat you the way he treated his mother or the way she treated him. ~ Ellen Gilchrist

The web is just a device by which bad ideas travel around the globe at the speed of light. ~ P. J. O'Rourke

I used to think that I wouldn't change anything from my past, because doing so would inevitably affect who I am now. But considering my current state, I'm thinking it might not be a bad idea to go back in time to fix things. ~ Megan McCafferty

Mere absurdity has never prevented the triumph of bad ideas, if they accord with easily aroused fantasies of an existence freed of human limitations. ~ Anthony Daniels

If we assume that quiet and loud people have roughly the same number of good (and bad) ideas, then we should worry if the louder and more forceful people always carry the day. This would mean that an awful lot of bad ideas prevail while good ones get squashed. Yet studies in group dynamics suggest that this is exactly what happens. We perceive talkers as smarter than quiet types - even though grade-point averages and SAT and intelligence test scores reveal this perception to be inaccurate. ~ Susan Cain

I don't really believe in a creative-writing major as an undergraduate. It's a bad idea, terrible. I've met creative-writing majors from other places and they don't know a goddamn thing. They're the worst students. They just think they're good because they could pass. ~ Barry Hannah

Bad ideas flourish because they are in the interest of powerful groups ~ Paul Krugman

Islam, at the moment, is the motherlode of bad ideas. ~ Sam Harris

And here, according to Trout, was the reason human beings could not reject ideas because they were bad: "Ideas on Earth were badges of friendship or enmity. Their content did not matter. Friends agreed with friends, in order to express friendliness. Enemies disagreed with enemies, in order to express enmity.

"The ideas Earthlings held didn't matter for hundreds of thousands of years, since they couldn't do much about them anyway. Ideas might as well be badges as anything.

"They even had a saying about the futility of ideas: 'If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.'

"And then Earthlings discovered tools. Suddenly agreeing with friends could be a form of suicide or worse. But agreements went on, not for the sake of common sense or decency or self-preservation, but for friendliness.

"Earthlings went on being friendly, when they should have been thinking instead. And even when they built computers to do some thinking for them, they designed them not so much for wisdom as for friendliness. So they were doomed. Homicidal beggars could ride. ~ Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

Keep an idea log where you write everything down, even the bad ideas. ~ Joshua Schachter

The sequestration is a bad idea, all around. It is something that is out of the question. If you have spending cuts, education of our children, other investments, on the National Institutes of Health, where you are hindering growth, you're no going to reduce the deficit. ~ Nancy Pelosi

Books won't stay banned. They won't burn. Ideas won't go to jail. In the long run of history, the censor and the inquisitor have always lost. The only sure weapon against bad ideas is better ideas. The source of better ideas is wisdom. The surest path to wisdom is a liberal education. ~ Alfred Whitney Griswold

It's absolutely of no importance who or what V was under the mask. He isn't a who or a what, he's an idea. The thing is, you couldn't continue it. Now and then the idea of a sequel has been raised, in vague forms, but I think it would be a bad idea. The story's finished. ~ David Lloyd

The survival value of intelligence is that it allows us to extinct a bad idea, before the idea extincts us. ~ Karl Popper

The way to get good ideas is to get lots of ideas, and throw the bad ones away. ~ Linus Pauling

It's not a bad idea to call this Cthulhuism & Yog-Sothothery of mine "The Mythology of Hastur" although it was really from Machen & Dunsany & others, rather than through the Bierce - Chambers line, that I picked up my gradually developing hash of theogony or daimonogony. Come to think of it, I guess I sling this stuff more as Chambers does than as Machen & Dunsany do though I had written a good deal of it before I ever suspected that Chambers ever wrote a weird story! ~ H.P. Lovecraft

It was a very bad idea. It was a terrible idea. It was the worst idea he had ever heard. It was irresistible. ~ Cassandra Clare

Null Spot the Destroyer still had an imagination full of bad ideas and a pocket full of stupid to spend. ~ Bobby Adair

It is staggering the amount of suffering caused by bad ideas. ~ Marty Rubin

You can see why the Marxist left would resist the idea that Hitler was a revolutionary. Because if he was, then either Hitler was a force for good, or revolutions can be bad. ~ Jonah Goldberg

When I was in my early 20s, I had my hair permed. Bad idea! It turned into total frizz. My advice to women is, if you have nice hair already, don't get a perm, leave your hair alone! ~ Mariska Hargitay

The trouble with innovation is that truly innovative ideas often look like bad ideas at the time. ~ Ben Horowitz

I think it's a very bad idea for someone to start writing for a readership. ~ Joshua Ferris

Good ideas will always get funded, so that's not going to be a problem. But you will see that it will be harder and harder for bad ideas to get funded. ~ Jeff Bezos

I've got a penny-ante talent, out of which I try to drum up a living for myself. And what nobody seems to realize is that it's just as difficult to get a bad idea as a good one. ~ Kathleen Winsor

Seriously bad ideas (are) bad ideas which appeal to the prejudices of serious people. ~ Paul Krugman

I really think that people have to think safety; taking risks for higher yield is a bad idea once you're in late or latish middle age. ~ Paul Krugman

Big companies have trouble with innovation. Innovation is about bad ideas, or ideas that look like bad ideas. That's the fundamental thing. ~ Ben Horowitz

No one ever heard of the truth being enforced by law. When the secular is called in to sustain an idea, whether new or old, it is always a bad idea, and not infrequently it is downright idiotic. ~ H.L. Mencken

But once you realize that we are not just thinking things but creatures of habit, you'll then realize that temptation isn't just about bad ideas or wrong decisions; it's often a factor of de-formation and wrongly ordered habits. In other words, our sins aren't just discrete, wrong actions and bad decisions; they reflect vices.25 And overcoming them requires more than just knowledge; it requires rehabituation, a re-formation of our loves. One ~ James K.A. Smith

The only thing dumber than a Democrat or a Republican is when those pricks work together. You see, in our two-party system, the Democrats are the party of no ideas and the Republicans are the party of bad ideas. It usually goes something like this. A Republican will stand up in Congress and say, 'I've got a really bad idea.' And a Democrat will immediately jump to his feet and declare, 'And I can make it sh*ttier.' ~ Lewis Black

Annie took another sip of the vodka, letting the alcohol seep through her system, turning bad ideas into good ones. ~ Kevin Wilson

I've not been a prolific poet, and it always seemed to me to be a bad idea to feel that you had to produce in order to get ... credits. Production of a collection of poems every three years or every five years, or whatever, looks good, on paper. But it might not be good; it might be writing on a kind of automatic pilot. ~ James Fenton

I cannot abide red tape. It never strangles bad ideas, only good ones. ~ Gillian Anderson

When you don't know what to do, wait for your opponent to get an idea; it is sure to be bad. ~ Siegbert Tarrasch

You see a lot of good ideas or well-written scripts that are bad ideas. ~ John McTiernan

Marriage is an intimate relationship between two people. It is a bad idea to involve a third party. ~ Amy Dickinson

The business side of film has goofed up so many things, but even that's changing. It happened to the music industry and now it's happening to the film studios. It's crazy what's going on. But artists should have control of their work; especially if, as I always say, you never turn down a good idea and never take a bad idea. ~ David Lynch

Fascism is relatively easy to explain. It is a reactionary phenomenon. Nazism was some bad guys having some bad ideas and unfortunately succeeding in realizing them. ~ Slavoj Zizek

If librarianship is the connecting of people to ideas – and I believe that is the truest definition of what we do – it is crucial to remember that we must keep and make available, not just good ideas and noble ideas, but bad ideas, silly ideas, and yes, even dangerous or wicked ideas. ~ Graceanne A. Decandido

West's face softened. "Listen to me, Cassandra: If you spend enough time around Severin, you'll come to love him. It's your nature. Even knowing it's a bad idea under the circumstances, you'll end up doing it, the way I used to sing in the bath."
Phoebe slid her husband a surprised glance. "When was that?"
"When I lived alone. But I was obliged to stop after I moved to Eversby Priory, when Kathleen told me it was scaring the servants."
"It sounded nonhuman," Kathleen said. "We all thought someone was performing an exorcism."
Entertained by the revelation, Phoebe grinned and slipped her arm through West's. ~ Lisa Kleypas

All I'm arguing for really is that we should have a conversation where the best ideas really thrive, where there's no taboo against criticizing bad ideas, and where everyone who shows up, in order to get their ideas entertained, has to meet some obvious burdens of intellectual rigor and self-criticism and honesty - and when people fail to do that, we are free to stop listening to them. What religion has had up until this moment is a different set of rules that apply only to it, which is you have to respect my religious certainty even though I'm telling you I arrived at it irrationally. ~ Sam Harris

I'm the king of bad ideas. ~ Lisa Kessler

I have a tendency to hire people who tend to be unattractive to the studios. Maybe this is a bad idea. ~ Charlie Kaufman

A bad idea is like a virus. Once you've got one, it multiplies into a million other bad ideas. ~ Kara Taylor

We have been trying to point out that this concept of an indefinitely favorable future is dangerous, even if it is true; because even if it is true you can easily overvalue the security, since you make it worth anything you want it to be worth. Beyond this, it is particularly dangerous too, because sometimes your ideas of the future turn out to be wrong. Then you have paid an awful lot for a future that isn't there. Your position then is pretty bad. ~ Benjamin Graham

I've seen people that are extremely brilliant and they don't have the staying power. They don't have that never give up quality. I've always said that other than bad ideas, which is a reason for failure, the ability to never ever quit or give up is something that is very, very important for success as an entrepreneur. ~ Donald Trump

I've never been quarantined. But the more I look around the more I think it might not be a bad idea. ~ George Carlin

Everything worthwhile is a good idea, but did you ever notice there is more bad ideas that will work than there is good ones? ~ Will Rogers

There are no bad ideas. Only bad executions. ~ Meinos Kaen

Isn't that a bad idea?" "Bad ideas don't work. ~ Amanda Heger

All the creativity books in the world aren't going to help you if you're unwilling to have lousy, lame, and even dangerously bad ideas. ~ Seth Godin

Take time to reflect, let ideas flow on their own schedule and let yourself have numerous bad ideas to inspire the good ones. ~ Joanie Connell

A cookie store is a bad idea. Besides, the market research reports say America likes crispy cookies, not soft and chewy cookies like you make. ~ Debbi Fields

My heart pounded annoyingly in my ears, and it was getting harder to stay focused. I'd almost gotten trapped in here, and now I'd come back. Sometimes I did have truly terrible ideas. ~ Gwenda Bond

The physical business of writing is unpleasant to me, but the psychic satisfaction of discharging bad ideas in worse English makes me forget it. ~ H.L. Mencken

Big minds have big ideas. Small minds use big ideas to justify bad ideas. ~ Walter Darby Bannard

You think this is a bad idea," he said. It wasn't a question. But it sparked something in Lila, rekindled the fire in her eyes and ignited a grin.
"Without a doubt."
"Then why are you smiling?"
"Because," she said, "bad ideas are my favorite kind. ~ V.E. Schwab