Learn A New Idea Quotes

It is not difficult to learn a new idea, but it is almost impossible to unlearn an old one. ~ Debasish Mridha

There was no Internet, not even many cookbooks except the old reference books. So we would sit down at night, a group of six chefs, and we'd exchange recipes and each talk about how we were doing things. It was the only way to learn new ideas. ~ Daniel Boulud

With so much knowledge written down and disseminated and so many ardent workers and eager patrons conspiring to produce the new, it was inevitable that technique and style should gradually turn from successful trial and error to foolproof recipe. The close study of antique remains, especially in architecture, turned these sources of inspiration into models to copy. The result was frigidity - or at best cool elegance. It is a cultural generality that going back to the past is most fruitful at the beginning, when the Idea and not the technique is the point of interest. As knowledge grows more exact, originality grows less; perfection increases as inspiration decreases. In painting, this downward curve of artistic intensity is called by the sug- gestive name of Mannerism. It is applicable at more than one moment in the history of the arts. The Mannerist is not to be despised, even though his high competence is secondhand, learned from others instead of worked out for himself. His art need not lack individual character, and to some connoisseurs it gives the pleasure of virtuosity, the exercise of power on demand, but for the critic it poses an enigma: why should the pleasure be greater when the power is in the making rather than on tap? There may be no answer, but a useful corollary is that perfection is not a necessary characteristic of the greatest art. ~ Jacques Barzun

The layman always means, when he says reality that he is speaking of something self-evidently known; whereas to me it seems the most important and exceedingly difficult task of our time is to work on the construction of a new idea of reality. ~ Wolfgang Pauli

This new situation, in which "humanity" has in effect assumed the role formerly ascribed to nature or history, would mean in this context that the right to have rights, or the right of every individual to belong to humanity, should be guaranteed by humanity itself. It is by no means certain whether this is possible. For, contrary to the best-intentioned humanitarian attempts to obtain new declarations of human rights from international organizations, it should be understood that this idea transcends the present sphere of international law which still operates in terms of reciprocal agreements and treaties between sovereign states; and, for the time being, a sphere that is above the nation does not exist. Furthermore, this dilemma would by no means be eliminated by the establishment of a "world government." Such a world government is indeed within the realm of possibility, but one may suspect that in reality it might differ considerably from the version promoted by idealistic-minded organizations. The crimes against human rights, which have become a specialty of totalitarian regimes, can always be justified by the pretext that right is equivalent to being good or useful for the whole in distinction to its parts. (Hitler's motto that "Right is what is good for the German people" is only the vulgarized form of a conception of law which can be found everywhere and which in practice will remain effectual only so long as older traditions that are still effective in the constitution ~ Hannah Arendt

It wasn't a new idea. During the war against the French we had this kind of broadcast for the French soldiers. ~ Hanoi Hannah

There isn't a single government agency that can't function. There's more money in this federal government, there's more money allocated than these people can possibly spend. They have to concoct asinine ways to spend it, like advertising for new food stamp users. I've gotten to the point, I'm just so righteously indignant and offended at the very idea that our government could ever run out of money when we've got a printing press, for crying out loud. Printed three and a half trillion dollars over seven years and flooded Wall Street with it. ~ Rush Limbaugh

Augustine, who assumed that Genesis 1 was chapter 1 in a book that contained the literal words of God, and that Genesis 2 was the second chapter in the same book, put the two chapters together and read the latter as a sequel. Genesis 2, he assumed, described the fall from the perfection and original goodness of creation depicted in chapter 1. So almost inevitably the Christian scriptures from the fourth century on were interpreted against the background of this (mis) understanding.

The primary trouble with this theory was that by the fourth century of the Common Era there were no Jews to speak of left in the Christian movement, and therefore the only readers and interpreters of the ancient Hebrew myths were Gentiles, who had no idea what these stories originally meant. Consequently, they interpreted them as perfection established by God in chapter 1, followed by perfection ruined by human beings in chapter 2. Why was that a problem? Well I, for one, have never known a Jewish scripture scholar to treat the Garden of Eden story in the same way that Gentiles treat it. Jews tend to see this story not as a narrative about sin entering the world, but as a parable about the birth of self-consciousness. It is, for the Jews, not a fall into sin, but a step into humanity. It is the birth of a new relationship with God, changing from master-servant to interdependent cooperation. The forbidden fruit was not from an apple tree, as so many who don't bother to read the text seem ~ John Shelby Spong

You write down a paragraph or two describing several different subjects creating a kind of story ingredients-list, I suppose, and then cut the sentences into four or five-word sections; mix em up and reconnect them. You can get some pretty interesting idea combinations like this. You can use them as is or, if you have a craven need to not lose control, bounce off these ideas and write whole new sections. ~ David Bowie

My illusion, the idea of a soul mate, was so entrenched in my fantasy that the thought of letting him go, wrecked me. ~ M.R. Field

Money was the blood of civilized society, its currents running through everything and everyone. Where money was insufficient, things withered. People starved, sickened and died, constructions eroded, even ideas perished. Where funds were plentiful, the same things blossomed with new life.
And money was, in the end, little more than the product of collective imagination. A slip of paper or a coin had no value beyond that of the material it was fashioned of. It only took on a life of its own when people as a whole collectively agreed that certain papers and coins were worth something.
Only then did people bleed and die for it. For a fantasy, a faith given form in hard, concrete numbers.
Then again, much of society was built on a series of shared delusions. Clothing was little more than scraps of particular materials with particular geometries, but people clung to the idea of fashion. Style. Good and bad fashion was another belief system, one which all members of a culture were indoctrinated into. Breaking certain conventions didn't only challenge the aesthetic sensibilities of others, but it challenged their sense of self. It reminded them, subconsciously, of the very pretendings they clung to.
Only those with power could stand against society's tides, flaunt the collective's 'safe' aesthetic. When one had enough power, others couldn't rise against them and safely say something calculated to reduce their own dissonance and remind the offending party of the u ~ Wildbow

Creativity is a by-product of hard work. If I never have another really new idea, it won't matter. ~ Andy Rooney

I was in New York when Clinton was elected the first time, and everyone I knew was in a state of mad euphoria. I wondered what had happened to my hard-headed friends? Almost everyone I knew was drunk on this great white hope. The next time I was in New York, no one had a good word to say about Clinton, but everyone was in love with Hillary. She was the last word. It's all so unreal. Of course, it's no different in England. Here everyone was besotted with Tony Blair. He was a new face. Do people never learn? ~ Doris Lessing

TNC was once limited by the resources it could directly marshal to buy land. But teaching people a new idea is incredibly more scalable. ~ Ramez Naam

The focus of my playing is the groove, and every time I find a new rhythm, I find I can write a bunch of new songs. Learning how to dance, or drum, or to swing my body in a new way is the fundamental way I find a new riff. Because when you learn to swing your body in a new way, you begin to swing with your instrument differently. ~ Stone Gossard

If you didn't have patents, no one would bother to spend money on research and development. But with patents, if someone has a good idea and a competitor can't copy it, then that competitor will have to think of their own way of doing it. So then, instead of just one innovator, you have two or three people trying to do something in a new way. ~ James Dyson

I've always had this idea that if you're going to try something, if you're going to expend that first big block of effort and energy to participate - whether it's riding the Tour de France or applying for a new job or coaching your daughter's soccer team - you might as well go ahead and give whatever else it takes to win, I mean, I'm going to be there no matter what, right? Why not go ahead and get the victory? ~ Johan Bruyneel

With books you learn things, random things, whatever the author might be talking to you about, and you sort of soak them up like a sponge over the years. They are stored away in some dim recess of the unconscious mind until one day some equally random stimulus sparks a connection, and you find that you've combined different items of memory and perception into a completely new insight. ~ Guy Fraser-Sampson

The doctors had hit an artery, which is not standard procedure. They worked quickly to deal with it-to this day I have no idea what actually happened, but whatever they did worked, because our beautiful Angel was born soon after.
Chris was the first person to hold her. They word beaming was invented to describe the proud expression on his face.
I went into the recovery room and slept for a while. When I woke up, Chris was holding Angel. He looked so natural with her-a big six-footer holding a six-pound bundle in the crook of his arm, already bonded to her.
"Do you want to hold her?" he asked.
I was exhausted, and I knew she was safe with him, so I told him no.
He forced himself to smile. He explained later that he thought my response meant I was rejecting the baby-having worked on a ranch, I guess he had seen animals do that, with dire results for their new offspring. But of course I wasn't; they just looked perfect together, and I was barely conscious.
I asked for her a few minutes later, when I felt stronger. He passed her on gently, and I held her for the first time. There is no way really to describe how that feels.
In many ways, the birth was a miracle, not a disaster. Because of Angel's dilemma, her father was able to be there at her birth-something that wouldn't have happened had that ultrasound been routine, since I would have waited another four or five weeks for her. A potential tragedy had been turned into something beautiful. It ~ Taya Kyle

But what is [the] quality of originality? It is very hard to define or specify. Indeed, to define originality would in itself be a contradiction, since whatever action can be defined in this way must evidently henceforth be unoriginal. Perhaps, then, it will be best to hint at it obliquely and by indirection, rather than to try to assert positively what it is.

One prerequisite for originality is clearly that a person shall not be inclined to impose his preconceptions on the fact as he sees it. Rather, he must be able to learn something new, even if this means that the ideas and notions that are comfortable or dear to him may be overturned.

But the ability to learn in this way is a principle common to the whole of humanity. Thus it is well known that a child learns to walk, to talk, and to know his way around the world just by trying something out and seeing what happens, then modifying what he does (or thinks) in accordance with what has actually happened. In this way, he spends his first few years in a wonderfully creative way, discovering all sorts of things that are new to him, and this leads people to look back on childhood as a kind of lost paradise. As the child grows older, however, learning takes on a narrower meaning. In school, he learns by repetition to accumulate knowledge, so as to please the teacher and pass examinations. At work, he learns in a similar way, so as to make a living, or for some other utilitarian purpose, and not mainly for t ~ David Bohm

Fact: life is a giant classroom and every day is an opportunity to learn something new.
Fact: you have to be prepared for pop quizzes, because they can come from anywhere or anyone.
Also fact: I wished I'd called in sick today.
What I learned from professor Frosty?
How to properly boost cars. The guy could do wicked things with a single piece of wire.
"I'm a criminal now," I lamented as we soared down the highway. Killing in self defense didn't count.
"I'm an accomplice. A thief."
"Actually," he said smoothly, "you're a freelance valet. All you're doing is moving a car from one location to another. There's nothing wrong with that, now, is there? ~ Gena Showalter

People cannot be expected to learn one expertise and just apply it routinely in a job. Your expertise is in steadily renewing your knowledge base and extending it to new areas. That lifelong cycle of learning really is the foundation of the new information organization and economy. ~ George Gilder

I've always wanted to be a communicator of ideas through music. Today, I wanna be the most effective musical communicator of social change I could be, so I try to find different ways to do it and I'm always challenging myself to find new things, learn new instruments. But I always try to find in my heart, what it is I really want to say with words. ~ Michael Franti

We learn differently as children than as adults. For grown-ups, learning a new skill is painful, attention-demanding, and slow. Children learn unconsciously and effortlessly. ~ Alison Gopnik

Every day the material world mistreats me. My sensibility is like a flame in the wind. I walk down the street and I see in the faces of the passers-by, not their real expressions, but the expressions they would wear if they knew about my life and how I am, if the ridiculous, timid abnormality of my soul were made transparent in my gestures and in my face. In the eyes that avoid mine I suspect a mockery I find only natural, aimed at the inelegant exception I represent in a world that takes pleasure in things and in activity and, in the depths of these passing physiognomies, I imagine and interpose an awareness of the timid nature of my life that sparks off guffaws of laughter. After thinking this, I try in vain to convince myself that I alone am the source of this idea of other people's mockery and mild opprobrium. But once objectified in others, I can no longer reclaim the image of myself as a figure of fun. I feel myself grow suddenly vague and hesitant in a hothouse rife with ridicule and animosity. From the depths of their soul, everyone points a finger at me. Everyone who passes stones me with merry insolence. I walk amongst enemy ghosts that my sick imagination has conjured up and planted inside real people. Everything jabs and jeers at me. And sometimes, in the middle of the road - unobserved, after all - I stop and hesitate, seeking a sudden new dimension, a door onto the interior of space, onto the other side of space, where without delay I might flee my awareness of ~ Fernando Pessoa

I've got a better idea," says my mother. "Tell me about what you did today. Tell me about New York." So I do, I tell the lifelong New Yorker who chucked it for the woods about the streets of the city: how the subway was so crowded this morning I had to let four trains pass in a row and I was a half hour late to work; how I had a meeting in Times Square and I saw an army of painted topless women posing with tourists for money; how I saw two people dressed up as Disney characters get into a fistfight; how I ate a hot dog from a stand after my client meeting bombed and when I finished it I ate another, on one of the chairs scattered in Bryant Park. A string quartet was playing nearby, under a sponsor banner. "The music part was the part that saved me," I say. "All of it would have saved me," says my mother. ~ Jami Attenberg

The approach to digital culture I abhor would indeed turn all the world's books into one book, just as Kevin (Kelly) suggested. It might start to happen in the next decade or so. Google and other companies are scanning library books into the cloud in a massive Manhattan Project of cultural digitization. What happens next is what's important. If the books in the cloud are accessed via user interfaces that encourage mashups of fragments that obscure the context and authorship of each fragment, there will be only one book. This is what happens today with a lot of content; often you don't know where a quoted fragment from a news story came from, who wrote a comment, or who shot a video. A continuation of the present trend will make us like various medieval religious empires, or like North Korea, a society with a single book.

The Bible can serve as a prototypical example. Like Wikipedia, the Bible's authorship was shared, largely anonymous, and cumulative, and the obscurity of the individual authors served to create an oracle-like ambience for the document as "the literal word of God." If we take a non-metaphysical view of the Bible, it serves as a link to our ancestors, a window. The ethereal, digital replacement technology for the printing press happens to have come of age in a time when the unfortunate ideology I'm criticizing dominates technological culture. Authorship - the very idea of the individual point of view - is not a priority of the new ideology. The digi ~ Jaron Lanier

I remember looking out the window of the little maid's room where we had been installed, seeing the lights of the Palisades across the way, and thinking, There! There it is! There's New York, this wonderful city, I'll go live there someday. Even being in New York, the actual place, I found the idea of New York so wonderful that I could only imagine it as some other place, greater than any place that would let me sleep in it
a distant constellation of lights I had not yet been allowed to visit. I had arrived in Oz only to think, Well, you don't LIVE in Oz, do you? ~ Adam Gopnik

The masses are advancing," said Hegel in apocalyptic fashion. "Without some new spiritual influence, our age, which is a revolutionary age, will produce a catastrophe," was the pronouncement of Comte. "I see the flood-tide of nihilism rising," shrieked Nietzsche from a crag of the Engadine. It is false to say that history cannot be foretold. Numberless times this has been done. If the future offered no opening to prophecy, it could not be understood when fulfilled in the present and on the point of falling back into the past. The idea that the historian is on the reverse side a prophet, sums up the whole philosophy of history, It is true that it is only possible to anticipate the general structure of the future, but that is all that we in truth understand of the past or of the present. ~ Ortega Y Gasset

Before you were born, the year ninety-two,
lost what was precious, and that what was new.
The blink of an eye, the beat of a heart,
Out went the candle, and guilt was my part.

A king and his knight went hunting a boar,
A rat and his friends were hunting for love.
Together they fought, till one was alive.
The knight sadly wept, no king had survived.

The answers to riddles, to secrets and more,
Are found in the middle of legends and love.
Seek out the answer, and learn if you can
The face of regret, the life of a man. ~ Michael J. Sullivan

Beth stared at the bowl, a fragile piece of the past, such a delicate object in Ian's large, blunt fingers. "Are you certain?"
"Of course I'm certain." His frown returned. "Do you not want it?"
"I do want it," Beth said hastily. She held her hands out for it. "I'm honored." The frown faded, to be replaced by a slight quirk of his lips.
"Is it better than a new carriage and horses and a dozen frocks?"
"What are you talking about? It's a hundred times better."
"It's only a bowl."
"It's special to you, and you gave it to me." Beth took it carefully and smiled at the dragons chasing one another in eternal determination. "It's the best gift in the world."
Ian took it gently back from her and replaced it in its slot. That made sense; in here it would stay safe and unbroken.
But the kiss Ian gave her after that was anything but sensible. It was wicked and bruising, and she had no idea why he smiled so triumphantly. ~ Jennifer Ashley

A great thinker does not necessarily have to discover a master idea but has to rediscover and to affirm a true but forgotten, ignored or misunderstood master idea and interpret it in all the diverse aspects of thought not previously done, in a powerful and consistent way, despite surrounding ignorance and opposition. This criterion we think would include all prophets and their true followers among the Muslim scholars. He is both a great and original thinker who brings new meanings and interpretations to old ideas, thereby providing both continuity and originality to the important intellectual and cultural problems of his time and through it, of mankind. Thus the brilliant interpretations of scholars and sages like al-Ghazali and Mulla Sadra then, and Iqbal and al-Attas now, deserve to be recognized and acknowledged as manifesting certain qualities of greatness and originality. ~ Wan Mohd Nor Wan Daud

Wilbur, as George Spratt once told Octave Chanute, was "always ready to oppose an idea expressed by anybody," ready to "jump into an argument with both sleeves rolled up." And as Wilbur himself would explain to Spratt, he believed in "a good scrap." It brought out "new ways of looking at things," helped "round off the corners." It was characteristic of all his family, Wilbur said, to be able to see the weak points of anything. ~ David McCullough

Cows eat grass and silage. This is melting the ice caps and killing us all. So they need a new foodstuff: something that is rich in iron, calcium and natural goodness. Plainly they cannot eat meat so here is an idea to chew on. Why not feed them vegetarians? ~ Jeremy Clarkson

If I'm creating a new superhero, it shouldn't be any different from other superheroes in terms of the qualities. Obviously the personality can be different. I think traditionally in comics women have tended to be a girlfriend or the daughter of whoever, whether it's even Batgirl as Gordon's daughter, or whatever. There is that relation of the hero, you know, like Superman's cousin, Supergirl. And that's great. It's fantastic to have a link to these amazing characters, but I kind of like the idea of things being something in their own right, which is why I've always loved Wonder Woman. ~ Mark Millar

I want to learn more and more. The more I know, the more I see a brand-new world. ~ Mamoru Hosoda

The Somnium makes clear to us, although it did not to all of Kepler's contemporaries, that "in a dream one must be allowed the liberty of imagining occasionally that which never existed in the world of sense perception." Science fiction was a new idea at the time of the Thirty Years' War, and Kepler's book was used as evidence that his mother was a witch. ~ Carl Sagan

You are a survivor, and as that unwelcome designation implies, your survival - your emotional survival - will depend on how well you learn to cope with your tragedy. The bad new: Surviving this will be the second worst experience of your life. The good news: The worst is already over. ~ Jennifer Niven

Ear is the energy to do your best in a new situation. The feeling of fear (anxiety, nervousness, shyness, or any of its other aliases) is really "preparation energy". It's getting you ready to excel, to succeed, to do your best and to learn the most. ~ Peter McWilliams

There are really only three important things to remember in life: To care, to share, and to be fair. This is not a new idea at all, and yet, observing how most people live their lives, you might think it was. ~ Frederick Lenz

The wards were to my right. I stepped into the hall and walked confidently forward, yet fully expecting Matron to come bearing down upon me at any moment, like a pirate ship under full sail.
I must say, though, that I was not afraid. I would deal with her.
The new, stony Flavia de Luce would turn her away: send her scurrying with her tail between her legs.
The very idea delighted me. ~ Alan Bradley

No man can put a rope on the past and hope to snub it down. The best thing is to learn to it ride the new trails - Kilkenny ~ Louis L'Amour

Why science? Many people, with the best intentions, like to give parents advice about raising a child, including parents, non-parents, health visitors, friends, celebrities, bloggers and next-door neighbours. Unfortunately, much of this advice can be completely wrong or based on archaic ideas and practices that have since been disproved or debunked. Some of this advice can even be damaging. In addition, some parents say that they advocate using 'common sense' or 'intuition' in raising their children, but what do those things mean? How is intuition classified, when it differs so greatly from one person to another? Some people do the 'common sense' thing only to find out it was wrong later in life, which is why it is altogether better to be guided by the latest scientific research. In order to learn how to filter the good advice from the bad, I believe that new parents need science-based evidence in their corner. You'll find it in this book. ~ Zion Lights

New York had pushed and bent and bullied, driving me underground to sort out the madness and sculpt my Being with my own hands in self-discovery on its cold pottery wheel and in the white heat of its kiln. The City enabled me to learn who I really was, as a pixelated man and member of Humanity. ~ David B. Lentz