Quotes & Sayings About Breakthrough Ideas

Why wait? So precious is this life - this gift - this temporary blindness. Burn and drown and embrace the false dark, then grasp the unthinkable height of resulting joy. For in the end, in the light of truth when the flesh is cast off, there is nothing but this. — Jennifer DeLucy

A good listener is one who always pays attention, not to gain, but to learn. — Michael Bassey Johnson

The way to be successful in the software world is to come up with breakthrough software, and so whether it's Microsoft Office or Windows, its pushing that forward. New ideas, surprising the marketplace, so good engineering and good business are one in the same. — Bill Gates

The ability to make big leaps of thought is a common denominator among the originators of breakthrough ideas. — Nicholas Negroponte

I'm not here for you, I couldn't be less interested — Paula Hawkins

Remember, if you have a problem, it's your problem. Solve it. Don't blame other people. Don't burden people with your complaints. Ninety percent of the people you meet don't care about your troubles. The other 10 percent are glad you have them. — Lou Holtz

The day before something is a breakthrough, it's a crazy idea. — Peter Diamandis

While leaders spend considerable time and effort trying to envision markets and pushing out innovation, empathy can often generate simple, yet breakthrough ideas. — John Gerzema

All great inventions emerge from a long sequence of small sparks; the first idea often isn't all that good, but thanks to collaboration it later sparks another idea, or it's reinterpreted in an unexpected way. Collaboration brings small sparks together to generate breakthrough innovation. — Scott Belsky

Like every big idea, Birdseye's breakthrough was not a single insight, but a network of other ideas, packaged together in a new configuration. What made Birdseye's idea so powerful was not simply his individual genius, but the diversity of places and forms of expertise that he brought together. — Steven Johnson

I just went into my studio and started to compile stuff. I was so happy with what was coming out that good momentum just carried over and when I would listen back to some of the riffs and some of the ideas, I was completely happy because I felt like, "wow, this was a breakthrough!" The ideas and the songs were really strong and I couldn't wait to show everybody the stuff. — Charlie Benante

We have a natural tendency to romanticize breakthrough innovations, imagining momentous ideas transcending their surroundings, a gifted mind somehow seeing over the detritus of old ideas and ossified tradition. But ideas are works of bricolage; they're built out of that detritus. — Steven Johnson

Your doubts are not the product of accurate thinking, but habitual thinking. Years ago you excepted flawed conclusions as correct, begin to live your life as if those warped ideas about your potential were true, and ceased the bold experiment in living that brought you many breakthrough behaviors as a child. — Price Pritchett

Breakthrough ideas usually come from guys who look like they're hallucinating — Ben Horowitz

The defining moment when we finally admit, "I can't do this alone. Its too much for me. Take it."
That's the moment our heart cracks open, our will pours out and Christ stands ready with his arms stretched wide and his smile even wider.
That's the moment a miracle is born. — Toni Sorenson

The challenge is that the day before something is truly a breakthrough, it's a crazy idea. And crazy ideas are very risky to attempt. — Peter Diamandis

The solution was eventually found by Johannes Gutenberg, who made the breakthrough that finally established printing as the communication technology of the future. Similar ideas may have been under development around the same time in Prague and Haarlem. But in business, the key question is not about who else is in the race, it's about who gets there first. Johannes Gutenberg was the first to make the new technology work, ensuring his place in any history of the human race. — Alister E. McGrath

What you end up seeing when you look at history is that people who have been good at pushing the boundaries of possibility, and exploring those frontiers of good ideas and innovations, have rarely done it in moments of great inspiration. They don't just have a brilliant breakthrough idea out of nowhere and leap ahead of everyone else. — Steven Johnson

Take long walks in stormy weather or through deep snows in the fields and woods, if you would keep your spirits up. Deal with brute nature. Be cold and hungry and weary. — Henry David Thoreau

My breakthrough came very late in life, really only starting when I was 50 ... I had the strength for new deeds and ideas. — Edvard Munch

I work from the body - I try to develop a language of the body. I've invented a term I call "corporeal writing" around that idea. I love teaching and collaborating around this idea, because no new breakthrough in literature ever happened because everyone was doing what was already there. — Lidia Yuknavitch

Breakthrough ideas look crazy, nuts. It's hard to think this way - I see it in other people's body language, and I can feel it in my own, where I sometimes feel like I don't even care if it's going to work, I can't take more change. O.K., Google, O.K., Twitter - but Airbnb? People staying in each other's houses without there being a lot of axe murders? — Marc Andreessen

Breakthroughs arise when someone can combine many ideas together. Think broadly, not deeply. — Joshua Krook

You breathe too fast to be convincing,' he goaded.
'You don't breathe enough to judge me. — Lindsay J. Pryor

What's the one superpower of June Elbus?"
I thought about myself from head to toe. It was like being forced to read the most boring part of the Sears catalog. Like leafing through the bathroom accessories pages. Boring brain. Boring face. No sex appeal. Clumsy hands.
"Heart. Hard heart," I said, not sure where it came from. "The hardest heart in the world."
"Hmmm," Toby said, tapping a finger in the air. "That's a useful one, you know. Very handy. The question is ... " Toby paused like he was considering this all very seriously.
"What's the question?"
"The question is, stone or ice? Crack or melt? — Carol Rifka Brunt

Launching a breakthrough idea is like shooting skeet. People's needs change, so you must aim well ahead of the target to hit it. — Ray Kurzweil

I believe it is possible that we can turn today's breakdown into a planetary breakthrough on one condition. We can do it if we can break free of a set of dominant but misleading ideas that are taking us down. — Frances Moore Lappe

Our minds influence the key activity of the brain, which then influences everything; perception, cognition, thoughts and feelings, personal relationships; they're all a projection of you. — Deepak Chopra

Meltdown when we get home. Mom keeps chocolate for meltdowns. Daddy always has them when Uncle Jonas visits.
-David Lyons from Tanner's Scheme- — Lora Leigh

Big breakthrough ideas often seem nuts the first time you see them. — Marc Andreessen