Idea Led Quotes & Sayings

Any intervention, such as that of the German Reichsbank in the Spring of 1923, in which only a small part of the increasing note-expansion was recovered by the banks through the sale of foreign bills, would necessarily be unsuccessful. Led by the idea of opposing speculation, inflationistic governments have allowed themselves to become involved in measures whose meaning is hardly intelligible. Thus at one time the importation of notes, then their exportation, then again both their exportation and importation, have been prohibited. Exporters have been forbidden to sell for their own country's notes, importers to buy with them. — Ludwig Von Mises

My motivation was an idea of being able to improve the conditions of life, to try to find a remedy to many of the problems facing the world. That's what led me into economics. I saw it as a way of helping people. — Maurice Allais

There was altogether too much candor in married life; it was an indelicate modern idea, and frequently led to upsets in a household, if not divorce ... — Muriel Spark

Captain Crawford didn't like the idea of any kind of murder, but he went at it patiently and honestly and with none of the stupidity and bombast and rubber-hose techniques that Los Angeles crime fiction writers had led me to expect. I'd gotten the impression that unless a gifted amateur in love with the lady got himself almost beaten to a pulp and practically inside the lethal gas chamber before he unmasked the venal and brutalized constabulary, any innocent bystander they could get their hands on was a gone duck. — Leslie Ford

This is not a new idea; this is the idea of the age of reason. This is the philosophy that guided the men that made the democracy that we live under. The idea that no one really knew how to run a government led to the idea that we should arrange a system by which new ideas could be developed, tried out, and tossed out if necessary, with more new ideas brought in - a trial and error system. — Richard Feynman

As a graduate student I studied mathematics fairly broadly, and I was fortunate enough, besides developing the idea which led to 'Non-Cooperative Games,' also to make a nice discovery relating to manifolds and real algebraic varieties. — John Forbes Nash Jr.

Perhaps I was also afraid the little voice in the back of my head telling me I had no idea what I was doing was right. I didn't have any idea what I was doing; if I had, things would be different now. Although, thoughts like this led the other little voice inside my head to point out if I wasn't here, or if I didn't know what I was doing, Martin would be a chalk outline of some goo on the pavement. I sighed audibly and put my head on my desk. If only all the voices in my head could just get along. I laughed at the absurdity. I must be clinically insane. — G.K. Parks

During my time at Eton, I led regular nighttime adventures, and word spread. I even thought about charging to take people on trips.
I remember one where we tried to cross the whole town of Eton in the old sewers. I had found an old grill under a bridge that led into these four-foot-high old brick pipes, running under the streets.
It took a little nerve to probe into these in the pitch black with no idea where the hell they were leading you; and they stank.
I took a pack of playing cards and a flashlight, and I would jam cards into the brickwork every ten paces to mark my way. Eventually I found a manhole cover that lifted up, and it brought us out in the little lane right outside the headmaster's private house.
I loved that. "All crap flows from here," I remember us joking at that time. — Bear Grylls

That scene in the office stayed with me. Those cigars, the fine clothes. I thought of good steaks, long
rides up winding driveways that led to beautiful homes. Ease. Trips to Europe. Fine women. Were they
that much more clever than I? The only difference was money, and the desire to accumulate it.
I'd do it too! I'd save my pennies. I'd get an idea, I'd spring a loan. I'd hire and fire. I'd keep whiskey in
my desk drawer. I'd have a wife with size 40 breasts and an ass that would make the paperboy on the
corner come in his pants when he saw it wobble. I'd cheat on her and she'd know it and keep silent in
order to live in my house with my wealth. I'd fire men just to see the look of dismay on their faces. I'd
fire women who didn't deserve to be fired. — Charles Bukowski

My belief in the sacrament of the Eucharist is simple: without touch, God is a monologue, an idea, a philosophy; he must touch and be touched, the tongue on flesh, and that touch is the result of the monologues, the idea, the philosophies which led to faith; but in the instant of the touch there is no place for thinking, for talking; the silent touch affirms all that, and goes deeper: it affirms the mysteries of love and mortality. — Andre Dubus

When I was 11 years old and I was on a road trip with my family. I turned to my dad and said, "Do you believe in Adam and Eve?" And he said he didn't think so. I remember that felt like a slap in the face, because if my parents questioned Adam and Eve, then they potentially questioned everything within Catholicism. Eventually that idea led to my feeling liberated, but at that time it was very scary. — Alanis Morissette

Moreover, seeing ourselves as a majority led at times to both a theological downgrade and a counter-productive public stance. The application of the promises to Israel to the United States of America, for example, caused many to miss, as we will see in the next chapter, the meaning of the kingdom of God, and thus to bypass Jesus Christ himself. The idea of America as a Christian nation is able to get "Amens" in the churches only as long as the churches believe America is, at least in some ways, with us and not against us. But what happens when the cultural climate starts to shift in obvious ways? If the church believes the United States is a sort of new Israel, then we become frantic when we see ourselves "losing America." We then start to speak in gloomy terms of America as, at best, Babylon, a place of hopeless exile, or, at worst, Gomorrah, slouching toward the judgment of God. — Russell D. Moore

The mind has transformed the world, and the world is repaying it with interest. It has led man where he had no idea how to go. — Paul Valery

The absurdity of it, she thought, this quest for the love of a man who was her equal. She loathed herself for it. She thought of her life (and herself) as a missed opportunity. Somewhere, back there, she had missed something. What was it? When was it? The worse horror beneath: that she hadn't missed anything, that her life was merely the sum of her choices and that her choices had led her to this: another truncated encounter; the carcinogenic belief in the idea of a Great Love; clammy sex; loneliness in the small hours. — Glen Duncan

To understand antiquity's idea of man, we must examine its gods and heroes, myths and legends. In these we find the classical prototype of genuine man. ... the will to greatness, wealth, power and fame. Anything opposed to it falls short of the authentically human. ...

What a world of difference between this conception and that to which Christ has led us! ...

Jesus' friends are in no way remarkable for their talent or character. He who considers the apostles or disciples great from a human or religious point of view raises the suspicion that he is unacquainted with true greatness. Moreover, he is confusing standards, for the apostle and disciple have nothing to do with such greatness. Their uniqueness consists of their being sent, of their God-given role of pillars for the coming salvation. — Romano Guardini

The idea that Bill Gates has appeared like a knight in shining armor to lead all customers out of a mire of technological chaos neatly ignores the fact that it was he who, by peddling second-rate technology, led them into it in the first place. — Douglas Adams

Why is history important? Without history, many people have no idea how many of today's half-baked ideas have been tried, again and again - and have repeatedly led to disaster. Most of these ideas are not new. They are just being recycled with re-treaded rhetoric. — Thomas Sowell

Some Greek idiot believed the ring finger on the left hand had an artery that led straight to the heart. And they bought it. How such an intelligent species could be so uninformed about their own physiology for so much of their existence was beyond me. Humans scoffed at the idea of gods and turned their backs on us, leaving us all to die. Yet some ridiculous notion that wearing a chunk of metal on a certain finger bound two souls until death stuck. Figures. — Kaitlin Bevis

Any idea of a United India could never have worked and in my judgment it would have led us to terrific disaster. — Muhammad Ali Jinnah

If we could travel into the past, it's mind-boggling what would be possible. For one thing, history would become an experimental science, which it certainly isn't today. The possible insights into our own past and nature and origins would be dazzling. For another, we would be facing the deep paradoxes of interfering with the scheme of causality that has led to our own time and ourselves. I have no idea whether it's possible, but it's certainly worth exploring. — Carl Sagan

The idea that reading is a moral quality has unhappily led many conscientious persons to renounce their innocuous dalliance with light literature for more strenuous intercourse. These are the persons who "make it a rule to read. — Edith Wharton

I don't want to feel this Sophie. Like I've led you on, or like I can't be with anyone else. "
"Lucien, you said yourself that you don't want to be with anyone else!"
"Yes, and you have no idea how much that fucks me off. Don't you get it, Sophie? I don't want these feelings, or these cravings." He splayed his hand on his chest. "It's not who I am. — Kitty French

What led Germany to this strange pass was itself strange. After the war, many were happy to wipe away the old order and rid themselves of the kaiser. But when the old monarch at last left the palace, the people who had clamored for his exit were suddenly lost. They found themselves in the absurd position of the dog who, having caught the car he was so frantically chasing, has no idea what to do with it
so he looks about guiltily and then slinks away. Germany had no history of democracy and no idea how it worked, so the country broke apart into a riot of factions, with each faction blaming the others for everything that went wrong. This much they knew: under the kaiser there had been law and order and structure; now there was chaos. The kaiser had been the symbol of the nation; now there were only petty politicians. — Eric Metaxas

You think that I am naive, but it is you who are naive. You have no idea what is happening inside of you when you look at a painting. You think that you are getting close to art voluntarily, enticed by its beauty, that this intimacy is taking place in an atmosphere of freedom and that delight is being born in you spontaneously, lured by the divine rod of Beauty. In truth, a hand has grabbed you by the scruff of the neck, led you to this painting and has thrown you to your knees. A will mightier than your own told you to attempt to experience the appropriate emotions. Whose hand and whose will? That hand is not the hand of a single man, the will is collective, born in an interhuman dimension, quite alien to you. So you do not admire at all, you merely try to admire. — Witold Gombrowicz

That was the real sentence imposed upon him, he thought - to discover what idea, what simple idea available to the simplest man, had made mankind accept the doctrines that led it to self-destruction. — Ayn Rand

People are often led to causes and often become committed to great ideas through persons who personify those ideas. They have to find the embodiment of the idea in flesh and blood in order to commit themselves to it. — Martin Luther King Jr.

To nineteenth-century leaders the principle was not just an optional revelation - they viewed it as the most important revelation in Joseph Smith's life, which is what he undoubtedly taught them. If they accepted him as an infallible prophet, and if they wanted full exaltation, they had no recourse but to marry many plural wives. Their devotion to Joseph the seer outweighed their experience of polygamy's impracticality and tragic consequences for women, which many men probably did not even recognize.

But it is worth noting that the women who suffered so much under polygamy gave it their unqualified support in public rallies and wrote impassioned defenses of it. They too were devoted to the idea that their church was led by practically infallible, authoritative prophets, especially Joseph Smith. — Todd M. Compton

As soon as we ask what faith is and what sort of mistreatment of faith causes doubt, we are led to the first major misconception about doubt-the idea that doubt is always wrong because it is the opposite of faith and the same thing as unbelief. What this error leads to is a view of faith that is unrealistic and a view of doubt that is unfair. — Os Guinness

Led Zeppelin! I clapped my hand over my mouth.
This big, strong man, wearing a muscle shirt and cargo pants, sang rock songs to a toddler in the middle of the night. I was so toast. Game over. And it was doubly terrifying, considering I had no idea how to make him stick around. He would leave and take his sweetness and his Pepto and our hearts. — Amber Lin

The idea led me into the research, which continues to give me more ideas for the story. — Jean M. Auel

In 1962 one Naga faction had made its peace with the government of India, as had another faction in 1975. But there remained a group stubbornly committed to the idea of an independent and sovereign Nagaland. This was the National Socialist Council of Nagaland, led by Isaak Swu and — Ramachandra Guha

Cassie spoke up, "He is like Peter Pan and the Lost Boys." ...
Tameron said "No one is lost here. And we have just as many girls, well, maybe not as many as we have boys, but a fair amount. Who is this Peter Pan you speak of? A hero?" he asked Cassie.
Alicia spoke up then ... "He led a group of boys in a world of adventure on an island paradise."
Tameron looked at Cassie to see if she agreed. She smiled and nodded.
"This Peter Pan was real?" he asked.
"No, he was a fairy... uhm, tale," Cassie said.
Tameron smiled. "I like the idea. I'll have to read it sometime... — Terry Spear

I never said I wouldn't come - only that I understood why you didn't want me to come.'
'You led me to believe you wouldn't be here. That you understood that I needed time to grasp the fact of your existence and I did not wish to do so in a public manner.' She fairly spit the words. 'Under the eyes of everyone in the ton. [ ... ] You lulled me into a false sense of well-being. Deliberately, I might add.'
'Perhaps. And while I rather like the idea of lulling you into anything, I did not lie to you. — Victoria Alexander

The British imperialist logic that led to the Opium Wars reflected this: there was a lot of silver in China, so the idea was to sell Indian opium to the Chinese, get all that silver out in that lucrative sale, and thereby pay for all the goods that were being produced in Manchester and sent to India. When the Chinese resisted opening their doors to the opium trade, the British response was to knock them down with military force. — David Harvey

And in my heart I despised the life I led in Seattle. I was sick of it and had no idea how to change it. I thought that in Chinook, away from Taylor and Silver, away from Marian, away from people who had already made up their minds about me, I could be different. I could introduce myself as a scholar-athlete, a boy of dignity and consequence, and without any reason to doubt me people would believe I was that boy, and thus allow me to be that boy. I recognized no obstacle to miraculous change but the incredulity of others. This was an idea that died hard, if it ever really died at all. — Tobias Wolff

And you are?"
She fluttered her hand over her face and
brushed a wisp of light brown hair from her brow.
The governor calls me Kitty. It'd probably be best if you did, too."
What an alluring name? It makes me think of a cat with its lips covered by a luscious coat of cream."
Jack stared at Kitty's mouth, and his tongue tingled at the idea of tasting her rich, flavorful lust.
She giggled and wove her hand through the crook in his arm. The soft swell of her breast bumped against his arm. "Oh, you're naughty, but I love the alluring image."
Then, I hope you'll let me have a taste later."
He didn't crowd her but allowed her to step back.
She led him across the entranceway to a door on the other side.
Remember she's a princess. — Anita Philmar

He had a thwarting day. The heath and moor were crisscrossed with little tracks, dusty and twisting between the heather and bracken and the little juniper trees with their clinging roots. There was not one way but many, all athwart each other like the cracks on a crazy jug, and he followed first one and then the other, choosing the straightest and stoniest and finding himself always under the hot-sun at another crossing just like the one he had just left. After a time he decided to got with the sun behind him always
at least this led to consistency of proceeding
though it must be told that when he decided this he had only the haziest idea, dear readers, of where the sun had been at the beginning of the venture. So it often is in this life. We become consistent and orderly too late, on insufficient grounds, and perhaps in the wrong direction.
Possession — A.S. Byatt

Many bought into the idea that America could go from a technology-based, export-oriented powerhouse to a services-led, consumption-based economy - and somehow still expect to prosper. That idea was flat wrong. Our economy tilted instead toward the quicker profits of financial services. — Jeffrey R. Immelt

The French Revolution gave rise to ideas which led beyond the ideas of the entire old world order. The revolutionary movement which began in 1789 ... gave rise to the communist idea which Babeuf's friend Buonarroti re-introduced in France after the Revolution of 1830. This idea, consistently developed, is the idea of the new world order. — Karl Marx

Sometimes he mulled over the idea that the next time the door opened he would take control of the family affairs as he had done in the past; these musings led him once more after such a long interval to conjure up the figures of the boss, the head clerk, the salesmen, the apprentices, the dullard of an office manager, two or three friends from other firms, a sweet and fleeting memory of a chambermaid in one of the rural hotels, a cashier in a milliner's shop whom he had wooed earnestly but too slowly- they all appeared mixed up with strangers or nearly forgotten people, but instead of helping him and his family they were each and every one unapproachable, and he was relieved when they evaporated. — Franz Kafka

Streams led to rivers, rivers all led to the Mississippi, and if he kept walking, or stole a boat or built a raft, eventually he'd get to New Orleans, where it was warm, an idea which seemed both comforting and unlikely. — Neil Gaiman

The common base of all the Semitic creeds, winners or losers, was the ever present idea of world-worthlessness. Their profound reaction from matter led them to preach bareness, renunciation, poverty; and the atmosphere of this invention stifled the minds of the desert pitilessly. — T.E. Lawrence

Bonhoeffer's recurring theme of incarnation - that God did not create us to be disembodied spirits, but flesh-and-blood human beings - led him to the idea that the Christian life must be modeled. Jesus did not only communicate ideas and concepts and rules and principles for living. He lived. And by living with his disciples, he showed them what life was supposed to look like, what God had intended it to look like. It was not merely intellectual or merely spiritual. It was all these things together; it was something more. Bonhoeffer aimed to model the Christian life for his students. — Eric Metaxas

An idea is growing in foreign policy circles in Washington ... that there is no turning back. We are stuck in Iraq and Afghanistan for 25 to 40 years, we are embedded in our prideful unilateralism, and nothing can return us to more traditional American values and principles of action. The hubristic creators of this "inevitability" planned it this way ... Their failures in Iraq have not stopped the fanatic, power-hungry neoconservatives ... The hard-liners who dominate this administration ... have led us to eternal conflict with Muslims. — Georgie Anne Geyer

It was a sunny day, I was carrying a child in a white dress to be christened. The path to the church led up a steep slope, but I held the child in my arms firmly and without faltering. Then suddenly my footing gave way ... I had enough time to put the child down before plunging into the abyss. The child is our idea. In spite of all obstacles it will prevail. — Sophie Scholl

A not complete unit or a new unit. The elements in the 3 parts should neither fit nor not fit together.
One would like not to be led. Avoid the idea of a puzzle which could be solved. Remove the signs of thought. It is not thought which needs showing. — Jasper Johns

Simon appeared at the doorway behind Tori and Derek. He waved to me and mouthed "run while you can."
Not a bad idea. I snuck around them and zipped out the door to where Simon waited. Then I glanced back at Tori.
"Don't worry about her," he said. "Probably the most fun she's had in days." He led me into the next room. "Sadly, I can't say the same for Derek, and as soon as he stops arguing long enough to notice you're gone - "
"Hey!" Derek called. "Where are you two going?"
Simon took my elbow and steered me at a jog through the house as Derek's footsteps pounded behind us. — Kelley Armstrong

Most days what I felt was this: the minute you put a first name and a last name together, you've got a pair of tusks coming right at you (i.e., Watch out, buddy). but on days when I didn't disapprove of everything on principle
days when the whole cologned, cuff-shooting ruck of my co-workers didn't repulse me from the moment they disembarked from the sixth-floor elevator and began squidging their way along the carpeted track that led to the office
my thinking stabbed more along these lines: a name belittles that which is named. Give a person a name and he'll sink right into it, right into the hollows and the dips of the letters that spelled out the whole insultingly reductive contraption, so that you have to pull him up and dance him out of it, take his attendance, and fuck some life into him if you expect to get any work out of him. Multiply him by twenty-two and you will have some idea of what the office was like, except that a good third of my colleagues were female. — Gary Lutz

Another great example of the power of vulnerability
this time in a corporation
is the leadership approach taken by Lululemon's CEO, Christine Day. In a video interview with CNN Money, Day explained that she was once a very bright, smart executive who "majored in being right." Her transformation came when she realized that getting people to engage and take ownership wasn't about "the teling" but about letting them come into the idea in a purpose-led way, and that her job was creating the space for others to perform. She chracterized this change as the shift from "having the best idea or problem solving" to "being the best leader of people. — Brene Brown

Of course ours was a very small circle among a multitude of circles, a few of them concentric, but mostly not, but it would not be too much to say that for ours David Cecil held a torch - not for war heroes, or anti-war heroes, but for people who led quiet lives, studious and sociable, into which the idea of violence never entered — L.P. Hartley

Of course there are many films about the period of Fascism itself but I don't know of any about that period beforehand. But it wasn't that specific fact that they weren't there that got me to think about this in the first place. It's not what led to the basic idea for the film, although it became apparent when I began to think about it. — Michael Haneke

I don't remember who was there, except Dora. I have not the least idea what we had for dinner, besides Dora. My impression is, that I dined off Dora, entirely, and sent away half-a-dozen plates untouched. I sat next to her. I talked to her. She had the most delightful little voice, the gayest little laugh, the pleasantest and most fascinating little ways, that ever led a lost youth into hopeless slavery. She was rather diminutive altogether. So much the more precious, I thought. — Charles Dickens

To be charitable, one may admit that the religious often seem unaware of how insulting their main proposition actually is. Exchange views with a believer even for a short time, and let us make the assumption that this is a mild and decent believer who does not open the bidding by telling you that your unbelief will endanger your soul and condemn you to hell. It will not be long until you are politely asked how you can possibly know right from wrong. Without holy awe, what is to prevent you form resorting to theft, murder, rape, and perjury? It will sometimes be conceded that non-believers have led ethical lives, and it will also be conceded (as it had better be) that many believers have been responsible for terrible crimes. Nonetheless, the working assumption is that we should have no moral compass if we were not somehow in thrall to an unalterable and unchallengeable celestial dictatorship. What a repulsive idea! — Christopher Hitchens

In my early 20s, I had this idea that I was going to front a band, like Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin. I didn't just want to be the chick singing ballads about somebody breaking my heart. Everyone in the business said, 'Why don't you do what Olivia Newton-Jonn and Linda Ronstadt are doing?' But I wanted to sing as a powerful female who wasn't afraid to speak her mind or be sexual. — Pat Benatar

Throughout our culture we have been led to the idea that we accept death as the end of life on earth ... Time bound as we are and goal oriented to achievements in our lifetime, we find it strange to anticipate heaven. — Billy Graham

Plutarch was right after all. Fate did lead those who were willing to be led, and those who resisted the idea, like himself, were dragged forcefully instead. — Elif Shafak

But in some quarters the very success of science has also led to the idea that, because we can understand the mechanisms of the universe without bringing in God, we can safely conclude that there was no God who designed and created the universe in the first place. — John C. Lennox

The life we led was a proof of man's capacity for adaptation.I think that even the condemned souls in purgatory after time develop a sort of homely routine.That is ,by the way, why most prison memoirs are unreadable.The difficulty of conveying to the reader an idea of a nightmare world from which he has emerged makes the author depict the prisoner's state of mind as an uninterruped continuity of despair.He fears to appear frivolous or to spoil his effect by admitting that even in the depths of misery cheerfulness keeps breaking in. — Arthur Koestler

You've invented your own way of being, and perhaps it might be 'odd' to one who has no idea of the life you've led, but to one who does ... " Brayden paused, shrugged. "To one who does, it's ... it's ... I haven't got a word. It's astounding — Carole Cummings

The idea of a utopian state on earth, perhaps modeled on some heavenly ideal, is very hard to efface and has led people to commit terrible crimes in the name of the ideal. — Christopher Hitchens

He, too, was in the grip of rage and rhetoric. I saw that, attractive though his side of the political spectrum was. A cancerous violence had eaten into every political idea, had taken over the ideas themselves, and for so many, all that mattered was the willingness to do something. Action led to action, free of any moorings, and the way to be someone, the way to catch the attention of the young and recruit them to one's cause, was to be enraged. It seemed as if the only way this lure of violence could be avoided was by having no causes, by being magnificiently isolated from loyalties. But was that not an ethical lapse graver than rage itself? — Teju Cole

There were two problems with this idea. First, it led to crappy "virtual reality" movies like Virtuosity and The Lawnmower Man. And second, in the long run, it turned out to be totally wrong. — Ken Jennings

She led him past the engine room, which looked like a very dangerous, mechanized jungle gym, with pipes and pistons and tubes jutting from a central bronze sphere. Cables resembling giant metal noodles snaked across the floor and ran up the walls.
"How does that thing even work?" Percy asked.
"No idea," Annabeth said. "And I'm the only one besides Leo who can operate it."
"That's reassuring."
"It should be fine. It's only threatened to blow up once."
"You're kidding, I hope."
She smiled. "Come on. — Rick Riordan

You might think that, by now, people would have become accustomed to the idea of natural catastrophes. We live on a planet that is still cooling and which has fissures and faults in its crust; this much is accepted even by those who think that the globe is only six thousand years old, as well as by those who believe that the earth was "designed" to be this way. Even in such a case, it is to be expected that earthquakes will occur and that, if they occur under the seabed, tidal waves will occur also. Yet two sorts of error are still absolutely commonplace. The first of these is the idiotic belief that seismic events are somehow "timed" to express the will of God. Thus, reasoning back from the effect, people will seriously attempt to guess what sin or which profanity led to the verdict of the tectonic plates. The second error, common even among humanists, is to borrow the same fallacy for satirical purposes and to employ it to disprove a benign deity. — Christopher Hitchens

Sin spied a straw-covered head peeping over the side of the wagon. Once the man disappeared from sight, the woman scrambled from the cart, with the boy one step behind. No one seemed to notice her peculiar activity, or if they did, they ignored it. She took a moment to dust the straw off them, but somehow she missed a piece that hung in the midst of one coppery curl. It bobbed as she moved.
Simon laughed as she took the boy's hand and led him through the crowd. "Why was she hiding?"
"She seeks to escape royal custody."
The mirth faded from Simon's eyes. "Should we notify the guards?"
"Nay, I think we can manage to retake her."
"Then what are we waiting for?"
"I have no idea. I simply like watching her maneuver."
-Simon, Sin, Callie & Jamie — Kinley MacGregor

It is worth recalling that it took brave pioneers many years to overcome the powerful taboo against the dissection of human cadavers during the early years of modern medicine. And we should note that, notwithstanding the outrage and revulsion with which the idea of dissection was then received, overcoming that tradition has not led to the feared collapse of morality and decency. We live in an era in which human corpses are still treated with due respect - indeed, with rather more respect and decorum than they were treated with at the time dissection was still disreputable. — Daniel C. Dennett

The start-up life kept me busy and surfaced the problem of not being able to stay on top of my personal finances, which led me to invent Mint. I was working 80-hour weeks, and had done enough preliminary work and research to know I had a big idea: To make money management effortless and automated. — Aaron Patzer

[Doubt] is not a new idea; this is the idea of the age of reason. This is the philosophy that guided the men who made the democracy that we live under. The idea that no one really knew how to run a government led to the idea that we should arrange a system by which new ideas could be developed, tried out, and tossed out if necessary, with more new ideas bought in - a trial-and-error system. This method was a result of the fact that science was already showing itself to be a successful venture at the end of the eighteenth century. Even then it was clear to socially minded people that the openness of possibilities was an opportunity, and that doubt and discussion were essential to progress into the unknown. If we want to solve a problem that we have never solved before, we must leave the door to the unknown ajar ... doubt is not to be feared, but welcomed and discussed. — Richard Feynman

Socialism is a wonderful idea. It is only as a reality that it has been disastrous. Among people of every race, color, and creed, all around the world, socialism has led to hunger in countries that used to have surplus food to export ... Nevertheless, for many of those who deal primarily in ideas, socialism remains an attractive idea
in fact, seductive. Its every failure is explained away as due to the inadequacies of particular leaders. — Thomas Sowell

This somewhat surprised Dodger; no one had offered him a prayer before, as far as he could recall. The idea that he might have one was, on this chilly night, a welcome warmth. Cuddling that to his bosom, he led Onan up the longs stairs to bed. — Terry Pratchett

It is doubtless true that the masses have always been led in one way or another, and it could be said that their part in history consists primarily in allowing themselves to be led, since they represent a predominantly passive element, a materia in the Aristotelian sense of the word; but in order to lead them today it is sufficient to possess oneself of purely material means, taking the word matter this time in its ordinary sense, and this clearly shows to what depths the present age has sunk; and at the same time these same masses are made to believe that they are not being led, but that they are acting spontaneously and governing themselves, and the fact that they believe this to be true gives an idea of the extent of their unintelligence. — Rene Guenon

No one in the history of the world had ever conceived of the idea that there could be a rebellion against a leader that would end not in a new leader but in a new kind of leadership altogether - a leadership that was accountable to those whom it led. — Eric Metaxas

The German people have no idea of the extent to which they have to be gulled in order to be led. — Adolf Hitler

To answer the question, though: I didn't always want to direct. I just liked the idea of it. If a friend was making a short and needed someone who knew screen direction, I would jump in. It would be horrible, but it led to a short, then another, and another. It was like student films. — Ben Affleck

For a good part of my life, I had a share in this idea that I have not yet quite abandoned. But there came a time when I could not protect myself, and indeed did not wish to protect myself, from the onslaught of reality. Marxism, I conceded, had its intellectual and philosophical and ethical glories, but they were in the past. Something of the heroic period might perhaps be retained, but the fact had to be faced: there was no longer any guide to the future. In addition, the very concept of a total solution had led to the most appalling human sacrifices, and to the invention of excuses for them. Those of us who had sought a rational alternative to religion had reached a terminus that was comparably dogmatic. What else was to be expected of something that was produced by the close cousins of chimpanzees? Infallibility? Thus, dear reader, if you have come this far and found your own faith undermined - as I hope - I am willing to say that to some extent I know what you are going through. — Christopher Hitchens

In high school, I could recognize extremes of emotion. I knew enough to run if a guy came yelling and screaming at me with a baseball bat. But a girl with a subtle expression on her face ... was she smiling at me? Laughing? Quizzical and curious? I had no idea. That led to a lot of awkward interactions and years of loneliness. — John Elder Robison

[I]n 1919, 1920 and 1921, the whole Israelite press stormed the Romanian state unleashing everywhere chaos and exhorting to violence against the regime, the form of government, the Church, the Romanian order, the national idea, patriotism. Now, as if by magic (in 1936), the same press, led exactly by the same people, has turned into a protector of the state order and its laws, and declares itself 'against violence', and we have become the 'enemies of the country', the 'right-wing extremists', 'in the pay and in the service of the enemy of Romanicity', and, before long, we will hear even this: that we are sponsored by the Jews. — Corneliu Zelea Codreanu

The thing I understood least of all was that knowledge led to despair and damnation. Our spiritual mentor had not said that those bad books had given a false picture of life: if that had been the case, he could easily have exposed their falsehood; the tragedy of the little girl whom he had failed to bring to salvation was that she had made a premature discovery of the true nature of reality. Well, anyhow, I thought, I shall discover it myself one day, and it isn't going to kill me: the idea that there was a certain age when knowledge of the truth could prove fatal I found offensive to common sense. — Simone De Beauvoir

"You ought to be ashamed," a woman in an Easter bonnet told Stein. "Your race gave us our religion ... " "From ancient polytheism, the belief in lots of gods," the woman continued a little more eruditely, "the Hebrew nation led us on to the idea that there is only one." "Which is just a step from the truth," said Stein. — Peter De Vries

This generation, and many others, have been led to believe that the devil is a myth, a figure, an idea, the idea of evil ... But the devil exists and we must fight against him. — Pope Francis

Look, I have no idea what's going on," I said, catching my breath. "I don't like myself either. I don't know what's happening to me. I don't want to tell you to fuck off. But you gotta understand, everything in my life feels different. I just want so badly to know if you like me. And I know how asinine that sounds. If you want me to leave you alone, I will, but sometimes ... sometimes you meet somebody and you know that whatever you did before, whatever your life was before, it must have been right ... nothing could've been too bad or gone too far wrong because it led you to this person. You're that person. Do you want me to go away? — Ethan Hawke

The study of economics has been again and again led astray by the vain idea that economics must proceed according to the pattern of other sciences. — Ludwig Von Mises

The idea that women are innately gentle is a fantasy, and a historically recent one. Kali, the Hindu goddess of destruction, is depicted as wreathed in male human skulls; the cruel entertainments of the Romans drew audiences as female as they were male; Boudicca led her British troops bloodily into battle. — Naomi Wolf

This work led cognitive therapists such as Aaron Beck, David D. Burns, and Albert Ellis to build treatment around the idea that our thoughts shape our emotions, not the other way around. By — Tom Butler-Bowdon

When I arrived at her door, with the weight of the entire world on my shoulders, she drew me into her arms and eased all my stress away. She comforted and spent time with me when she didn't have to. She didn't know me at all, had no idea who I was or what I intended for her, whether passion or pain. But her heart led her forward, that beautiful heart I wanted for myself. So when the moment came to kiss her, as we stood in the water at the beach, I seized it like a desperate man. I was a mad one on the edge of insanity and she was the tonic I needed. — Kenya Wright

Why do many believers insist on repeatedly pointing to the crimes of 20th century dictators who led officially atheistic societies as some sort of evidence of their god's existence? It makes no sense.
If the rivers of blood on Stalin's hands and Mao's hands, for example, are supposed to prove there is a god, then what do the oceans of blood on the hands of several thousand years' worth of religious kings, queens, presidents, popes, priests, generals, Crusadersm jihadists and tribal chiefs prove? It's not, of course, but if bodycount is somehow the measure of a god's likelihood of existence, then believers lose.
It is clear that humans are quite capable of killing with or without images of gods bouncing around in their heads. If anything, however, history suggests that the concept of gods makes the idea of massacring your fellow man (and women and children, too, of course) a lot easier to act upon. — Guy P. Harrison

The problem with my mind is it sways from side to side. The idea of me fantasizing about becoming an actor quickly led to depression. 'No, it was never going to happen to me.' I was a sixteen-year-old kid on the other side of the world from where they made movies. Scottish actors never really got play. There was Sean Connery, and that was it. — Gerard Butler

They came into being simultaneously in a garden, Eve and Adam, fully grown and naked and enjoying you could say the first Big Bang, and they had no idea how they got there until a snake led them to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and when they ate its fruit they both simultaneously came up with the idea of a creator-god, a good- and-evil decider, a gardener-god who made the garden, otherwise where did the garden come from, and then planted them in it like rootless plants. And — Salman Rushdie

One interview would lead us to another interview, which led us to another interview. We had the questions and the idea of chonicling this moment in time. But we didn't have a movie, per se. As we started interviewing people, it started to kind of define itself. — Keanu Reeves

I've been thinking. You'd better be my bridesmaid, since you gave me the idea that led to this whole farce. It's a horrible job, I'm sure, so you deserve it. Plus, you're my friend. Will you do it? — Jayne Bauling

Falling out of love was much harder than Gabe would have liked. Normally led through life by the heart attached to his sleeve, finding logic in love proved to be a bit like getting vaccinated for some dread disease: a good idea in the end, but the initial pain certainly wasn't any fun. He came to appreciate that there were worse ways to live than to live without love. For instance, if he didn't have arms, Gabe wouldn't be able to hide in his work. Yes, a life without arms would be quite tragic, indeed. — Leslye Walton

Delta Airlines recently proposed giving frequent flyers a controversial perk: the option of paying $5 extra to speak to a customer service agent in the United States, rather than be routed to a call center in India. Public disapproval led Delta to abandon the idea. — Michael J. Sandel

And with his arm around the younger man's shoulders still, he led him away from the bow and back to the small group by the tiller. Halt glanced up as they approached, caught a look from Gilan and had a pretty good idea what they had been talking about. "Where have you two been?" he asked, his tone light. admiring the view," Gilan told him. "Thought you might need a hand from the two wisest heads on board. — John Flanagan

More than sixty years ago, mathematical logicians, by defining precisely the concept of an algorithm, gave content to the ancient human idea of an effective calculation. Their definitions led to the creation of the digital computer, an interesting example of thought bending matter to its ends. — David Berlinski

It's a very good idea that we have a third term Labour government led by Tony Blair for a full term. — Peter Mandelson

You can't sell people a new idea backed only by your authority. You have to have respect for the lives the people have led to this point and begin with them there; their experiences have led them to their assumptions and conceptions. As you identify and legitimate those experiences, you can help people identify their own primary needs in society. Then they can begin to imagine other people as having parallel needs. — Raphael S. Ezekiel

We kept moving forward and didn't try to recreate the past .. the approach to each album was radically different every time. Many bands would have some success and, because they were locked into having a single - something we didn't have to worry about - they had to make sure there was something similar on the next album ... that was never the idea with Led Zeppelin .. the goal was to keep that spark of spontaneity at all times ... — Jimmy Page

We have come a long way in America because of Martin Luther King, Jr. He led a disciplined, nonviolent revolution under the rule of law, a revolution of values, a revolution of ideas. We've come a long way, but we still have a distance to go before all of our citizens embrace the idea of a truly interracial democracy, what I like to call the Beloved Community, a nation at peace with itself. — John Lewis

I loved the idea of recording. The idea of sound-on-sound-recording captured me as a young kid, and once I realized what it was I had an epiphany. Before I was even playing the guitar, I would create these lists of how I would record things and overdub them, like Led Zeppelin song, 'I could put this guitar on this track ... ' and so on. — Steve Vai