“With the magnitude of the challenges we face right now, what we need in Washington are not more political tactics, we need more good ideas. We don't need more point scoring, we need more problem solving.” NeedsIdeasProblemFacesPoliticalChallengesRight NowGood IdeasProblem SolvingTacticsMagnitudeChallenges We Face Author:Barack Obama
“Twenty-one years ago, when I first heard Mia Farrow had accused me of child molestation, I found the idea so ludicrous I didn't give it a second thought. We were involved in a terribly acrimonious breakup, with great enmity between us and a custody battle slowly gathering energy. The self-serving transparency of her malevolence seemed so obvious I didn't even hire a lawyer to defend myself. It was my show business attorney who told me she was bringing the accusation to the police and I would need a criminal lawyer.” NeedsGivingYearsFirstsChildrenIdeasSelfShowsFoundEnergyHeardInvolvedBattleYears AgoTwentiesPoliceObviousCriminalsLawyerBreakupServingGatheringShow BusinessAccusedTransparencyAttorneyTwenty OneAccusationEnmitySelf ServingSecond ThoughtsCustodyMiaCriminal LawMalevolenceMolestation Author:Woody Allen
“[George W. Bush] has balls. And he's a leader. Unfortunately his balls and leadership are in the service of shitty ideas. We need his balls on someone who thinks right.” ThinkingNeedsIdeasLeaderBalls Author:Bill Maher
“For Immanuel Kant, the term anthropology embraced all the human sciences, and laid the foundation of familiar knowledge we need, to build solidly grounded ideas about the moral and political demands of human life. Margaret Mead saw mid-twentieth-century anthropology as engaged in a project no less ambitious than Kant's own, and her Terry Lectures on Continuities in Cultural Evolution provide an excellent point to enter into her reflections.” NeedsHumansIdeasPoliticalTermMoralSawsCenturyEvolutionDemandProjectsReflectionFoundationFamiliarExcellentHuman LifeEngagedAmbitiousGroundedLecturesTwentieth CenturyContinuityAnthropologyMead Author:Margaret Mead
“It confirms my idea that you also need more liberal gun laws. Guns lead to a polite society, as we like to say in the United States. And I think that all of western Canada would agree with me.” ThinkingNeedsIdeasStatesLawUnitedUnited StatesGunAgreeWesternCanadaPoliteGun LawWestern Canada Author:Ann Coulter
“The trouble is with socialism, which resembles a form of mental illness more than it does a philosophy. Socialists get bees in their bonnets. And because they chronically lack any critical faculty to examine and evaluate their ideas, and because they are pathologically unwilling to consider the opinions of others, and most of all, because socialism is a mindset that regards the individual and his rights as insignificant, compared to whatever the socialist believes the group needs, terrible, terrible things happen when socialists acquire power.” NeedsBelieveDoeIdeasPhilosophyHappensFormIndividualOpinionRightsTroubleGroupsTerribleRegardIllnessCriticalMindsetThings HappenSocialismMental IllnessAcquireFacultyBeesSocialistInsignificantTerrible ThingsUnwillingEvaluateBonnets Author:L. Neil Smith
“I hate writing. I so intensely hate writing - I cannot tell you how much. The moment I am at the end of one project I have the idea that I didn't really succeed in telling what I wanted to tell, that I need a new project - it's an absolute nightmare. But my whole economy of writing is in fact based on an obsessional ritual to avoid the actual act of writing.” NeedsWritingIdeasEndsWholeMomentsFactsWantedHateEconomySucceedProjectsI HateAbsolutesNightmareRitualNew Projects Author:Slavoj Žižek
“When Tony Benn became a minister in the 1960s -- and I think this must be apocryphal -- he had a huge map of Britain hung upside down in his office, so the channel was at the top and Scotland was at the bottom and, apparently, he said, "This is how we need to look at this country, with the money and the power draining by force of gravity out of the south east." That was a great idea. I rather liked him for that. I don't know if it's actually true or not.” IfsThinkingKnowsNeedsLooksSaidIdeasCountryForceHugeOfficeSouthBottomEastMinistersBritainMapsGravityHungScotland1960sGreat IdeaUpside DownDraining Author:Neal Ascherson
“The wealthy are generally impressed with an idea, that they shall never stand in need of public charitable relief; but a little less confidence would become them better.” NeedsLittlesIdeasReliefWealthyImpressedCharitable Book:A Treatise on Political Economy; Or, The Production, Distribution, and Consumption of Wealth Source: A Treatise on Political Economy; Or, The Production, Distribution, and Consumption of Wealth
“A piece of literature can be many things but first of all it must capture its audience. You need to seduce people, entice them into a world of beauty and horror, light and shadow, of passion, of romance, of mystery. That's the magic of it. Beyond that, of course, you can open a dialogue about the ideas which interest you, but first of all you absolutely must get inside people's minds.” PeopleWorldNeedsMindFirstsIdeasLightRomancePassionCoursesLiteratureInterestAudiencePiecesMagicMysteryHorrorShadowDialogueCaptureSeducingLight And Shadow Author:Carlos Ruiz Zafon
“You need to know a lot about what's going on, but when it comes to making the work, I take almost an anti-intellectual stance. You've got to be stupid enough, in some ways, to plunge into something that you have no idea what it's about. If you know what you're going to do before you do it, you just end up illustrating an idea.” IfsKnowsWayNeedsIdeasEndsEnoughStupidIntellectualNo IdeaPlungeStanceIllustrating Author:Tim Zuck
“I truly believe that writing is a continuum--so the different genres and forms are simply stops along the same continuum. Different ideas that need to be expressed sometimes require different forms for the ideas to float better.” NeedsWritingBelieveIdeasDifferentSometimesFormGenreFloatsContinuumDifferent GenresDifferent Ideas Author:Chris Abani