Ben Shahn Quotes

There's usually some process by which a potentially great idea gets prostituted into something lacklustre, or by which the wrong idea gets put forward.

It's the disease of thinking that a having a great idea is really 90% of the work. And if you just tell people, 'here's this great idea,' then of course they can go off and make it happen. The problem with that is that there's a tremendous amount of craftsmanship between a having a great idea and having a great product.

After the idea, there is plenty of time to learn the technology

It's important not to overstate the benefits of ideas. Quite frankly, I know it's kind of a romantic notion that you're just going to have this one brilliant idea and then everything is going to be great. But the fact is that coming up with an idea is the least important part of creating something great. It has to be the right idea and have good taste, but the execution and delivery are what's key.

I think we are used to being critical and evaluating ideas.

Ideas are easy. I've never met a single person who didn't think they had a world class idea. The hard part is making it a business.

I think it is the general rule that the originator of a new idea is not the most suitable person to develop it, because his fears of something going wrong are really too strong... At age 69.

Ideas are of themselves extraordinarily valuable, but an idea is just an idea. Almost anyone can think up an idea. The thing that counts is developing it into a practical product.

To make an idea become a reality is a process that fascinates me; otherwise it stays just an idea.

Ideas really do matter. But in any organization a good idea will only go so far unless its proponents are willing to fight the political games to get the idea adopted.

Sometimes it takes a germ of an idea, which takes a long time to digest.

It takes me a long time to change. I don't think you can just go out and figure out a bunch of visual ideas and photograph. The change happens in living and not through thinking.

It varies, I don't think there is any one set way of writing songs or coming up with ideas, it comes in so many ways you know.

Today many American corporations spend a great deal of money and time trying to increase the originality of their employees, hoping thereby to get a competitive edge in the marketplace. But such programs make no difference unless management also learns to recognize the valuable ideas among the many novel ones, and then finds ways of implementing them.

It's not the ink, it's the think.

The well-meaning contention that all ideas have equal merit seems to me little different from the disastrous contention that no ideas have any merit.

I don't think all of my ideas are good. It's almost easier when people are critical of you because it helps with the quality control.

I always try to appreciate the most fleeting moments. The idea of the acrobats constantly tumbling and trying to adjust - I think that is what we do with aesthetics. It is a cyclical rhythm

Writin songs is like a mystery. The most difficult thing to do is have a good idea. If you have a decent idea, the songs are the easy part. Actually having something to say is the hard part. If you get an idea for a song, then it pulls you along. There are just some ideas that you get that are really hard to edit out; it's hard to stop thinking about some bad ideas. So you just finish it and you end up putting it on a record.

I don't have any ideas; my coaches have them. I just pass the ideas on and referee the arguments.

The painting is finished when the idea has disappeared.

The problem isn't so much finding good ideas (there is no shortage) as embedding the ones we have into everyday practice.

I get up in the morning with an idea for a three-volume novel and by nightfall it's a paragraph in my column.

I think it's important to just be in your subconscious mind - at least when you're starting an idea.