Idea

Idea

An idea is a concept or mental impression. Very often, ideas are construed as representational images; i.e. images of some object. In other contexts, ideas are taken to be concepts, although abstract concepts do not necessarily appear as images. Many philosophers consider ideas to be a fundamental ontological category of being. The capacity to create and understand the meaning of ideas is considered to be an essential and defining feature of human beings. In a popular sense, an idea arises in a reflex, spontaneous manner, even without thinking or serious reflection, for example, when we talk about the idea of a person or a place.

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Famous quotes containing the word idea:

    Congress seems drugged and inert most of the time. ...Its idea of meeting a problem is to hold hearings or, in extreme cases, to appoint a commission.
    Shirley Chisholm (b. 1924)

    The true poem is not that which the public read. There is always a poem not printed on paper,... in the poet’s life. It is what he has become through his work. Not how is the idea expressed in stone, or on canvas or paper, is the question, but how far it has obtained form and expression in the life of the artist. His true work will not stand in any prince’s gallery.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    Every idea is endowed of itself with immortal life, like a human being. All created form, even that which is created by man, is immortal. For form is independent of matter: molecules do not constitute form.
    Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867)