Ideas are the beginning of all things.
The world we live in today first existed as ideas in the minds of men...bridges, skyscrapers, automobiles, airplanes, religions, philosophies, governments, symphonies, paintings, poems....everything!
Man’s future is vast because God has given him unlimited power to create ideas.
Man’s greatest freedom is free to think.
Man’s mind has immense scope. “The mind,” wrote Lewis Mumford, “is a power station, a storage warehouse, a library, a theatre, a museum, a hall of archives, a court of justice.”
Ideas make men giants.
The art of creating ideas is man’s most challenging quest....
First, a man must win the battle against his own inertia. “There is no expedient to which man will not resort to avoid the real labour of thinking,” wrote Joshua Reynolds.
Second, he will learn from Edison, who said, “I am more of a sponge than inventor.” He will sponge up all the data and facts about a problem, look at it from every angle, attack it with power and penetration.
Third, he will harness the power of his subconscious mind. When intense concentration on the conscious level fails to reveal the answer, he will relax, play golf, fish, listen to music, or sleep on the problem. He will use what Oliver Wendell Holmes called “ the underground workshop of the mind.”
Fourth, he will keep alert to the stream of thought continuously flowing through his mind. Like a prospector panning for gold, he will watch for the idea nuggets that flash in his consciousness.
Fifth, he will evaluate the ideas he receives. He will reject the inferior ones and polish and improve the good ones.
Sixth, he will turn ideas from dreams into realities. He will make them servants of man.
Millions of ideas are awaiting discovery by the minds of men...ideas that will change the world, build the peace, conquer man’s common enemies.
Every man can contribute more if he will think more.
Written by Wilfred Peterson in 1960.
