You can know yourself to be kind, but unless you do someone a kindness, you have nothing but an idea aboutyourself.

你可以知道你自己是善良的，但除非你向另一个人做了善事，你只是对你自己有这样一个观念而已。

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The rise of anti-happy art almost exactly tracks the emergence of mass media, and with it, a commercial culture in which happiness is not just an idea but an ideology.

反快乐艺术的兴起与大众传媒的出现几乎是同步的，与之相伴的是一种商业文化，在这种文化中，快乐不仅仅是一种主张，而是一种意识形态。

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I had an idea that he joined the army later, after college, but I may be wrong.

我猜想他大学毕业后参了军，不过我也许错了。

《柯林斯英汉双解大词典》

But some historians suggest that the inclusion of opponents may not have been as smart an idea as Lincoln had hoped.

VOA: special.2009.02.09

I said, "I have no idea how to do that but it's an interesting idea. But let's keep talking.

我说：“我不爱懂这一行,不过这个想法不错，我们接着聊吧。

斯坦福公开课 - Twitter之父Jack.Dorsey演讲：好奇和灵感的力量课程节选

That's an idea that struck people intuitively at various times in history, but they didn't know how to do these calculations.

在历史上,人们很多次,直觉地感知到了这一点,但是他们不知道怎么去计算

耶鲁公开课 - 金融市场课程节选

But he also sketches a portrait of a place that is not just a city, but an idea, and a dream.

CNN: Is Dubai the center of the world (again)?

Anschutz has given Leiweke the latitude and capital to build AEG out of nothing but an idea for a sports arena.

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"Twenty-five years ago, my friends and I started with nothing but an idea--that we could harness the power of the PC to improve people's lives, " Gates says earnestly.

CNN: Gates gets slammed