Great Inventors Quotes

• Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something - your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

  Steve Jobs

  Inspirational, Life, Inspiring

  "Edgewalkers: People and Organizations That Take Risks, Build Bridges, and". Book by Judi Neal, p. 163, October 30, 2006.

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• That's been one of my mantras - focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it's worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.

  Steve Jobs

  Change, Inspiring, Life Changing

  "The 13 Most Memorable Quotes From Steve Jobs" by Dylan Love, www.businessinsider.com. October 5, 2011.

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• Name the greatest of all inventors. Accident.

  Mark Twain

  Inspirational, Success, Smart

  Mark Twain (2012). “Mark Twain at Your Fingertips: A Book of Quotations”, p.210, Courier Corporation

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• 

  Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life.

  Steve Jobs

  Inspirational, Life, Motivational

  Commencement Address at Stanford University, delivered 12 June 2005, Palo Alto, CA

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• Simple can be harder than complex. You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple.

  Steve Jobs

  Change, Life Changing, Hard Work

  "Steve Jobs quotes: the man in his own words", www.theguardian.com. October 6, 2011.

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• Focus and simplicity...once you get there, you can move mountains.

  Steve Jobs

  Life Lesson, Moving, Simple

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• America is a country of inventors, and the greatest of inventors are the newspaper men.

  Alexander Graham Bell

  Country, Men, America

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• You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards.

  Steve Jobs

  Change, Success, Trust

  Commencement Address at Stanford University, delivered 12 June 2005, Palo Alto, CA

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• Interest is the spur of the people, but glory that of great souls.

  Jean-Jacques Rousseau

  People, Soul, Spurs

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• We are all inventors, each sailing out on a voyage of discovery, guided each by a private chart, of which there is no duplicate. The world is all gates, all opportunities.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Inspirational, Motivational, Positive

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2010). “The Later Lectures of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1843-1871”, p.340, University of Georgia Press

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• Interest is the spur of the people, but glory that of great souls. Invention is the talent of youth, and judgment of age.

  Jonathan Swift

  Birthday, People, Soul

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• You have to trust in something--your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever.

  Steve Jobs

  Success, Trust, Karma

  Commencement Address at Stanford University, delivered 12 June 2005, Palo Alto, CA

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• great inventors and discoverers seem to have made their discoveries and inventions as it were by the way, in the course of their everyday life.

  Elizabeth Charles

  Discovery, Innovation, Everyday

  Elizabeth Rundle Charles (1865). “Chronicles of the Schönberg-Cotta Family”, p.40

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• Although the devil be the father of lies, he seems, like other great inventors, to have lost much of his reputation by the continual improvements that have been made upon him.

  Jonathan Swift

  Father, Lying, Devil

  Jonathan Swift (2011). “Gulliver's Travels and Other Writings”, p.558, Bantam Classics

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• Not only was [Edwin Land] one of the great inventors of our time but, more important, he saw the intersection of art and science and business and built an organization to reflect that.

  Steve Jobs

  Art, Land, Organization

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• I'm not a great inventor from scratch. What I do is to use, steal, acquire, reproduce or re-cycle music from other musicians.

  Michael Nyman

  Musician, Scratches, Use

  "He's got that thinking feeling". Interview with Peter Conrad, www.theguardian.com. May 11, 2002.

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• People have laughed at all great inventors and discoverers.

  John Thomas Sladek

  People, Inventor, Laughed

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• After all the allowances are made for the necessity of having a few supermen in our midst - explorers, conquerors, great inventors, great presidents, heroes who change the course of history - the happiest man is still the man of the middle class who has earned a slight means of economic independence, who has done a little, but just a little, for mankind and who is slightly distinguished in his community, but not too distinguished.

  Lin Yutang

  Hero, Mean, Men

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• Nothing retains its form; new shapes from old. Nature, the great inventor, ceaselessly contrives. In all creation, be assured, there is no death - no death, but only change and innovation; what we men call birth is but a different new beginning; death is but to cease to be the same. Perhaps this may have moved to that, and that to this, yet still the sum of things remains the same.

  Ovid

  Death, New Beginnings, Men

  Ovid,, A. D. Melville, E. J. Kenney (2008). “Metamorphoses”, p.359, Oxford University Press

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• It's as great a part of the human adventure to invent things as to understand them. John Randall wasn't a great scientist, but he was a great inventor. There's been lots more like him, and it's a shame they don't get Nobel Prizes.

  Freeman Dyson

  Adventure, Shame, Scientist

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• You know, Dr. Edwin Land was a troublemaker. He dropped out of Harvard and founded Polaroid. Not only was he one of the great inventors of our time but, more important, he saw the intersection of art and science and business and built an organization to reflect that. Polaroid did that for some years, but eventually Dr. Land, one of those brilliant troublemakers, was asked to leave his own company - which is one of the dumbest things I've ever heard of.

  Steve Jobs

  Art, Years, Land

  "Playboy Interview: Steve Jobs". Interview With David Sheff, reprints.longform.org. February 1985.

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