Invention Quotes - Page 17

• Television was the most revolutionary event of the century. Its importance was in a class with the discovery of gunpowder and the invention of the printing press, which changed the human condition for centuries afterward.

  Russell Baker

  Discovery, Class, Television

  Russell Baker (1991). “There's a Country in My Cellar”, Avon Books

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• Motors make noise and that tells you about the feelings and attitudes that went into it. Something was more important than sensory pleasure - nobody would invent a chair or dish that smelled bad or that made horrible noises - why were motors invented noisy? How could they possibly be considered complete or successful inventions with this glaring defect? Unless, of course, the aggressive, hostile, assaultive sound actually served to express some impulse of the owner.

  Philip Slater

  Attitude, Successful, Feelings

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• Every invention creates new needs, but the biggest needs are not for new and more advanced versions of the last invention but for solutions to the social problems the last invention created.

  Philip Slater

  Needs, Lasts, Problem

  "The Joys of Technology: Burying Ourselves in Capabilities" by Philip Slater, www.huffingtonpost.com. January 3, 2007.

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• A brilliant idea doesn't guarantee a successful invention. Real magic comes from a brilliant idea combined with willpower, tenacity, and a willingness to make mistakes.

  Lori Greiner

  Real, Mistake, Successful

  "20 Quotes From the Two Women of 'Shark Tank'" by John Brandon, www.inc.com. January 20, 2015.

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• The not-knowing is crucial to art, is what permits art to be made. Without the scanning process engendered by not-knowing, without the possibility of having the mind move in unanticipated directions, there would be no invention.

  Donald Barthelme

  Art, Moving, Knowing

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• It is the friction of two spiritual things, of tradition and invention, or of substance and symbol, from which the mind takes fire. The creeds condemned as complex have something like the secret of sex; they can breed thoughts.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Spiritual, Sex, Fire

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• Why do I think that we, the intellectuals, are able to help? Simply because we, the intellectuals, have done the most terrible harm for thousands of years. Mass murder in the name of an idea, a doctrine, a theory, a religion - that is all "our" doing, "our" invention: the invention of the intellectuals. If only we would stop setting man against man - often with the best intentions - much would be gained. Nobody can say that it is impossible for us to stop doing this.

  Karl Popper

  Men, Thinking, Ideas

  Karl Popper (2012). “In Search of a Better World: Lectures and Essays from Thirty Years”, p.189, Routledge

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• Ever since the arrival of printing - thought to be the invention of the devil because it would put false opinions into people's minds - people have been arguing that new technology would have disastrous consequences for language.

  David Crystal

  Technology, People, Mind

  "2b or not 2b?" by David Crystal, www.theguardian.com. July 4, 2008.

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• In the abstract art of cooking, ingredients trump appliances, passion supersedes expertise, creativity triumphs over technique, spontaneity inspires invention, and wine makes even the worst culinary disaster taste delicious.

  Bob Blumer

  Art, Passion, Wine

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• Too often we forget that genius, too, depends upon the data within its reach, that even Archimedes could not have devised Edison's inventions.

  Ernest Dimnet

  Data, Genius, Forget

  Ernest Dimnet (1954). “The Art of Thinking”, p.113, Prabhat Prakashan

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• For Rousseau and Mandeville the absence of a moral instinct meant the laws of society had no moral validity, they were nothing but the inventions of the cunning and the powerful, in order to maintain or to acquire an unnatural and unjust superiority over the rest of their fellow creatures.

  Gertrude Himmelfarb

  Powerful, Order, Law

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• It has been just so in all my inventions. The first step is an intuition-and comes with a burst, then difficulties arise. This thing that gives out and then that-"Bugs"as such little faults and difficulties are called show themselves and months of anxious watching, study and labor are requisite before commercial success-or failure-is certainly reached.

  Thomas A. Edison

  Success, Science, Giving

  Letter to Theodore Puskas, 18 Nov. 1878.

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• It may be unpopular and out-of-date to say-but I do not think that a scientific result which gives us a better understanding of the world and makes it more harmonious in our eyes should be held in lower esteem than, say, an invention which reduces the cost of paving roads, or improves household plumbing.

  Alfred Tarski

  Eye, Science, Thinking

  Alfred Tarski (1986). “Alfred Tarski, Collected Papers: 1935-1944”, Birkhauser

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• I never thought that my creation, would allow brothers to kill brothers. (after seeing his invention being used in war, The Airplane) Alberto Santos-Dumont

  Alberto Santos-Dumont

  Brother, Regret, War

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• The typical eye sees the ten per cent bad of an idea and overlooks the ninety per cent good.

  Charles Kettering

  Eye, Ideas, Judgement

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• All nationalisms are at heart deeply concerned with names: with the most immaterial and original human invention. Those who dismiss names as a detail have never been displaced; but the peoples on the peripheries are always being displaced. That is why they insist upon their continuity - their links with their dead and the unborn.

  John Berger

  Heart, Names, Links

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• To be sure, the use of force by one party in a market transaction in order to improve his price was no invention of capitalism. Unequal exchange is an ancient practice. What was remarkable about capitalism as a historical system was the way in which this unequal exchange could be hidden; indeed, hidden so well that it is only after five hundred years of the operation of this mechanism that even the avowed opponents of the system have begun to unveil it systematically.

  Immanuel Wallerstein

  Party, Order, Years

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• Of all the inventions of man I doubt whether any was more easily accomplished than that of a Heaven.

  Georg C. Lichtenberg

  Men, Heaven, Doubt

  "Aphorisms". Book by Georg Christoph Lichtenberg. Notebook L 34, 1799.

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• Values cannot be speedily forgotten if it is inconvenient or commercially expedient. Values have to have meaning and longevity; otherwise they are valueless. You cannot embrace innovation up to a point or only sometimes. Branding demands commitment; commitment to continual re-invention; striking cords with people to stir their emotions; and commitment to imagination. It is easy to be cynical about such things, much harder to be successful.

  Richard Branson

  Commitment, Successful, Imagination

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• Hope, even more than necessity, is the mother of invention.

  Jonathan Sacks

  Mother, Challenges, Inspire

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• In some cases, inventions prohibit innovation because we're so caught up in playing with the technology, we forget about the fact that it was supposed to be important.

  Dean Kamen

  Technology, Innovation, Important

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• Methinks the human method of expression by sound of tongue is very elementary, and ought to be substituted for some ingenious invention which should be able to give vent to at least six coherent sentences at once.

  Virginia Woolf

  Expression, Giving, Sound

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• The Wright Brothers created the single greatest cultural force since the invention of writing. The airplane became the first World Wide Web, bringing people, languages, ideas, and values together.

  Bill Gates

  Travel, Brother, Writing

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• Without creative, independently thinking and judging personalities the upward development of society is as unthinkable as the development of the individual personality without the nourishing soil of the community.

  Albert Einstein

  Thinking, Judging, Creative

  Albert Einstein (2007). “The World As I See It”, p.9, Book Tree

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• The Ten Commandments have lost their validity...Conscience is a Jewish invention. It is a blemish like circumcision.

  Adolf Hitler

  Circumcision, Lost, Judaism

  "Hitler Speaks". Book by Hermann Rauschning, p. 220, 1939.

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