Invention Quotes - Page 25

• Regarded in isolation, an idea may be quite insignificant, and venturesome in the extreme, but it may acquire importance from an idea which follows it; perhaps, in a certain collocation with other ideas, which may seem equally absurd, it may be capable of furnishing a very serviceable link.

  Friedrich Schiller

  Ideas, Judgement, Connections

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• My grandfather lived across the garden from us, and in his attic he had a lot of radios, appliances and inventions that he had made over 50 years, such as a keyboard called a clavioline, which can be heard on some Beatles songs - it was popular in the 60s. So we had all that at home.

  Michel Gondry

  Song, Home, Garden

  Interview with Sandra Hebron, www.theguardian.com. February 7, 2007.

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• What I tend to do is to wake about five in the morning-this happens quite often-think about the invention, and then image it in my mind in 3D, as a kind of construct. Then I do experiments with the image...sort of rotate it, and say, 'Well what'll happen if one does this?' And by the time I get up for breakfast I can usually go to the bench and make a string and sealing wax model that works straight off, because I've done most of the experiments already.

  James Lovelock

  Morning, Thinking, Imagination

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• Without writing, the literate mind would not and could not think as it does, not only when engaged in writing but normally even when it is composing its thoughts in oral form. More than any other single invention writing has transformed human consciousness.

  Walter J. Ong

  Writing, Science, Thinking

  Walter J. Ong (2013). “Orality and Literacy”, p.77, Routledge

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• I look forward to the invention of faster-than-light travel. What I'm not looking forward to is the long wait in the dark once I arrive at my destination.

  Marc Beland

  Funny, Travel, Dark

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• Too much attention to health is a hindrance to learning, to invention, and to studies of any kind, for we are always feeling suspicious shootings and swimmings in our heads, and we are prone to blame studies from them.

  Plato

  Plato, Swimming, Feelings

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• Race is an invention, not a noticeable genetic presence, and cultural traits are brute concoctions of the social sciences.

  Gerald Vizenor

  Race, Justice, Diversity

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• Ten builders rear an arch, each in turn lifting it higher; but it is the tenth man, who drops in the keystone, who hears our huzzas.

  George Iles

  Science, Men, Research

  George Iles (1918). “Canadian Stories”

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• The attack on youth is a national pathology, unwarranted by fact, smokescreen for the failure of adulthood and its leadership to confront larger predicaments. No rescue by the monied, governing, institutional, or otherwise privileged is in sight. It's up to the energy and inventiveness of the younger generation to pull the gated minds of millennium America toward acceptance of diversity, community, and fairness, and I hope they have as much fun as I did in my adolescences achieving what we Sixties kids only imagined.

  Mike A. Males

  Fun, Kids, Acceptance

  Mike A. Males (1999). “Framing youth: ten myths about the next generation”, Common Courage Pr

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• In a world of widely distributed knowledge, companies cannot afford to rely entirely on their own research, but should instead buy or license processes or inventions (i.e. patents) from other companies. In addition, internal inventions not being used in a firm’s business should be taken outside the company.

  Henry Chesbrough

  Taken, Patents, Research

  "Championship: Opening up the ivory tower" by Francis Moran and Leo Valiquette, www.businessinsider.com. October 11, 2011.

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• In order to get one of the greatest inventions of the modern age, in other words, we thought we needed the solitary genius. But if Alexander Graham Bell had fallen into the Grand River and drowned that day back in Brantford, the world would still have had the telephone, the only difference being that the telephone company would have been nicknamed Ma Gray, not Ma Bell.

  Malcolm Gladwell

  Order, Ideas, Rivers

  "In the Air" by Malcolm Gladwell, www.newyorker.com. May 12, 2008.

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• GUNPOWDER, n. An agency employed by civilized nations for the settlement of disputes which might become troublesome if left unadjusted. By most writers the invention of gunpowder is ascribed to the Chinese, but not upon very convincing evidence. Milton says it was invented by the devil to dispel angels with, and this opinion seems to derive some support from the scarcity of angels.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Angel, Science, Agency

  Ambrose Bierce (2001). “The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary”, p.102, University of Georgia Press

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• I never pick up an item without thinking of how I might improve it. I never perfected an invention that I did not think about in terms of the service it might give others. I want to save and advance human life, not destroy it. I am proud of the fact that I never invented weapons to kill. The dove is my emblem.

  Thomas A. Edison

  Technology, Thinking, Giving

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• The charm of the best courages is that they are inventions, inspirations, flashes of genius.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Courage, Inspiration, Genius

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.2507, Delphi Classics

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• An exquisite invention this, Worthy of Love's most honeyed kiss,-- This art of writing billet-doux-- In buds, and odors, and bright hues! In saying all one feels and thinks In clever daffodils and pinks; In puns of tulips; and in phrases, Charming for their truth, of daisies.

  Leigh Hunt

  Art, Clever, Writing

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• His (the writer's) standard of fidelity to the truth should be so high that his invention, out of his experience, should produce a truer account than anything factual can be.

  Ernest Hemingway

  Fidelity, Should, Produce

  Ernest Hemingway, Patrick Hemingway (2012). “Hemingway on War”, p.24, Simon and Schuster

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• The most desirable mode of education, is that which is careful that all the acquisitions of the pupil shall be preceded and accompanied by desire . . . The boy, like the man, studies because he desires it. He proceeds upon a plan of is own invention, or by which, by adopting, he has made his own. Everything bespeaks independence and inequality.

  William Godwin

  Boys, Men, Independence

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• The vanishing point leads to the missiles of today, which can take us out of this world. It could be that the west's greatest mistakes were the 'invention' of the external vanishing point and the internal combustion engine.

  David Hockney

  Mistake, Perspective, World

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• There can be no doubt but that he who has the most materials has the greatest means of invention.

  Joshua Reynolds

  Mean, Doubt, Materials

  Sir Joshua Reynolds, Edmond Malone (1809). “The Works of Sir Joshua Reynolds”, p.159

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• A world in everlasting conflict between the new idea and the old allegiances, new arts and new inventions against the old establishment.

  Joyce Cary

  Art, Ideas, World

  Joyce Cary, Alan Bishop (1976). “Selected essays”, Michael Joseph

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• Never stop because you are afraid - you are never so likely to be wrong. Never keep a line of retreat: it is a wretched invention. The difficult is what takes a little time; the impossible is what takes a little longer.

  Fridtjof Nansen

  Lines, Littles, Retreat

  Quoted in Listener, 14 Dec. 1939 See Calonne 1; Santayana 14; Trollope 3

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• One of the great inventions of the twentieth century was the studied, methodical engineering of myth for political ends.

  Caryl Rivers

  Engineering, Political, Great Inventions

  Caryl Rivers (1991). “More joy than rage: crossing generations with the new feminism”, Univ Pr of New England

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• The greater opportunity enabled me to make important discoveries and inventions.

  Philip Emeagwali

  Opportunity, Discovery, Important

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• It is definitely mostly due to the invention of the camera that all this design and emphasized paint quality have come into painting.

  E. J. Hughes

  Photography, Design, Quality

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• Chaos theory, a more recent invention, is equally fertile ground for those with a bent for abusing sense. It is unfortunately named, for 'chaos' implies randomness. Chaos in the technical sense is not random at all. It is completely determined, but it depends hugely, in strangely hard-to-predict ways, on tiny differences in initial conditions.

  Richard Dawkins

  Science, Differences, Way

  Richard Dawkins (2017). “Science in the Soul: Selected Writings of a Passionate Rationalist”, p.87, Random House

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