Inventor Quotes

• An inventor is simply a fellow who doesn't take his education too seriously.

  Charles Kettering

  Education, Technology, Intelligence

  Charles Franklin Kettering (1961). “Prophet of progress: selections from the speeches of Charles F. Kettering”

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• I do not think there is any thrill that can go through the human heart like that felt by the inventor as he sees some creation of the brain unfolding to success ... Such emotions make a man forget food, sleep, friends, love, everything.

  Nikola Tesla

  Motivational, Success, Heart

  "Marconi and Tesla: Pioneers of Radio Communication" by Tim O'Shei, (p. 5), 2008.

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• Anti-social behavior is a trait of intelligence in a world full of conformists.

  Nikola Tesla

  Intelligence, Social Behavior, World

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• An inventor fails 999 times, and if he succeeds once, he's in. He treats his failures simply as practice shots.

  Charles Kettering

  Life, Motivational, Positive

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• We should make the poor uncomfortable and kick them out of poverty.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Society, Poverty, Politician

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  Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.

  Thomas A. Edison

  Inspirational, Motivational, Positive

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• Inventor: A person who makes an ingenious arrangement of wheels, levers and springs, and believes it civilization.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Spring, Believe, Science

  Ambrose Bierce (2009). “The Devil's Dictionary: Easyread Super Large 18pt Edition”, p.180, ReadHowYouWant.com

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• Having a vision for what you want is not enough...Vision without execution is hallucination

  Thomas A. Edison

  Motivational, Entrepreneur, Vision

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• The purpose of our lives is to add value to the people of this generation and those that follow.

  R. Buckminster Fuller

  Inspirational, Life, People

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• Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.

  Thomas A. Edison

  Funny, Life, Motivational

  "An Enemy Called Average". Book by John L. Mason, 1990.

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• There are many points in the history of an invention which the inventor himself is apt to overlook as trifling, but in which posterity never fail to take a deep interest. The progress of the human mind is never traced with such a lively interest as through the steps by which it perfects a great invention; and there is certainly no invention respecting which this minute information will be more eagerly sought after, than in the case of the steam-engine.

  David Brewster

  Creativity, Science, Mind

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• We have all heard of Young America. He is the most current youth of the age. Some think him conceited, and arrogant; but has he not reason to entertain a rather extensive opinion of himself? Is he not the inventor and owner of the present, and sole hope of the future?

  Abraham Lincoln

  Conceited, Thinking, America

  Abraham Lincoln (2009). “Abraham Lincoln: Selected Speeches and Writings”, p.280, Library of America

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• The Unexpected stalks a farm in big boots like a vagrant bent on havoc. Not every farmer is an inventor, but the good ones have the seeds of invention within them. Economy and efficiency move their relentless tinkering and yet the real motive often seems to be aesthetic. The mind that first designed a cutter bar is not far different from a mind that can take the intractable steel of an outsized sickle blade and make it hum in the end. The question is how to reduce the simplicity that constitutes a problem ("It's simple; it's broke.") to the greater simplicity that constitutes a solution.

  Verlyn Klinkenborg

  Real, Moving, Science

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• If you build a better mousetrap, you will catch better mice.

  George Gobel

  Animal, Invention, Mice

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• People think of the inventor as a screwball, but no one ever asks the inventor what he thinks of other people.

  Charles Kettering

  Science, Thinking, People

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• O! for a muse of fire, that would ascend the brightest heaven of invention.

  William Shakespeare

  Fire, Heaven, Muse

  'Henry V' (1599) chorus, l. 1

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• If it weren't for Philo T. Farnsworth, inventor of television, we'd still be eating frozen radio dinners.

  Johnny Carson

  Funny, Witty, Humorous

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• The real use of gunpowder is to make all men tall.

  Thomas Carlyle

  Real, Men, Gunpowder

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• Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Motivational, Wise, Money

  Benjamin Franklin (1821). “Essays and Letters”, p.80

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• I never perfected an invention that I did not think about in terms of the service it might give others... I find out what the world needs, then I proceed to invent.

  Thomas A. Edison

  Inspirational, Motivational, Creativity

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• It is only the unimaginative who ever invents. The true artist is known by the use he makes of what he annexes.

  Oscar Wilde

  Science, Artist, Use

  Oscar Wilde (2012). “The Wit and Humor of Oscar Wilde”, p.59, Courier Corporation

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• Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work at hand. The sun's rays do not burn until brought to a focus.

  Alexander Graham Bell

  Inspirational, Inspiring, Procrastination

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• The test of an invention is the power of an inventor to push it through in the face of staunch-not opposition, but indifference-in society.

  Edwin Land

  Science, Tests, Faces

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• Only an inventor knows how to borrow, and every man is or should be an inventor.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Innovation, Insightful

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Richard Lee Grossman (2005). “A Year with Emerson: A Daybook”, p.220, David R. Godine Publisher

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• The great creators - the thinkers, the artists, the scientists, the inventors - stood alone against the men of their time. Every great new thought was opposed. Every great new invention was denounced. The first motor was considered foolish. The airplane was considered impossible... But the men of unborrowed vision went ahead. They fought, they suffered and they paid. But they won.

  Ayn Rand

  Airplane, Artist, Men

  Ayn Rand (1999). “Ayn Rand Reader”, p.72, Penguin

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