To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk.
I am proud of the fact that I never invented weapons to kill.
Anything that won't sell, I don't want to invent. Its sale is proof of utility, and utility is success.
The biggest job we have is to teach a newly hired employee how to fail intelligently. We have to train him to experiment over and over and to keep on trying and failing until he learns what will work.
An inventor is simply a fellow who doesn't take his education too seriously.
Invention strictly speaking, is little more than a new combination of those images which have been previously gathered and deposited in the memory; nothing can come from nothing.
In my own time there have been inventions of this sort, transparent windows tubes for diffusing warmth equally through all parts of a building short-hand, which has been carried to such a perfection that a writer can keep pace with the most rapid speaker. But the inventing of such things is drudgery for the lowest slaves; philosophy lies deeper. It is not her office to teach men how to use their hands. The object of her lessons is to form the soul.
Man is a shrewd inventor, and is ever taking the hint of a new machine from his own structure, adapting some secret of his own anatomy in iron, wood, and leather, to some required function in the work of the world.
Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.
Everything comes to him who hustles while he waits.
Our greatest weakness lies in giving up.
Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.
Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.
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.
Just because something doesn't do what you planned it to do doesn't mean it's useless.
Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration.
Inventing is a combination of brains and materials. The more brains you use, the less material you need.
Invention is the talent of youth, as judgment is of age.
Inventions reached their limit long ago, and I see no hope for further development.
If you haven't found it yet, keep looking.
or simply:
