Great Inventions Quotes

• To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk.

  Thomas A. Edison

  Inspirational, Science, Imagination Creativity

  "Behavior-Based Robotics". Book by Ronald C. Arkin, 1998.

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• I do not think you can name many great inventions that have been made by married men.

  Nikola Tesla

  Inspirational, Men, Thinking

  "Biography/Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• Without question, the greatest invention in the history of mankind is beer. Oh, I grant you that the wheel was also a fine invention, but the wheel does not go nearly as well with pizza.

  Dave Barry

  Book, Drinking, Beer

  Dave Barry (2012). “The Greatest Invention in the History of Mankind Is Beer: And Other Manly Insights from Dave Barry”, p.112, Andrews McMeel Publishing

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• I never did anything by accident, nor did any of my inventions come by accident; they came by work.

  Thomas A. Edison

  Inspirational, Life, Motivational

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• The very greatest things - great thoughts, discoveries, inventions - have usually been nurtured in hardship, often pondered over in sorrow, and at length established with difficulty.

  Samuel Smiles

  Adversity, Discovery, Sorrow

  Samuel Smiles (2009). “Self-Help: With Illustrations of Character and Conduct”, p.480, The Floating Press

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• I find out what the world needs. Then I go ahead and try to invent it

  Thomas A. Edison

  Inspirational, Science, Trying

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• Of all my inventions, I liked the phonograph best

  Thomas A. Edison

  Invention, Phonograph

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• Until man duplicates a blade of grass, nature can laugh at his so called scientific knowledge.

  Thomas A. Edison

  Motivational, Nature, Laughter

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• I'm onstage for an hour.I do an hour of stand-up. Actually, I do 10 minutes standing up and 50 minutes sitting in a chair. Oh, occasionally, I stand up again to do a dance or put over a song. But mostly I sit down. A great invention, sitting down.

  George Burns

  Song, Sitting Down, Sitting In A Chair

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• The digital camera is a great invention because it allows us to reminisce. Instantly.

  Demetri Martin

  Funny, Im Sorry, Witty

  "Biography/Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• remembering is a great invention of the mind, and if you try hard enough you can remember anything, whether it really happened or not.

  Rodman Philbrick

  Mind, Trying, Remember

  Rodman Philbrick (2015). “Freak the Mighty”, p.6, Usborne Publishing Ltd

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• Stumbling upon the next great invention in an 'ah-ha!' moment is a myth.

  James Dyson

  Next, Moments, Stumbling

  "No innovator's dilemma here: in praise of failure" by James Dyson, www.wired.com. April 8, 2011.

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• All great inventions emerge from a long sequence of small sparks; the first idea often isn’t all that good, but thanks to collaboration it later sparks another idea, or it’s reinterpreted in an unexpected way. Collaboration brings small sparks together to generate breakthrough innovation.

  Scott Belsky

  Ideas, Long, Innovation

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• Markets are designed to allow individuals to look after their private needs and to pursue profit. It's really a great invention, and I wouldn't underestimate the value of that. But they're not designed to take care of social needs.

  George Soros

  Needs, Looks, Investing

  Interview with Mark Shapiro, September 05, 2000.

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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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• This country has achieved its commercial and financial supremacy under a regime of private ownership. It conquered the wilderness, built our railroads, our factories, our public utilities, gave us the telegraph, the telephone, the electric light, the automobile, the airplane, the radio and a higher standard of living for all the people than obtains anywhere else in the world. No great invention ever came from a government-owned industry.

  George B. Cortelyou

  Country, Airplane, Light

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• Writing is the great invention of the world.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Writing, World, Invention

  Abraham Lincoln (1989). “Abraham Lincoln: Speeches & Writings Part 2: 1859-1865: Library of America #46”, p.7, Library of America

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• Great inventions are never, and great discoveries are seldom, the work of any one mind. Every great invention is really an aggregation of minor inventions, or the final step of a progression. It is not usually a creation, but a growth, as truly so as is the growth of the trees in the forest.

  Robert Henry Thurston

  Hard Work, Science, Greatness

  "The Growth of the Steam Engine". Popular Science, Volume 12, No. 1, p. 11, November 1877.

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• I think the FDIC was one of the great inventions of the American.

  Warren Buffett

  Thinking, Invention

  "Warren Buffett: I Haven't Seen As Much Economic Fear In My Adult Lifetime". "Charlie Rose", www.cnbc.com. October 1, 2008.

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• We owe most of our great inventions and most of the achievements of genius to idleness either enforced or voluntary.

  Agatha Christie

  Simple, Achievement, Genius

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• There is no great invention, from fire to flying, which has not been hailed as an insult to some god.

  John B. S. Haldane

  Funny, Science, Fire

  "Daedalus or Science and the Future". An address, February 4, 1923.

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• I love technology. Matches, to light a fire is really high tech. The wheel is REALLY one of the great inventions of all time. Other than that I am an ignoramus about technology. I once looked for the 'ON' button on the computer and came to find out it was on the back. Then I thought, anyone who would put the 'on' switch on the back, where you can't find it, doesn't do any good for my psyche. The one time I did get the computer on, I couldn't turn the damn thing off!

  William Shatner

  Technology, Fire, Light

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

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• Writing, the art of communicating thoughts to the mind through the eye, is the great invention of the world.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Art, Distance, Writing

  Abraham Lincoln's address on discoveries and inventions at Fort Wayne, Indiana, February 18, 1935.

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• There is first the problem of acquiring content, which is learning. There is another problem of acquiring learning skills, which is not merely learning, but learning to learn, not velocity, but acceleration. Learning to learn is one of the great inventions of living things. It is tremendously important. It makes evolution, biological as well as social, go faster. And it involves the development of the individual.

  Ralph W. Gerard

  Skills, Important, Velocity

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• Somehow I felt that if Fox Talbot had had more time and more drawing talent, he would have filled in the interval between his two drawings and made a complete panorama. Now, 163 years later, I was able to use his great invention to elaborate on his youthful dream of capturing and fixing the fleeting image. In doing so, I may also have added another little bit to the soul of this extraordinary place.

  John Pfahl

  Dream, Drawing, Filled In

  John Pfahl (1997). “Permutations on the picturesque”

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