Invention Quotes - Page 10

• Speech ... is an invention of man's to prevent him from thinking.

  Agatha Christie

  Men, Thinking, Speech

  Agatha Christie (1984). “Five complete Hercule Poirot novels”, Random House Value Pub

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• The immersive stories of This Is Paradise are a lithe blend of formal invention and traditional narrative pleasures. As such they reflect Kristiana Kahakauwila's intimate but expansive vision of a Hawai'i forged from the collisions of past and present, here and there. Her protagonists are as richly distinctive as the pidgin they speak, and yet each struggles profoundly with identity-that negotiation between ourselves and the world, which is at once Hawaiian, American, universally and compellingly human.

  Peter Ho Davies

  Struggle, Past, Vision

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• I call it my billion-dollar mistake. It was the invention of the null reference in 1965.

  Tony Hoare

  Mistake, Dollars, Null

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• No innovation in the past 200 years has done more to save lives and improve health than the sanitation revolution triggered by invention of the toilet. But it did not go far enough. It only reached one-third of the world.

  Sylvia Mathews Burwell

  Past, Years, Innovation

  "The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation expands its sanitation programme" by Liz Ford, www.theguardian.com. July 19, 2011.

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• Can that which is the greatest virtue in philosophy, doubt (called by Galileo the father of invention), be in religion what the priests term it, the greatest of sins?

  Christian Nestell Bovee

  Father, Philosophy, Doubt

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• People do tell a writer things that they don't tell others. I don't know why, unless it is that having read one or two of his books they feel on peculiarly intimate terms with him; or it may be that they dramatize themselves and, seeing themselves as it were as characters in a novel, are ready to be as open with him as they imagine the characters of his invention are.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Book, Writing, Character

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• Neither is it safe to count upon the weakness of any man's understanding, who is thoroughly possessed of the spirit of revenge to sharpen his invention.

  Jonathan Swift

  Revenge, Men, Understanding

  Jonathan Swift (1741). “The Works of Jonathan Swift ...: Containing, I. His Miscellanies in prose. II. His poetical writings. III. The travels of Capt. Lemuel Gulliver. IV. Papers relating to Ireland, and The Drapier's letters. V. The conduct of the allies, and The examiners. VI. The publick spirit of the Whiggs, &c. with Polite conversation. VII. Letters to and from Dr. Swift. VIII. Directions to servants, sermons, poems, &c”, p.125

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• Interest is the spur of the people, but glory that of great souls.

  Jean-Jacques Rousseau

  People, Soul, Spurs

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• In most old communities there is a common sense even in sensuality. Vice itself gets gradually digested into a system, is amenable to certain laws of conventional propriety and honor, has for its object simply the gratification of its appetites, and frowns with quite a conservative air on all new inventions, all untried experiments in iniquity.

  Edwin Percy Whipple

  Air, Law, Common Sense

  Edwin Percy Whipple (1866). “Character and Characteristic Men”, p.39

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• TV has had a stronger impact on our society than any single invention since the automobile. It has put the dead hand on conversation.

  Ann Landers

  Impact, Hands, Stronger

  Ann Landers (1979). “The Ann Landers Encyclopedia, A to Z: Improve Your Life Emotionally, Medically, Sexually, Socially, Spiritually”

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• What passes in the world for talent or dexterity or enterprise is often only a want of moral principle. We may succeed where others fail, not from a greater share of invention, but from not being nice in the choice of expedients.

  William Hazlitt

  Nice, Choices, Principles

  William Hazlitt (1871). “The Round Table. A collection of Essays ... By W. H. and Leigh Hunt”, p.468

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• Progress comes by experiment, and this from ennui that leads to voyages, wars, revolutions, and plainly to change in the arts of expression; that cries out to the imagination, and is the nurse of the invention whereof we term necessity the mother.

  Edmund Clarence Stedman

  Mother, Art, War

  Edmund Clarence Stedman (1885). “Poets of America”

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• Nor age so eat up my invention.

  William Shakespeare

  Age

  William Shakespeare (2016). “The New Oxford Shakespeare: Modern Critical Edition: The Complete Works”, p.1485, Oxford University Press

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• Time hath not yet so dried this blood of mine,
  Nor age so eat up my invention,
  Nor fortune made such havoc of my means,
  Nor my bad life reft me so much of friends,
  But they shall find awaked in such a kind
  Both strength of limb and policy of mind,
  Ability in means, and choice of friends,
  To quit me of them throughly.

  William Shakespeare

  Mean, Blood, Choices

  William Shakespeare, Thomas Price (1839). “The Wisdom and Genius of Shakespeare: Comprising Moral Philosophy, Delineations of Character, Paintings of Nature and the Passions, Seven Hundred Aphorisms, and Miscellaneous Pieces : with Select and Original Notes, and Scriptural References ...”, p.366

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• I believe that everyone, some time or other, dreams that he is reading papers, books, or letters; in which case the invention prompts so readily that the mind is imposed upon, and mistakes its own suggestions for the composition of another.

  Joseph Addison

  Dream, Mistake, Believe

  Joseph Addison, Sir Richard Steele (1819). “The Spectator”, p.59

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• There is nobody so weak of invention that cannot make some little stories to villify his enemy.

  Joseph Addison

  Enemy, Stories, Littles

  Joseph Addison, Sir Richard Steele (1822). “The Spectator: with notes and illustrations. In six volumes”, p.192

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• While clothes with pictures and/or writing on them are not entirely an invention of the modern age, they are an unpleasant indication of the general state of things. ... I mean, be realistic. If people don't want to listen to you, what makes you think they want to hear from your sweater?

  Fran Lebowitz

  Writing, Mean, Thinking

  Fran Lebowitz (2011). “The Fran Lebowitz Reader”, p.139, Vintage

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• I don't know if fury can compete with necessity as the mother of invention, but I recommend it.

  Gloria Steinem

  Mother, Anger, Fury

  Gloria Steinem (2012). “Moving Beyond Words: Essays on Age, Rage, Sex, Power, Money, Muscles: Breaking the Boundaries of Gender”, p.9, Open Road Media

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• There's no such thing as post-feminism. It's like saying post-democracy, excuse me, what does that mean? We're nowhere near equality, so the very idea of post-feminism is ridiculous. The same people who 30-40 years ago said the women's movement is not necessary, 'it's going against nature, my wife is not interested' [are] the same people now saying 'well it used to be necessary but not anymore.' The very invention of the word post-feminism is the current form of resistance.

  Gloria Steinem

  Mean, Years, Ideas

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• When scandal has new-minted an old lie,
  Or tax'd invention for a fresh supply,
  'Tis call'd a satire, and the world appears
  Gathering around it with erected ears;
  A thousand names are toss'd into the crowd,
  Some whisper'd softly, and some twang'd aloud,
  Just as the sapience of an author's brain,
  Suggests it safe or dangerous to be plain.

  William Cowper

  Lying, Names, Brain

  William Cowper, Henry Stebbing (1869). “The Complete Poetical Works of William Cowper, Esq: Including the Hymns and Translations from Madame Guion, Milton, Etc. ; with a Memoir of the Author”, p.124

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• Whosoever loves not picture is injurious to truth, and all the wisdom of poetry. Picture is the invention of heaven, the most ancient and most akin to nature. It is itself a silent work, and always one and the same habit.

  Ben Jonson

  Heaven, Ancient, Silent

  Ben Jonson, William Gifford (1816). “The Works: In 9 Volumes. ... containing Underwoods, translations, &c. Discoveries. English grammar. Jonsonus viribus”, p.206

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• [Rhyme is] but the invention of a barbarous age, to set off wretched matter and lame Meter; ... Not without cause therefore some both Italian and Spanish poets of prime note have rejected rhyme, ... as have also long since our best English tragedies, as... trivial and of no true musical delight; which [truly] consists only in apt numbers, fit quantity of syllables, and the sense variously drawn out from one verse into another, not in the jingling sound of like endings, a fault avoided by the learned ancients both in poetry and all good oratory.

  John Milton

  Italian, Numbers, Long

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• Mystery is the antagonist of truth. It is a fog of human invention, that obscures truth, and represents it in distortion.

  Thomas Paine

  Fog, Mystery, Distortion

  Thomas Paine (1818). “The theological works of Thomas Paine”, p.46

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• Guilt is a Jewish invention improved upon by Christians for the last two thousand years.

  Rita Mae Brown

  Christian, Years, Two

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• Sometimes, instead of helping people to advance, a discovery or an invention holds them back.

  Margaret Mead

  Technology, Discovery, People

  MARGARET MEAD (1959). “PEOPLE AND PLACES”

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