Inventions And Inventors Quotes

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

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

People, Soul, Spurs

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The best way to predict the future is to invent it.

Alan Kay

Inspirational, Motivational, Positive

Walter Isaacson (2011). “Steve Jobs”, p.95, Simon and Schuster

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Today every invention is received with a cry of triumph which soon turns into a cry of fear.

Bertolt Brecht

Fear, Triumph, Today

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Where a new invention promises to be useful, it ought to be tried.

Thomas Jefferson

Promise, President, Liberty

Thomas Jefferson (1861). “Correspondence”, p.517

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These are bagpipes. I understand the inventor of the bagpipes was inspired when he saw a man carrying an indignant, asthmatic pig under his arm. Unfortunately, the man-made sound never equalled the purity of the sound achieved by the pig.

Alfred Hitchcock

Music, Men, Pigs

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

Thomas Carlyle

Real, Men, Gunpowder

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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.

Seneca the Younger

Time, Lying, Philosophy

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A new gadget that lasts only five minutes is worth more than an immortal work that bores everyone.

Francis Picabia

Work, Gadgets, Lasts

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The best way to predict the future is to study the past, or prognosticate.

Robert Kiyosaki

Inspirational, Motivational, Positive

Twitter post from Jan 30, 2017

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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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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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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.

Joshua Reynolds

Memories, Creativity, Innovation

sir Joshua Reynolds (1853). “Discourses on the Fine Arts Delivered to the Students of the Royal Academy”, p.7

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

George Gobel

Animal, Invention, Inventor

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Inventing is a combination of brains and materials. The more brains you use, the less material you need.

Charles Kettering

Wisdom, Science, Discovery

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Anything that won't sell, I don't want to invent. Its sale is proof of utility, and utility is success.

Thomas A. Edison

Inspirational, Positive, Business

"Geek mythology and Nikola Tesla" by Rebekah Higgitt, www.theguardian.com. August 20, 2012.

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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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Before anything else, preparation is the key to success.

Alexander Graham Bell

Success, Stress, Congratulations

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America is a country of inventors, and the greatest of inventors are the newspaper men.

Alexander Graham Bell

Country, Men, America

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Name the greatest of all inventors. Accident.

Mark Twain

Inspirational, Success, Smart

Mark Twain (2012). “Mark Twain at Your Fingertips: A Book of Quotations”, p.210, Courier Corporation

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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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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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This is the patent age of new inventions for killing bodies, and for saving souls. All propagated with the best intentions.

Lord Byron

Birthday, Soul, Age

Lord Byron, Donald A. Low (2013). “Byron: Selected Poetry and Prose”, p.170, Routledge

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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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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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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.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Work, Men, Iron

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1872). “The Prose Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Representative men. English traits. Conduct of life”, p.240

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