quotations about invention and inventing
Sometimes the best inventions are ways to slice other inventions into smaller pieces.
ANTHONY RUBINO
Why Didn't I Think of That?
Until the inventor can prove a device works or a material can be made, it's not an invention.
EDWIN J. C. SOBEY
Inventing Toys
The decline of the Western world began with the invention of the wheel.
TENNESSEE WILLIAMS
The Night of the Iguana
For an invention to make a profit it has to create a business. You can create a business if this invention is cheaper and just as good as the previous product. You can start a business if it is better, even though it costs a little more. The jackpot is something cheaper and better.
JIM RAND
attributed, "What Should You Invent?", Popular Science, March 1961
Invention, using the term most broadly, and imitation, are the two legs, so to call them, on which the human race historically has walked.
WILLIAM JAMES
Talks to Teachers on Psychology and to Students on Some of Life's Ideals
The progressive development of man is vitally dependent on invention. It is the most important product of his creative brain.
NIKOLA TESLA
My Inventions
The golden hour of invention must terminate like other hours, and when the man of genius returns to the cares, the duties, the vexations, and the amusements of life, his companions behold him as one of themselves--the creature of habits and infirmities.
ISAAC DISRAELI
Literary Character of Men of Genius
Think for a moment of the great agents and engines of our civilization, and then think what shadowy ideas they all once were. The wheels of the steamship turned as swiftly as they do now, but as silent and unsubstantial as the motions of the inventor's thought; and in the noiseless loom of his meditation were woven the sinews of the printing-press, whose thunder shakes the world.
E. H. CHAPIN
Living Words
Most amateur inventors do things backwards. They jump right in, inventing away, just because they feel impelled to invent. They don't think about markets for their inventions until after the inventions are made. Then it's too late.
CHARLES WELLING
attributed, "What Should You Invent?", Popular Science, March 1961
Take the advice of a faithful friend, and submit thy inventions to his censure.
THOMAS FULLER
The Holy State and the Profane State
Invention consists in the capacity of seizing on the capabilities of a subject, and in the power of moulding and fashioning ideas suggested to it.
MARY SHELLEY
introduction, Frankenstein
When one is nothing, one invents. It fills a void.
DIANE SETTERFIELD
The Thirteenth Tale
Although human ingenuity may devise various inventions which, by the help of various instruments, answer to one and the same purpose, yet will it never discover any inventions more beautiful, more simple or more practical than those of nature.
LEONARDO DA VINCI
Thoughts on Art and Life
I don't think necessity is the mother of invention -- invention, in my opinion, arises directly from idleness, possibly also from laziness. To save oneself trouble.
AGATHA CHRISTIE
An Autobiography
Inventing is close to my heart. Even as a rebellious kid I was pretty inventive, though perhaps not in the best ways. My hook-and-toilet-paper invention to obtain coins from pay-phone slots worked well, and my "slightly used" tobacco made from unraveled cigarette butts and sold in Prince Albert tins was quite popular with unsuspecting pipe smokers! My milk bottle, coated white inside to create the appearance of milk, but actually containing beer, was a definite success with underage drinkers.
LOUIS ZAMPERINI
foreword, Hardcore Inventing
It is only in his work that an artist can find reality and satisfaction, for the actual world is less intense than the world of his invention and consequently his life, without recourse to violent disorder, does not seem very substantial. The right condition for him is that in which his work in not only convenient but unavoidable.
TENNESSEE WILLIAMS
"The Catastrophe of Success"
Every invention eventually becomes obsolete.
MICK FARREN
Darklost
A tool is but the extension of a man's hand, and a machine is but a complex tool. And he that invents a machine augments the power of a man and the well-being of mankind.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
An invention that is quickly accepted will turn out to be a rather trivial alteration of something that has already existed.
EDWIN H. LAND
attributed, Insisting on the Impossible: The Life of Edwin Land
Inventor: A person who makes an ingenious arrangement of wheels, levers and springs, and believes it civilization.
AMBROSE BIERCE
The Devil's Dictionary