Quotes from Dean Kamen

Get used to dealing with failure as long as it doesn't hurt people around you, as long as it doesn't hurt you physically, or it doesn't hurt you so much that you can't pick yourself up.

If history is any indication, all truths will eventually turn out to be false.

The city needs a car like a fish needs a bicycle.

If history is any indication, all truths will eventually turn out to be false.

An innovation is one of those things that society looks at and says, if we make this part of the way we live and work, it will change the way we live and work.

My biggest failure is I have too many to talk about.

You have teenagers thinking they're going to make millions as NBA stars when that's not realistic for even 1 percent of them. Becoming a scientist or engineer is.

I'd rather lose my own money than someone else's.

New ideas in technology are literally a dime-a-dozen, or cheaper than that.

Some broad themes brought me where I am today. At a very young age, my hobby became thinking and finding connections.

I think an education is not only important, it is the most important thing you can do with your life.

In some cases, inventions prohibit innovation because we're so caught up in playing with the technology, we forget about the fact that it was supposed to be important.

Everybody has to be able to participate in a future that they want to live for. That's what technology can do.

Technology is how we create wealth, how we cure diseases, how we'll build an environment that's sustainable and also gives people the capacity to pull more out of this world and still leave it better than when they found it.

More than ever, the world needs good engineers. However, the pool of talent is shrinking not growing.

Sometimes we crash and burn. It's better to do it in private.

Whatever the marketplace, if talented people are given resources, they're going to keep driving us to having better, simpler, cheaper solutions to problems.

We are in a race between knowledge and catastrophe. If we keep track of what is important, never lower our standards or forget why we are here, we have the ability to determine the fate of the world.

Innovation needs to be nurtured throughout an organization. Management is doing things right, whereas leadership is doing the right things.

I remember, as a kid, thinking more about, you know, watching the world go by and being amazed by how both complex but consistent and elegant it was. You know, why, you know, when you put that cold glass of water on the table, it kind of warms up at a very predictable way.

When I'm told absolutely no, it's a definite maybe.

I would argue that education, actual learning - it is hard work. It's very personal. Your parents don't teach you anything. Your teachers don't teach you anything. The government doesn't teach you anything. You read it. You don't understand it; you read it again. You break a pencil and read it again.

My father spent his entire early career as an illustrator for comic books: EC Comics like 'Tales from the Crypt' and 'Creepshow, ' then moving on to such magazines as 'Mad' and 'Weird Science.'

Life is so short. Why waste a single day of it doing something that doesn't matter, that doesn't try to do something big?