Quotes About Innovation

Leibniz's machine was designed to automate the dreary task of solving moral problems

Great British painters, one might say, imitate the proverbial behaviour of buses. None come along for a century or more, then two at the same time. In the decades after 1800 there were J. M. W. Turner and John Constable, then none of international consequence, except perhaps Walter Sickert, until Bacon and Freud after the Second World War.

The man who makes no mistakes never makes anything

We shall never shake ourselves clear from the debts of the past and break into a definitely larger period except by the energetic creation of new wealth.

The essence of technology is by no means anything technological.

Technology is therefore no mere means. Technology is a way of revealing […], i.e., of truth.

At one end of the spectrum was the view that humans were on a path of improvement by historical action and unique invention. At the other end was the view that we, as much as other species in nature, were subject to the rough and tumble of global fluctuation and natural selection.

Human progress depends on the socially maladjusted

Almost always the creative, dedicated minority has made the world better.

The old guard in any society resents new methods, for old guards wear the decorations and medals won by waging battle in the accepted manner.

You call your thousand material devices "labor-saving machinery," yet you are forever "busy." With the multiplying of your machinery you grow increasingly fatigued, anxious, nervous, dissatisfied. Whatever you have, you want more; and wherever you are you want to go somewhere else … your devices are neither time-saving nor soul-saving machinery. They are so many sharp spurs which urge you on to invent more machinery and to do more business.

People say you should only write what you know. But you only write what you know because you are too fucking stupid to make anything up.

But they are becoming an irrelevant and querulous sect, opposed to everything but wind and solar farms with no thought of what we do when the wind doesn't blow and the sun doesn't shine. They are against nuclear power, against exploring for natural gas, against coal and oil, against foie gras and even against the use of genetic science in

A country with secure property rights, scientific inquiry and technological innovation will become richer. But, since division of labour is limited by the size of the market, it will also benefit from trade, not just in goods and services, but in ideas, capital and people. The smaller a country is, the greater the benefits. Trade is far cheaper than empire, just as internal development is a less costly route to prosperity than plunder. This was the heart of Angell's argument.

Follow an exercise routine in which there is no routine. Whenever something becomes routine, you don't pay attention to it anymore. I rarely do the same routine twice which keeps me interested and focused.

If a little dreaming is dangerous, the cure for it is not to dream less but to dream more, to dream all the time

Some people without possessing genius have a remarkable power of stimulating it.

These modern gramophones are a remarkable invention.

there is nothing so unnatural as the commonplace.

What one man can invent another can discover, said Holmes.

But I abhor the dull routine of existence. I crave for mental exaltation. That is why I have chosen my own particular profession,--or rather created it, for I am the only one in the world.

Nada hay nuevo bajo el sol... Cada acto o cada cosa tiene un precedente en el pasado.

Das sind Leute, die immer Erfolg haben, ohne daß man weiß, wie er zustande kommt. Die Leute arbeiten mit Einbildungskraft anstatt mit nackten Tatsachen.«

Sin la imaginación no existe el miedo.