Quotes About Resourcefulness

That is why we got booted out. If they could have just squeezed us like an orange and squeezed the juice out, I think the juice would have been squeezed out of us, and all the goodness would have been sucked away. But it was a bit harder, wasn't it? It was more like the durian. You try and squeeze it, your hand gets hurt. And so they say, "Right, throw out the durian." But inside the durian is a very useful ingredient, high protein … And we will progress.

Country folks will survive

The librarians sent books to the hospitals. They answered a thousand questions put to them by the military and civil authorities: How could Leningrad make matches? How could flint and steel lighters be manufactured? What materials were needed for candles? Was there any way of making yeast, edible wood, artificial vitamins? How do you make soap? The librarians found recipes for candles in old works of the eighteenth century.

What are you doing here?" said Azalea, grasping in the basket behind her for the butter knife. Her hand found a teaspoon. It was better than nothing

Y si bien la fuerza física puede ser derrotada por una fuerza superior, la m?tis puede derrotar a cualquier fuerza.

Sterren realized he would have to rely on his wits -- and those wits were good enough that he knew he would rather not have to rely on them.

When you adopt a frugal lifestyle, start by re-examining your daily routines to make sure that you don't spend any more money than is necessary to get the job done—whatever that job may be.

Now they broke my toothbrush, I don't own anything.

The great man is the man who can get himself made and who will get himself made out of anything he finds at hand.

I'm very proud of being a hack. It's why I've lived as long as I have, I think.

Anyone who knew Violet well could tell she was thinking hard, because her long hair was tied up in a ribbon to keep it out of her eyes. Violet had a real knack for inventing and building strange devices, so her brain was often filled with images of pulleys, levers, and gears, and she never wanted to be distracted by something as trivial as her hair.

You can invent things like automatic popcorn poppers. You can invent things like steam-powered window washers. But you can't invent more time.

This story is about the Baudelaires. And they are the sort of people who know that there's always something. Something to invent, something to read, something to bite, and something to do, to make a sanctuary, no matter how small. And for this reason, I am happy to say, the Baudelaires were very fortunate indeed.

To those who hadn't been around Violet long, nothing would have seemed unusual, but those who knew her well knew that when she tied her hair up in a ribbon to keep it out of her eyes, it meant that the gears and levers of her inventing brain were whirring at top speed.

It was an emergency," Violet said calmly, "so I picked the lock." "How did you do that?" Mr. Poe asked. "Nice girls shouldn't know how to do such things." "My sister is a nice girl," Klaus said, "and she knows how to do all sorts of things.

The children had been using these spatulas as oars, but rowing a boat is very hard work, particularly if one's traveling companions are too busy bragging to help out, and Violet was trying to think of a way they might move the boat faster.

of the necessary equipment to invent really top-notch

Everyone should be able to do one card trick, tell two jokes, and recite three poems, in case they are ever trapped in an elevator.

There wasn't a stick over which he didn't stumble, and if he had bread he wouldn't have a knife, and if he had both bread and a knife he wouldn't be able to find the salt. His

but a mind of usefulness and ingenuity seemed to furnish him with constant employment within.

Any difficulties posed by lack of rooms, space or even beds should never be permitted to interfere with the demands of hospitality to family or friends. Something can always be contrived.

Could it be that humans had an infinite capacity to make themselves at home in the direst of situations? Or did one just adjust expectations downward, so as to be able to get through each day?

Truly, we'll be wolves no longer, but as the tinker said once along ago, we'll survive like the foxes, their children.

Adaptation is one of the great advantages to being born and bred in Jersey. We're simply not bested by bad air or tainted water. We're like that catfish with lungs. Take us out of our environment and we can grow whatever body parts we need to survive. After Jersey the rest of the country's a piece of cake. You want to send someone into a fallout zone? Get him from Jersey. He'll be fine.