Quotes About Resourcefulness

only one road out here." "Just stay cool," I said. "They're probably

I laughed at myself for getting so peeved. It did not matter that it had taken a week for the tailor to make the mattress. I had time and so did everyone else: time was the one resource everyone was rich in and generous with in Nepal. How maladjusted of me not to recognize this.

Never underestimate small things, Captain, they have to be meaner than larger ones to survive.

Even a fool recognizes that there is great sadness in a bucket of tears. But only a wise man thinks to conserve water and use that bucket to wash his car.

Too bad Americans can't export Awesome, because I have boxes and boxes of the stuff just lying around in my attic.

It was the only time before or since when Americans became emotionally invested in the idea of self-deprivation and frugality. Third graders roamed their neighborhoods in packs, gathering scrap materials, tires, and paper and cooking fat and old sneakers whose soles could be sacrificed for the rubber. The Big Three automakers stopped making cars and started making planes. Factory workers took secrecy oaths. Everybody had a secret now.

Limited resources force you to make do with what you've got. There's no room for waste. And that forces you to be creative.

Usa lo que ya tengas a mano o lo que puedas conseguir por poco dinero. Y ponte en marcha. El equipo no es lo relevante. Lo relevante es sacarle el máximo partido a lo que tengas. Tu arte está en tus dedos.

You have to be able to improvise. You have to be able to pick up opportunities that come along.

When good enough gets the job done, go for it. It's way better than wasting resources or, even worse, doing nothing because you can't afford the complex solution.

When good enough gets the job done, go for it. It's way better than wasting resources or, even worse, doing nothing because you can't afford the complex solution. And remember, you can usually turn good enough into great later.

Henry Ford learned of a process for turning wood scraps from the production of Model T's into charcoal briquets. He built a charcoal plant and Ford Charcoal was created (later renamed Kingsford Charcoal). Today, Kingsford is still the leading manufacturer of charcoal in America.

What distinguishes people who are ten times more effective than the norm is not that they work ten times as hard; it's that they use their creativity to come up with solutions that require one-tenth of the effort.

we're not going to spend any money making the changes. If something doesn't work we'll fix it. We want creativity before capital and quick and crude rather than slow and elegant.

Jugaad started as the Hindi word for an ultracheap vehicle first fashioned by rural Punjabi carpenters. Having nothing but empty pockets and a problem to solve, the local craftsmen took an old diesel irrigation pump, attached it to a wooden frame, and added wheels and the discarded steering system from a broken-down jeep. They called this jalopy "jugaad," roughly translated as "using few resources and a lot of determination to find an innovative solution to a problem.

Google started as a small library search project; Starbucks had no chairs and nonstop opera music at the beginning," Sims says. "Great entrepreneurs didn't start with big ideas, for the most part.

when our ancestors were chased by game or predators, they were practicing Parkour – the ability to move quickly and efficiently from one destination to another as safely as possible.

If it can't be fixed by duct tape or WD-40, it's a female problem.

Don't count on others for help. In the end each of us is in this alone. The survivors are those who know how to look out for themselves.

I had had to discard my rifle

He remembered once hearing his grandmother... say plaintively: Why daughter, I presume I can go without -- BUT I CAN'T ECONOMIZE.

He had never seen anyone pack as cleverly as Susy: the way she coaxed reluctant things into a trunk was a symbol of the way she fitted discordant facts into her life.

Intelligence appears to be the thing that enables a man to get along without education. Education enables a man to get along without the use of his intelligence.

Acts of creation are ordinarily reserved for gods and poets, but humbler folk may circumvent this restriction if they know how.