Quotes About Resourcefulness

The reason why the Wright brothers were successful wasn't because they had the most resources, but because they understood how invention works. You have to iterate quickly, and you should be prepared to fail. Because things often don't go as planned.

I would run into the corner store, the bodega, and just grab a paper bag or buy juice - anything just to get a paper bag. And I'd write the words on the paper bag and stuff these ideas in my pocket until I got back. Then I would transfer them into the notebook.

I think I've got my business notions and my sense for that sort of thing from my dad. My dad never had a chance to go to school. He couldn't read and write. But he was so smart. He was just one of those people that could just make the most of anything and everything that he had to work with.

When a scarecrow blows apart in a gale wind, the farmer just props up another one. It's the job to be done that's important, not who does it.

Les Grecs alignèrent sur des rangs parallèles leurs tentes de peaux; les Ibériens disposèrent en cercle leurs pavillons de toile; les Gaulois se firent des baraques de planches; les Libyens des cabanes de pierres sèches, et les Nègres creusèrent dans le sable avec leurs ongles des fosses pour dormir. Beaucoup, ne sachant où se mettre, erraient au milieu des bagages [...]

Bootstrapping goes awry when entrepreneurs focus on saving pennies to the detriment of the Big Picture.

You see, Francisco, a warrior isn't just someone who slays dragons—or Englishmen, like Mel Gibson does in our favorite movie, Braveheart. A warrior can also be a man who takes apart an engine to make soup and then serves it to his brothers, keeping up their spirits with the rising inflections of his voice.

If the work of the average man required half the mental agility and readiness of resource of the work of the average prostitute, the average man would be constantly on the verge of starvation.

Abilene possessed greater vision, perhaps because it possessed little else.

People who live in poor countries have to be entrepreneurial even just to survive.

The man who wears no socks can acquire things which bestockinged people can never obtain. By saving on socks, one can afford stamps for letters to philosophers throughout the world and get from them the correct interpretation of obscure words in Sanskrit.

There was an old joke about being left on a deserted island with an editor. You are starving. All you have left is a glass of orange juice. Days pass. You are near death. You are about to drink the juice when the editor grabs the glass from your hand and pees into it. You look at him, stunned . There, the editor says, handing you the glass. It just needed a little tweaking.

From tours to mixing, mastering, graphics, artwork - I've done out of pocket.

My mother gave me a real kick toward cooking, which was that if I wanted to eat, I'd better know how to do it myself.

We have six-and-a-half-billion people on the planet, going rapidly towards seven. We're going to need a lot of inventiveness about how we use water and grow crops.

I'm very lazy when it comes to making the original sound. I don't go through amplifiers and different compressors and signal parts. I just grab something, whether its an old guitar or a children's toy that happens to be lying around, and record it straight into the computer.

The coolest toys don't have to be bought; they can be built. In fact, sometimes the only way they'll ever exist is if you make them yourself.

The reason for this project comes from my childhood, that is clear to me. I did not have any toys. So, I played in the bricks of ruined buildings around me and with which I built houses.

We didn't have money for toys, so I made my own.

I was always taking garbage from around the house and making my own toys. I wasn't given a Wii or an Xbox or anything.

We had very few things. I had a couple pairs of jeans, a couple shirts. And same with my mom and sister. I think my sister had, like, two toys. We were living off of instant noodles.

I did the first 'Oxygene' on an 8 tracks tape recorder with very few instruments, with no other choice than being minimalist.

Three years after starting, by physically doing everything from raising the finance to special effects, we'd finally cobbled together our low budget film.

If I had a Boy Scout I could make a fire by rubbing his hind legs together.