Quotes About Invention

I do something to make things nature never made but which is useful to humans.

In the old days when people invented a new function they had something useful in mind.

The objective of producing useful devices has strongly influenced the choice of the research projects with which I have been associated.

I often get asked if I think I'm ever going to build something useful, and maybe someday I will.

My father was a photographer at the National Bureau of Standards. A self-educated man, he never finished high school, but in his career at the National Bureau of Standards, he made many useful inventions and eventually became chief of the Photographic Technology Section.

Freedom has invented every useful machine, from the lowest to the highest, from the simplest to the most complex.

I wanted to automate any part of my life that I could. And the over-the-top solutions are more fun than the useful ones.

Invention consists in avoiding the constructing of useless contraptions and in constructing the useful combinations which are in infinite minority.

To me, the goal of building useless and ridiculous robots is more - I mean, in some way, it's like a personal goal because I think it's really fun, and I think having fun is super important to create things.

I found it was way more fun to build useless stuff.

Somewhere along the way I realized that I enjoyed making useless things a lot more than well-finished products.

I don't want to use my creative energy on somebody else's user interface.

The Internet was invented in America but has found its largest number of users in China.

Pandemic-proof means the mobile phone has to be used and it has to be used in such a positive way that your next invention has to say, 'You know what, I am going to get another 30-40-50 million users that are out there onto my product through my mobile phone and that's going to help me sell what I do.'

As you see, I do not treat the creation of fiction, that to say the invention and development of fantasies, as a form of abstract thought. I don't wish to deny the uses of the intellect, but sometimes one has the intuition that the intellect by itself will lead one nowhere.

I remember an old Singer sewing machine at home that belonged to my grandmother. It had a pedal. My mom taught me how to use it when I was 12 years old. I used to find it so intriguing, how a flat piece of material could be made into an object that had so many uses.

Just as producers often give consumers things they want but didn't think to ask for, consumers sometimes come up with surprising uses for new inventions. When a new product appears, it can uncover dissatisfactions and desires no one knew were there.

To say a scientist is not at all responsible is wrong. But to say that someone who invents a piece of knowledge or technology is responsible for all future uses is ridiculous. It doesn't have to be that binary.

I conceived of an instrument that would create sound without using any mechanical energy, like the conductor of an orchestra. The orchestra plays mechanically, using mechanical energy; the conductor just moves his hands, and his movements have an effect on the music artistry.

I set out to make a sandwich using a robot arm. I put a knife at the end of it and tried to make it spread peanut butter over bread. It didn't work so great.

Some ways of using our thinking are really inspiring. There are people who use their thinking to race cars. People use their thinking to build rockets to the moon. It's all just a use of your thinking.

My principal professional objective is to introduce intelligence as the ubiquitous utility. I'd like to be the Thomas Edison of intelligence.

If everything is God's will, then so is the invention of the vaccine, just like the seatbelt.

One of the great things about the Roomba robot vacuum cleaner, which my company iRobot designed, is that it's too cheap not to be autonomous.