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invention quotes

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“Nature's a lot better at inventing wonders than we are.” Carl Sagan, Contact
“INVENTOR, n. A person who makes an ingenious arrangement of wheels, levers and springs, and believes it civilization.” Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary
“Necessity is the mother of invention.” Aesop, Aesop's Fables
“It is only in his work that an artist can find reality and satisfaction, for the actual world is less intense than the world of his invention and consequently his life, without recours to violent disorder, does not seem very substantial.” Tennessee Williams, The Glass Menagerie
“Stories are relics, part of an undiscovered pre-existing world.” Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
“We are kept keen on the grindstone of pain and necessity, and, it seemed to me, that here was that hateful grindstone broken at last!” H. G. Wells, The Time Machine
“I think that at that time none of us quite believed in the Time Machine.” H. G. Wells, The Time Machine
“Old fashions please me best; I am not so nice to change true rules for odd inventions.” William Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew
“The man whose whole life is spent in performing a few simple operations, of which the effects, too, are perhaps always the same, or very nearly the same, has no occasion to exert his understanding, or to exercise his invention, in finding out...” Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations
“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.” Carl Sagan, Cosmos
“What does it matter where my body happens to be? . . . My mind goes on working all the same. In fact, the more head downwards I am, the more I keep inventing new things.” Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass
“The arts and inventions of each period are only its costume, and do not invigorate men. The harm of the improved machinery may compensate its good.” Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance
“I have invented an invaluable permanent invalid called Bunbury, in order that I may be able to go down into the country whenever I choose.” Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest
“We don't want to change. Every change is a menace to stability. That's another reason why we're so chary of applying new inventions.” Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
“He has been eight years upon a project for extracting sunbeams out of cucumbers, which were to be put in phials hermetically sealed, and let out to warm the air in raw inclement summers.” Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels
“There are wonders enough out there without our inventing any.” Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World

Related topics

innovation pain nature work sun universe necessity civilization change understanding belief progress lie difference difficulty improvement development discovery normality technology

Related authors

Carl Sagan (3)
Aldous Huxley (1)
Lewis Carroll (1)
H. G. Wells (2)
William Shakespeare (1)
Oscar Wilde (1)
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1)
Stephen King (1)
Aesop (1)
Tennessee Williams (1)
Adam Smith (1)
Ambrose Bierce (1)
Jonathan Swift (1)

Related sources

Contact (1)
Cosmos (1)
The Time Machine (2)
The Demon-Haunted World (1)
Brave New World (1)
The Importance of Being Earnest (1)
The Wealth of Nations (1)
Self-Reliance (1)
The Taming of the Shrew (1)
Through the Looking-Glass (1)
The Glass Menagerie (1)
On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft (1)
Aesop's Fables (1)
The Devil's Dictionary (1)
Gulliver's Travels (1)