A Quote by Alfred North Whitehead

Inventive genius requires pleasurable mental activity as a condition for its vigorous exercise. "Necessity is the mother of invention" is a silly proverb. "Necessity is the mother of futile dodges" is much closer to the truth. The basis of growth of modern invention is science, and science is almost wholly the outgrowth of pleasurable intellectual curiosity.

Alfred North Whitehead

Quote Topics

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Quote Author

Alfred North Whitehead
English - Mathematician
February 15, 1861 - December 30, 1947

Inventive genius requires pleasurable mental activity as a condition for its vigorous exercise

Alfred North Whitehead

It's true that necessity is the mother of invention. But for those of us without fathers, there is a deeper truth - necessity is the mother of self-invention.

Michael Hainey

Necessity used to be the mother of invention, but then we ran out of things that were necessary. The postmodern mother of invention is desire; we don’t really “need” anything new, so we only create what we want.

Chuck Klosterman

Because we imagine, we can have invention and technology. It's actually play, not necessity, that is the mother of invention.

Alison Gopnik

Necessity may be the mother of lucrative invention, but it is the death of poetical invention.

William Shenstone

We say that necessity is the mother of invention, and no country has more of a necessity to develop clean power than China.

Thomas Friedman

I don't think necessity is the mother of invention. Invention, in my opinion, arises directly from idleness, possibly also from laziness - to save oneself trouble.