A Quote by E. B. White

Necessity first mothered invention. Now invention has little ones of her own, and they look just like grandma.

E. B. White

Quote Topics

First Grandma Her Invention Just Like Little Look Necessity Now Own

Quote Author

E. B. White
American - Writer
July 11, 1899 - October 1, 1985

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

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

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.

Agatha Christie

We have a duty towards music; namely to invent it. ...Invention presupposes imagination but should not be confused with it. For the act of invention implies the necessity of a lucky find and of achieving realization of this find. What we imagine does not necessarily take on concrete form and may remain in a state of virtuality; whereas invention is not conceivable apart from its actually being worked out.

Igor Stravinsky

Nature is the source of all true knowledge. She has her own logic, her own laws, she has no effect without cause nor invention without necessity.

Leonardo da Vinci

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

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

The greatest invention of the nineteenth century was the invention of the method of invention.

Alfred North Whitehead

Now, before sliced bread was invented in the 1910s I wonder what they said? Like the greatest invention since the telegraph or something. But... the thing about the invention of sliced bread is this - that for the first 15 years after sliced bread was available no one bought it; no one knew about it; it was a complete and total failure.

Seth Godin

In other words, what is supposedly found is an invention whose inventor is unaware of his act of invention, who considers it as something that exists independently of him; the invention then becomes the basis of his world view and actions.

Paul Watzlawick

Warfare ... is just an invention, older and more widespread than the jury system, but none the less an invention.

Margaret Mead

So you want another story?" Uhh... no. We would like to know what really happened." Doesn't the telling of something always become a story?" Uhh... perhaps in English. In Japanese a story would have an element of invention in it. We don't want any invention. We want the 'straight facts,' as you say in English." Isn't telling about something--using words, English or Japanese--already something of an invention? Isn't just looking upon this world already something of an invention?

Yann Martel

It was amazing feeling to be able to be involved in invention, but not just invention - the creating of a marketplace that had real value to add.

Blythe Masters

...those experiments be not only esteemed which have an immediate and present use, but those principally which are of most universal consequence for invention of other experiments, and those which give more light to the invention of causes; for the invention of the mariner's needle, which giveth the direction, is of no less benefit for navigation than the invention of the sails, which give the motion.