A Quote by Samuel Richardson

Necessity may well be called the mother of invention but calamity is the test of integrity.

Samuel Richardson

Quote Topics

Calamity Integrity Invention May Mother Necessity Test Well

Quote Author

Samuel Richardson
English - Writer
August 19, 1689 - July 4, 1761

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

The so-called ‘crank’ may be quite original in his ideas. … Invention, however, in the engineering sense involves originality; but not that alone, if the results are to be of value. There is imagination more or less fertile, but with it a knowledge of what has been done before, carried perhaps by the memory, together with a sense of the present or prospective needs in art or industry. Necessity is not always the mother of invention. It may be prevision.

Elihu Thomson

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

William Shenstone

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 may be mother of invention, but fun is the father.

Alex Faickney Osborn

Necessity may be the mother of invention, but play is certainly the father.

Roger von Oech

Calamity is the test of integrity.

Samuel Richardson

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

There's a whole generation of young people who are faced with the so-called 'jobless recovery.' Necessity is the mother of invention. They are out there, all around the world, creating new companies.

Don Tapscott

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.