A Quote by Samuel Smiles

Necessity, oftener than facility, has been the mother of invention; and the most prolific school of all has been the school of difficulty.

Samuel Smiles

Quote Topics

Been Difficulty Facility Invention Most Mother Necessity Prolific School Than

Quote Author

Samuel Smiles
Scottish - Author
December 23, 1812 - April 16, 1904

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

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

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

Most people I was at school with, if they saw me on telly, wouldn't know I'd been at school with them.

Josh Widdicombe

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

Hope, even more than necessity, is the mother of invention.

Jonathan Sacks

I did drama at school, as a kid, but I ain't been to, like, acting school or anything. I was in a couple of school plays.

Skepta

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

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

I wound up going to the Walnut Hill School for the Arts in Natick, which was a really life-changing experience that's still the most intense working environment I've ever been part of. Even now, as a professional actor, I've never once been held to the standards I was held to at my high school.

Barrett Wilbert Weed

I've been entrepreneurial since middle school. I was always arranging bake sales, dances and school trips to raise money for the Dalton School.

Dylan Lauren

I was born and raised in the south side of Stockton, California, to a mother still in high school and a father in a juvenile detention facility.

Michael Tubbs

I was a lot more cultured than the other kids in my high school. Because I traveled, I understood different cultures and had a more worldly view. Most of the people I went to high school with had never been outside of California.

Tony Hawk

I teach in the medical school, the School of Public Health, the Kennedy School of Government, and the Business School. And it's the best perch... because most of my work crosses boundaries.

Michael Porter

A Quote by Samuel Smiles

Quote Topics

Quote Author

Related Quotes

Related Authors