Top 1200 Invention Quotes & Sayings

That is to say, epic poetry has been invented many times and independently; but, as the needs which prompted the invention have been broadly similar, so the invention itself has been.

Painting is not for me either decorative amusement, or the plastic invention of felt reality; it must be every time: invention, discovery, revelation.

The market is not an invention of capitalism. It has existed for centuries. It is an invention of civilization.

The Bible must be the invention of either good men or angels, bad men or devils, or of God. It could not be the invention of good men or angels, for they neither would or could make a book, and tell lies all the time they were writing it, saying, 'Thus saith the Lord,' when it was their own invention. It could not be the invention of bad men or devils, for they would not make a book which commands all duty, forbids all sin, and condemns their souls to hell for all eternity. Therefore, I draw this conclusion, that the Bible must be given by divine inspiration.

Painting is neither decorative amusement, nor the plastic invention of felt reality; it must be every time: invention, discovery, revelation.

...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.

Males have probably always enjoyed watching the defeat of other males, but without the invention of numerals and the subsequent invention of the concept of keeping score, we could never have had a million sports channels.

Not far from the invention of fire we must rank the invention of doubt.

Inspiration leads to invention. Tenacity is the breeding ground for inspiration. There can be no invention in the absence of tenacity.

Invention is not enough. Tesla invented the electric power we use, but he struggled to get it out to people. You have to combine both things: invention and innovation focus, plus the company that can commercialize things and get them to people.

Every time we make a new invention, we think we're going to save the world, but eventually, we understand that the real virtues of that new invention have mostly to do with commerce. Then we feel a huge emptiness, and we want to fill it with beauty.

Invention depends altogether upon execution or organization; as that is right or wrong so is the invention perfect or imperfect.

Invention breeds invention.

No religion ever appeared in the world whose natural tendency was so much directed to promote the peace and happiness of mankind. It makes right reason a law in every possible definition of the word. And therefore, even supposing it to have been purely a human invention, it had been the most amiable and the most useful invention that was ever imposed on mankind for their good.

We sometimes forget that human invention can also be a subject of human invention: that might seem a modern notion, or a postmodern one, but novelists have taken time - sometimes time out from their realist fixations - to source and satirise the speech and power we rely on.

All our civilization is based on invention; before invention, men lived on fruits and nuts and pine cones and slept in caves.

Before Plato could describe love, the loved one had to be invented. We would never love anybody if we could see past our invention. Bosie is my creation, my poem. In the mirror of invention, love discovered itself.

Over the years, I have learned that every significant invention has several characteristics. By definition it must be startling, unexpected, and must come into a world that is not prepared for it. If the world were prepared for it, it would not be much of an invention.

There was no such person as Marilyn Monroe. Marilyn Monroe was an invention of hers. A genius invention that she created, like an author creates a character. She understood photography, and she also understood what makes a great photograph. She related to it as if she were giving a performance. She gave more to the still camera than any actress-any woman- I've ever photographed.

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.

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.

Why do I think that we, the intellectuals, are able to help? Simply because we, the intellectuals, have done the most terrible harm for thousands of years. Mass murder in the name of an idea, a doctrine, a theory, a religion - that is all "our" doing, "our" invention: the invention of the intellectuals. If only we would stop setting man against man - often with the best intentions - much would be gained. Nobody can say that it is impossible for us to stop doing this.

The pianoforte is the most important of all musical instruments; its invention was to music what the invention of printing was to poetry.

The essence of poetry is invention; such invention as, by producing something unexpected, surprises and delights.

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

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.

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?

It was good of Friedrich Nietzsche to declare God dead - I declare that he has never been born. It is a created fiction, an invention, not a discovery. Do you understand the difference between invention and discovery? A discovery is about truth, an invention is manufactured by you. It is man-manufactured fiction.

A new invention to poison people ... is not a patentable invention.

Shall an invention be patented or donated to the public freely? I have known some well-meaning scientific men ... to look askance at the patenting of inventions, as if it were a rather selfish and ungracious act, essentially unworthy. The answer is very simple. Publish an invention freely, and it will almost surely die from lack of interest in its development. It will not be developed and the world will not be benefited. Patent it, and if valuable, it will be taken up and developed into a business.

I see architecture not as Gropius did, as a moral venture, as truth, but as invention, in the same way that poetry or music or painting is invention.

The invention of the ship was also the invention of the shipwreck.

A patent, or invention, is any assemblage of technologies or ideas that you can put together that nobody put together that way before. That's how the patent office defines it. That's an invention

Art is an invention of aesthetics, which in turn is an invention of philosophers... What we call art is a game.

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?

The source of innovation is freedom. All we have - new knowledge, invention - comes from freedom. Discoveries and new knowledge come from freedom. When somebody is responsible only to himself, [has] only himself to satisfy, then you'll have invention, new thought, now product, new design, new ideas.

Invention breeds invention. No sooner is the electric telegraph devised than gutta-percha, the very material it requires, is found. The aeronaut is provided with gun-cotton, the very fuel he wants for his balloon.

To start with invention is the mark of the fertile mind ... and leads later to the interpretation of experience; to start with the reproduction of experience is the infallible index of a barren invention.

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.

Knowledge emerges only through invention and re-invention, through the restless, impatient, continuing, hopeful inquiry human beings pursue in the world, with the world, and with each other.

Laws of nature are human inventions, like ghosts. Laws of logic, or mathematics are also human inventions, like ghosts. The whole blessed thing is a human invention, including the idea that it isn't a human invention.

Even in an intensely mediated world, in a world that offers at least the illusion of radical self-invention and radical freedom of choice, I as a novelist am drawn to the things you can't get away from. Because much of the promise of radical self-invention, of defining yourself through this marvelous freedom of choice, it's just a lie. It's a lie that we all buy into, because it helps the economy run.

Next to invention is the power of interpreting invention; next to beauty the power of appreciating beauty.

Every invention creates new needs, but the biggest needs are not for new and more advanced versions of the last invention but for solutions to the social problems the last invention created.

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.

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

Without question, the greatest invention in the history of mankind is beer. Oh, I grant you that the wheel was also a fine invention, but the wheel does not go nearly as well with pizza.

A patent, or invention, is any assemblage of technologies or ideas that you can put together that nobody put together that way before. That's how the patent office defines it. That's an invention.

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.

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

But words came halting forth, wanting Invention's stay; Invention, Nature's child, fled stepdame Study's blows; And others' feet still seemed but strangers in my way. Thus, great with child to speak, and helpless in my throes, Biting my truant pen, beating myself for spite: "Fool," said my Muse to me, "look in thy heart, and write.

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.

I think future generations will see the invention of the Internet as having been as important as the invention of the printing press. It’s the democratizing tool of all tools. As long as no one can control the flow of information, then freedom always has a chance.

There are many points in the history of an invention which the inventor himself is apt to overlook as trifling, but in which posterity never fail to take a deep interest. The progress of the human mind is never traced with such a lively interest as through the steps by which it perfects a great invention; and there is certainly no invention respecting which this minute information will be more eagerly sought after, than in the case of the steam-engine.

You call a star a star, and say it is just a ball of matter moving on a mathematical course. But that is merely how you see it. By so naming things and describing them you are only inventing your own terms about them. And just as speech is invention about objects and ideas, so myth is invention about truth.

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

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

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.

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.

The critic is beneath the maker, but is his needed friend. The critic is not a base caviler, but the younger brother of genius. Next to invention is the power of interpreting invention; next to beauty the power of appreciating beauty. And of making others appreciate it.