I don’t mind occasionally having to reinvent a wheel; I don’t even mind using someone’s reinvented wheel occasionally. But it helps a lot if it is symmetric, contains no fewer than ten sides, and has the axle centered. I do tire of trapezoidal wheels with offset axles
Inventions - Inventors Quotes
Discovery consists of looking at the same thing as everyone else and thinking something different.
Trust you will avoid the gigantic mistake of alternating current. (writing to Niagara Falls Power Company)
Hard work is the soundest investment. It provides a neat security for your widow’s next husband.
The progressive development of man is vitally dependent on invention. It is the most important product of his creative brain. Its ultimate purpose is the complete mastery of mind over the material world, the harnessing of the forces of nature to human needs. This is the difficult task of the inventor who is often misunderstood […]
Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible. (1895)
Necessity may be the mother of invention, but play is certainly the father.
Sometimes I feel that I am a natural born genius in a field of human endeavor that hasn’t been invented yet.
I have not the smallest molecule of faith in aerial navigation other than ballooning, or of the expectation of good results from any of the trials we hear of. (1896)
The universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.
