40 Best Quotes on Innovation

Jessica Marati — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 17:50:46 +0000

A list of EcoSalon’s favorite quotes on thinking outside the box.

There has been opposition to every innovation in the history of man, with the possible exception of the sword. -Benjamin Dana

Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. -Steve Jobs

I can’t understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I’m frightened of the old ones. -John Cage

In the modern world of business, it is useless to be a creative original thinker unless you can also sell what you create. Management cannot be expected to recognize a good idea unless it is presented to them by a good salesman. -David Ogilvy

Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen. -John Steinbeck

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. -George Bernard Shaw

Never before in history has innovation offered promise of so much to so many in so short a time. -Bill Gates

All work and no play doesn’t just make Jill and Jack dull, it kills the potential of discovery, mastery, and openness to change and flexibility and it hinders innovation and invention. -Joline Godfrey

You can have brilliant ideas, but if you can’t get them across, your ideas won’t get you anywhere. -Lee Iacocca

The best way to predict the future is to invent it. -Alan Kay

Learning and innovation go hand in hand. The arrogance of success is to think that what you did yesterday will be sufficient for tomorrow. -William Pollard

You miss 100 percent of the shots you never take. -Wayne Gretzky

If you always do what you always did, you will always get what you always got. -Albert Einstein

Capital isn’t so important in business. Experience isn’t so important. You can get both these things. What is important is ideas. If you have ideas, you have the main asset you need, and there isn’t any limit to what you can do with your business and your life. -Harvey Firestone

The greater the contrast, the greater the potential. Great energy only comes from a correspondingly great tension of opposites. -Carl Jung

If you’re not failing every now and again, it’s a sign you’re not doing anything very innovative. -Woody Allen

Never innovate to compete, innovate to change the rules of the game. -David O. Adeife

It’s easy to come up with new ideas; the hard part is letting go of what worked for you two years ago, but will soon be out of date. -Roger von Oech

Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity. -General George Patton

Stay hungry, stay foolish. -Whole Earth Catalog, via Steve Jobs

I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work. -Thomas Edison

Everyone has talent. What is rare is the courage to follow the talent to the dark place where it leads. -Erica Jong

The best way to have a good idea is to have a lot of ideas. -Dr. Linus Pauling

Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought. -Albert von Szent-Gyorgy

A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing. -George Bernard Shaw

Held in the palms of thousands of disgruntled people over the centuries have been ideas worth millions – if they only had taken the first step and then followed through. -Robert M. Hayes

Anyone can look for fashion in a boutique or history in a museum. The creative explorer looks for history in a hardware store and fashion in an airport. -Robert Wieder

The only thing all successful people have in common is that they’re successful, so don’t waste your time copying “the successful strategies” of others. -Seth Godin

Don’t worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you’ll have to ram them down people’s throats. -Howard Aiken

Some men look at things the way they are and ask why? I dream of things that are not and ask why not? -Robert Kennedy

Ideas won’t keep. Something must be done about them. -Alfred North Whitehead

Just as energy is the basis of life itself, and ideas the source of innovation, so is innovation the vital spark of all human change, improvement and progress. -Ted Levitt

If you can dream it, you can do it. -Walt Disney

The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it. -Michelangelo

The practice of R&D involves making mistakes, realizations, corrections, and more mistakes. Trial and error is a fundamental part of the process. Too many managers in corporate America learn to avoid invention and new thinking because they have been convinced that their careers depend upon not making mistakes. -Tom Huff

The innovation point is the pivotal moment when talented and motivated people seek the opportunity to act on their ideas and dreams. -W. Arthur Porter

Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking, and don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. -Steve Jobs

It’s not about breaking the rules. It is about abandoning the concept of rules altogether. -Paul Lemberg

Genius is one percent inspiration, and ninety-nine percent perspiration. -Thomas Edison

Vision without action is merely a dream. Action without vision just passes the time. Vision with action can change the world! -Joel Arthur Barker

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