quotations about invention and inventing
A tool is but the extension of a man's hand, and a machine is but a complex tool. And he that invents a machine augments the power of a man and the well-being of mankind.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
Everything that we call Invention or Discovery in the higher sense of the word is the serious exercise and activity of an original feeling for truth, which, after a long course of silent cultivation, suddenly flashes out into fruitful knowledge.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe
Invention, it must be humbly admitted, does not consist in creating out of void, but out of chaos.
MARY SHELLEY
introduction, Frankenstein
Men are in fact, quite unable to control their own inventions; they at best develop adaptability to the new conditions those inventions create
JOHN GALSWORTHY
The Forsyte Saga
The imaginative child will become the imaginative man or woman most apt to create, to invent, and therefore to foster civilization.
L. FRANK BAUM
The Lost Princess of Oz