Charles Kettering

“It doesn't matter if you try and try and try again, and fail. It does matter if you try and fail, and fail to try again.”

“Knowing is not understanding. There is a great difference between knowing and understanding: you can know a lot about something and not really understand it.”

“Thinking is one thing no one has ever been able to tax.”

“People think of the inventor as a screwball, but no one ever asks the inventor what he thinks of other people.”

“The only difference between a problem and a solution is that people understand the solution.”

“An inventor is simply a fellow who doesn't take his education too seriously.”

“Our imagination is the only limit to what we can hope to have in the future.”

“A person must have a certain amount of intelligent ignorance to get anywhere.”

“We often say that the biggest job we have is to teach a newly hired employee to fail intelligently... to experiment over and over again and to keep on trying and failing until he learns what will work.”

“I object to people running down the future. I am going to live all the rest of my life there.”

“An inventor fails 999 times, and if he succeeds once, he's in. He treats his failures simply as practice shots.”

“Inventing is a combination of brains and materials. The more brains you use, the less material you need.”

“It is not a disgrace to fail. Failing is one of the greatest arts in the world.”

“Keep on going and the chances are you will stumble on something, perhaps when you are least expecting it. I have never heard of anyone stumbling on something sitting down.”

“My definition of an educated man is the fellow who knows the right thing to do at the time it has to be done. You can be sincere and still be stupid.”

“In America we can say what we think, and even if we can't think, we can say it anyhow.”

“There is a great difference between knowing and understanding: you can know a lot about something and not really understand it.”

“A problem well stated is a problem half-solved.”

“Problems are the price of progress. Don't bring me anything but trouble. Good news weakens me.”

“The biggest job we have is to teach a newly hired employee how to fail intelligently. We have to train him to experiment over and over and to keep on trying and failing until he learns what will work.”