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Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index I > Category: Innovation

Innovation Quotes (24 quotes)

'...no pleasure is comparable to the standing upon the vantage ground of truth … and to see the errors … in the vale below:' so always that this prospect be with pity, and not with swelling or pride.
Quoting an unnamed poet and adding a comment.
— Sir Francis Bacon
I. Of Truth,' Essays (1597). In Francis Bacon and Basil Montagu, The Works of Francis Bacon, Lord Chancellor of England (1852), 11

... an opportunity to allow the bees in one's bonnet to buzz even more noisily than usual.
— Sir Hermann Bondi

Alike fantastic, if too new, or old;
Be not the first by whom the new are try'd,
Not yet the last to lay the old aside.
— Alexander Pope
In An Essay on Criticism. With notes by Mr. Warburton (1749), 49.
Science quotes on:  |  Fantastic (4)  |  New (77)  |  Old (14)  |  Try (22)

An important scientific innovation rarely makes its way by gradually winning over and converting its opponents. What does happen is that its opponents gradually die out, and that the growing generation is familiarized with the ideas from the beginning.
— Max Planck
Scientific Autobiography and Other Papers, trans. F. Gaynor (1950), 97. Quoted in David L. Hull, Science as a Process (1990), 379.
Science quotes on:  |  Opposition (19)

Around here, however, we don't look backwards for very long. We keep moving forward, opening up new doors, and doing new things, because we're curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.
— Walter Elias (Walt) Disney
In Juz Griffiths, Disneyland Paris - The Family Guide (2007), opening page.
Science quotes on:  |  Action (49)  |  Curiosity (45)  |  Door (11)  |  Forward (7)  |  Progress (180)

As the births of living creatures are ill-shapen, so are all innovations, which are the births of time.
— Sir Francis Bacon
XXIV. On Innovation,' Essays (1597). In Francis Bacon and Basil Montagu, The Works of Francis Bacon, Lord Chancellor of England (1852), 32

I had an immense advantage over many others dealing with the problem inasmuch as I had no fixed ideas derived from long-established practice to control and bias my mind, and did not suffer from the general belief that whatever is, is right.
— Sir Henry Bessemer
In Sir Henry Bessemer, F.R.S.: An Autobiography (1905), 93.
Science quotes on:  |  Invention (143)

I think it perfectly just, that he who, from the love of experiment, quits an approved for an uncertain practice, should suffer the full penalty of Egyptian law against medical innovation; as I would consign to the pillory, the wretch, who out of regard to his character, that is, to his fees, should follow the routine, when, from constant experience he is sure that his patient will die under it, provided any, not inhuman, deviation would give his patient a chance.
— Dr. Thomas Beddoes
From his researches in Fever, 196. In John Edmonds Stock, Memoirs of the life of Thomas Beddoes (1810), 400.
Science quotes on:  |  Death (168)  |  Deviation (8)  |  Experience (115)  |  Experiment (346)  |  Fee (4)  |  Justice (9)  |  Law (243)  |  Medicine (183)  |  Patient (48)  |  Physician (167)  |  Routine (4)  |  Treatment (53)  |  Wretch (3)

I'd climb in the car as it went down the assembly line and introduce myself. Then I'd ask for ideas.
[How, as Ford manager of development for the Taurus car, he sought input from Ford production employees.]
— John W. Risk
Quoted in Business Week, Issues 3015-3023 (1987). In Robert H. Waterman, The Renewal Factor (1988), 147.
Science quotes on:  |  Assembly Line (2)  |  Introduce (2)

I'm convinced that the best solutions are often the ones that are counterintuitive - that challenge conventional thinking - and end in breakthroughs. It is always easier to do things the same old way...why change? To fight this, keep your dissatisfaction index high and break with tradition. Don't be too quick to accept the way things are being done. Question whether there's a better way. Very often you will find that once you make this break from the usual way - and incidentally, this is probably the hardest thing to do—and start on a new track your horizon of new thoughts immediately broadens. New ideas flow in like water. Always keep your interests broad - don't let your mind be stunted by a limited view.
— Nathaniel Wyeth
1988

If mankind is to profit freely from the small and sporadic crop of the heroically gifted it produces, it will have to cultivate the delicate art of handling ideas. Psychology is now able to tell us with reasonable assurance that the most influential obstacle to freedom of thought and to new ideas is fear; and fear which can with inimitable art disguise itself as caution, or sanity, or reasoned skepticism, or on occasion even as courage.
— Wilfred Trotter
'The Commemoration of Great Men', Hunterian Oration, Royal College of Surgeons (15 Feb 1952) British Medical Journal (20 Feb 1932), 1, 317-20. The Collected Papers of Wilfred Trotter, FRS (1941), 30.
Science quotes on:  |  Art (63)  |  Assurance (5)  |  Caution (8)  |  Courage (14)  |  Crop (7)  |  Cultivation (7)  |  Delicacy (2)  |  Fear (47)  |  Freedom (36)  |  Handle (3)  |  Hero (8)  |  Idea (180)  |  Influence (41)  |  Mankind (95)  |  Obstacle (8)  |  Product (23)  |  Profit (12)  |  Reason (146)  |  Reasonable (3)  |  Sanity (4)  |  Skepticism (9)  |  Thought (143)

If there is a regulation that says you have to do something—whether it be putting in seat belts, catalytic converters, clean air for coal plants, clean water—the first tack that the lawyers use, among others things, and that companies use, is that it's going to drive the electricity bill up, drive the cost of cars up, drive everything up. It repeatedly has been demonstrated that once the engineers start thinking about it, it's actually far less than the original estimates. We should remember that when we hear this again, because you will hear it again.
— Steven Chu
Talk (Apr 2007) quoted in 'Obama's Energy and Environment Team Includes a Nobel Laureate', Kent Garber, USNews website (posted 11 Dec 2008).
Science quotes on:  |  Engineer (25)  |  Lawyer (11)  |  Money (82)  |  Regulation (9)  |  Technology (82)

Innovations, free thinking is blowing like a storm; those that stand in front of it, ignorant scholars like you, false scientists, perverse conservatives, obstinate goats, resisting mules are being crushed under the weight of these innovations. You are nothing but ants standing in front of the giants; nothing but chicks trying to challenge roaring volcanoes!
— Mehmet Murat ildan
From the play Galileo Galilei (2001) .
Science quotes on:  |  Ant (8)  |  Chicken (2)  |  Conservative (3)  |  False (25)  |  Giant (13)  |  Goat (2)  |  Ignorance (94)  |  Scholar (16)  |  Scientist (186)  |  Storm (11)  |  Thinking (140)  |  Volcano (22)

It's a good thing to turn your mind upside down now and then, like an hour-glass, to let the particles run the other way.
— Christopher Morley
The Haunted Bookshop (1919), 13.
Science quotes on:  |  Thought (143)

It’s very dangerous to invent something in our times; ostentatious men of the other world, who are hostile to innovations, roam about angrily. To live in peace, one has to stay away from innovations and new ideas. Innovations, like trees, attract the most destructive lightnings to themselves.
— Mehmet Murat ildan
From the play Galileo Galilei (2001) .
Science quotes on:  |  Attract (4)  |  Dangerous (10)  |  Hostility (3)  |  Idea (180)  |  Invention (143)  |  Lightning (14)  |  Peace (20)  |  Tree (66)

New ideas seem like frightening ghosts to people at the beginning; they run away from them for a long time, but they get tired of it in the end!
— Mehmet Murat ildan
From the play Galileo Galilei (2001) .
Science quotes on:  |  Beginning (55)  |  End (40)  |  Fear (47)  |  Ghost (7)  |  Idea (180)  |  Run (7)  |  Tired (2)

Surely every medicine is an innovation, and he that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils for time is the greatest innovator.
— Sir Francis Bacon
XXIV. On Innovation,' Essays (1597). In Francis Bacon and Basil Montagu, The Works of Francis Bacon, Lord Chancellor of England (1852), 32
Science quotes on:  |  Medicine (183)

The human mind treats a new idea the way the body treats a strange protein; it rejects it.
— Sir Peter B. Medawar
The Art of the Soluble (1967). Quoted in Colin J. Sanderson, Understanding Genes and GMOs (2007), 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Idea (180)

The principal goal of education is to create men who are capable of doing new things, not simply of repeating what other generations have done—men who are creative, inventive, and discovers. The second goal of education is to form minds which can be critical, can verify, and not accept everything they are offered.
— Jean Piaget
From remarks at a conference on cognitive development, Cornell University (1964). In Philip Hampson Taylor, New Directions in Curriculum Studies (1979), 90.
Science quotes on:  |  Creativity (37)  |  Critical (6)  |  Discovery (318)  |  Education (154)  |  Invention (143)  |  Mind (236)  |  Verify (3)

The reason why new concepts in any branch of science are hard to grasp is always the same; contemporary scientists try to picture the new concept in terms of ideas which existed before.
— Freeman Dyson
'Innovation in Physics', Scientific American, 1958, 199, 76.
Science quotes on:  |  Idea (180)  |  Scientist (186)

The same society which receives the rewards of technology must, as a cooperating whole, take responsibility for control. To deal with these new problems will require a new conservation. We must not only protect the countryside and save it from destruction, we must restore what has been destroyed and salvage the beauty and charm of our cities. Our conservation must be not just the classic conservation of protection and development, but a creative conservation of restoration and innovation. Its concern is not with nature alone, but with the total relation between man and the world around him. Its object is not just man's welfare, but the dignity of man's spirit.
— President Lyndon Johnson
In his 'Message to Congress on Conservation and Restoration of Natural Beauty' written to Congress (8 Feb 1965). It was a broad initiative aimed at beautifying America, guaranteeing water and air quality, and preserving natural areas. In Lyndon B. Johnson: Containing the Public Messages, Speeches, and Statements of the President (1965), Vol.1, 156. United States. President (1963-1969 : Johnson), Lyndon Baines Johnson, United States. Office of the Federal Register - 1970
Science quotes on:  |  Beauty (71)  |  Charm (8)  |  City (10)  |  Concern (24)  |  Conservation (35)  |  Control (37)  |  Cooperation (15)  |  Countryside (2)  |  Creativity (37)  |  Destruction (37)  |  Development (97)  |  Dignity (7)  |  Environment (57)  |  Mankind (95)  |  Nature (475)  |  New (77)  |  Object (38)  |  Problem (149)  |  Protection (13)  |  Relationship (29)  |  Requirement (21)  |  Responsibility (21)  |  Restoration (3)  |  Reward (15)  |  Saving (8)  |  Society (75)  |  Spirit (42)  |  Technology (82)  |  Welfare (7)  |  World (165)

We were not the victims of ancestor worship. We had the benefits of a fresh start.
[Explaining why his company became a leader in the digital HDTV industry.]
— Matthew D. Miller
Quoted in Edmund L. Andrews, 'And Now for Something Substantially Different: Digital TV', New York Times (12 Jul 1992), 127.
Science quotes on:  |  Ancestor (12)  |  Benefit (16)  |  Fresh (8)  |  Start (22)  |  Worship (9)

Who never walks save where he see men's tracks makes no discoveries.
— Josiah Gilbert Holland
In Kathrina, her Life and Mine in a Poem (1895), 220.
Science quotes on:  |  Discovery (318)  |  Track (3)  |  Walk (20)

…it ought to be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. Because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new.
— Niccolò Machiavelli
The Prince (1532). W. K. Marriott (translator) and Rob McMahon (editor), The Prince (2008), 71.
Science quotes on:  |  Condition (53)  |  Difficulty (59)  |  Enemy (21)  |  Introduction (11)  |  New (77)  |  Order (52)  |  Peril (2)  |  Remember (14)  |  Success (93)



Carl Sagan Thumbnail At the heart of science is an essential balance between two seemingly contradictory attitudes--an openness to new ideas, no matter how bizarre or counterintuitive they may be, and the most ruthless skeptical scrutiny of all ideas, old and new. This is how deep truths are winnowed from deep nonsense. -- Carl Sagan

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