Charles Kettering Quotes - Page 3

It is easy to build a philosophy - it doesn't have to run

Why is the human skull as dense as it is? Nowadays we can send a message around the world in one-seventh of a second, but it takes years to drive an idea through a quarter-inch of human skull.

Education is man's going forward from cocksure ignorance to thoughtful uncertainty.Where there is an open mind there will always be a frontier.

Nothing ever built arose to touch the skies unless some man dreamed that it should, some man believed that it could, and some man willed that it must.

If I want to stop a research program I can always do it by getting a few experts to sit in on the subject, because they know right away that it was a fool thing to try in the first place.

Learn how to fail intelligently.

We need to teach the highly educated man that it is not a disgrace to fail and that he must analyze every failure to find its cause. He must learn how to fail intelligently, for failing is one of the greatest arts in the world.

If we taught music the way we try to teach engineering, in an unbroken four year course, we could end up with all theory and no music. When we study music, we start to practice from the beginning, and we practice for the entire time.

The only time you mustn't fail is the last time you try.

A man must have a certain amount of intelligent ignorance to get anywhere.

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

I've never heard of anyone stumbling on something sitting down.

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

The key to economic prosperity is the organized creation of dissatisfaction.

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

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

Every honest researcher I know admits he's just a professional amateur. He's doing whatever he's doing for the first time. That makes him an amateur. He has sense enough to know that he's going to have a lot of trouble, so that makes him a professional.

When I was research head of General Motors and wanted a problem solved, I'd place a table outside the meeting room with a sign: "Leave slide rules here." If I didn't do that, I'd find someone reaching for his slide rule. Then he'd be on his feet saying, "Boss, you can't do it."

Failures, repeated failures, are sign-posts on the road to achievement. The only time you don't want to fail is the last time you try something (and it works).

You are always too late with a development if you are so slow that people demand it before you yourself recognize it. The research department should have foreseen what was necessary and had it ready to a point where people never knew they wanted it until it was made available to them.

I expect to spend the rest of my life in the future, so I want to be reasonably sure of what kind of future it's going to be. That is my reason for planning.

We must look forward to the future as that is where most of us will be spending the rest of our lives.

You can send a message around the world in one-fifth of a second, yet it may take years for it to get from the outside of a man's head to the inside.

We are just in the kindergarten of uncovering things; there is no downcurve in science.

In many ways ideas are more important than people - they are much more permanent.