R. Buckminster Fuller Quotes - Page 6

There are no solids. There are no things. There are only interfering and non-interfering patterns operative in pure principle, and principles are eternal.

. . . So I vowed to keep myself alive, but only if I would never use me again for just me - each one of us is born of two, and we really belong to each other. I vowed to do my own thinking, instead of trying to accommodate everyone else's opinion, credo's and theories. I vowed to apply my inventory of experiences to the solving of problems that affect everyone aboard planet Earth.

Man is going to be displaced altogether as a specialist by the computer. Man himself is being forced to reestablish, employ, and enjoy his innate 'comprehensivity.

There is no joy equal to that of being able to work for all humanity and doing what you're doing well.

Thinking is a momentary dismissal of irrelevancies.

The dark ages still reign over all humanity, and the depth and persistence of this domination are only now becoming clear. This Dark Ages prison has no steel bars, chains, or locks. Instead, it is locked by misorientation and built of misinformation.

By and large, I seem to have made more mistakes than any others of whom I know, but have learned thereby to make ever swifter acknowledgment of the errors and thereafter immediately set about to deal more effectively with the truths disclosed by the acknowledgment of erroneous assumptions.

Man knows so much and does so little.

We are operating at an overall mechanical efficiency of only four percent... Therefore, we find that if we increase the overall mechanical efficiency to only twelve percent we can take care of everybody. That three-fold increase in the overall efficiency can only be accomplished by redesign.

I have to say, I think that we are in some kind of final examination as to whether human beings now, with this capability to acquire information and to communicate, whether we're really qualified to take on the responsibility we're designed to be entrusted with. And this is not a matter of an examination of the types of governments, nothing to do with politics, nothing to do with economic systems. It has to do with the individual. Does the individual have the courage to really go along with the truth?

War is obsolete. We are not here to fight something or tear something down; We are here to be the example of what is possible. Any sane individual will tell you that violence is ... not the way.

God, to me, it seems, is a verb not a noun, proper or improper.

Unchallenged, opinions became respected precedent then exceptionless concepts and sometimes even civil and academically accepted social law.

Most of my advances were by mistake. You uncover what is when you get rid of what isn't.

If we do more with less, our response will be adequate to take care of everybody.

If you are the master be sometimes blind, if you are the servant be sometimes deaf.

Nature is trying very hard to make us succeed, but nature does not depend on us. We are not the only experiment.

You can never learn less; you can only learn more. The reason I know so much is because I have made so many mistakes.

Nature does have manure and she does have roots as well as blossoms, and you can't hate the manure and blame the roots for not being blossoms.

Television is the third parent.

The most important thing to teach your children is that the sun does not rise and set. It is the Earth that revolves around the sun. Then teach them the concepts of North, South, East and West, and that they relate to where they happen to be on the planet's surface at that time. Everything else will follow.

The vector equilibrium is the true zero reference of the energetic mathematics. Zero pulsation in the vector equilibrium is the nearest approach we will ever know to eternity and god: the zero phase of conceptual integrity inherent in the positive and negative asymmetries that propagate the differentials of consciousness.

Whether we are able to be a complete success or failure is in such critical balance that every smallest human test of integrity every smallest moment-to-moment decision tips the scales affirmatively or negatively.

Take the initiative. Go to work, and above all co-operate and don't hold back on one another or try to gain at the expense of another. Any success in such lopsidedness will be increasingly short-lived. These are the synergetic rules that evolution is employing and trying to make clear to us. They are not man-made laws. They are the infinitely accommodative laws of the intellectual integrity governing universe.

Don't attempt to reform man. An adequately organized environment will permit humanity's original, innate capabilities to become successful.