Quote

We work day after day, not to finish things but to make the future better ... because we will spend the rest of our lives there.

Charles Kettering

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Charles Kettering
Age: 82 †
Born: 1876
Born: August 29
Died: 1958
Died: November 25
Engineer
Entrepreneur
Inventor
Derby
Vermont
Charles Franklin Kettering
Work
Make
Finish
Things
Spend
Rest
Future
Lives
Science
Better

More quotes by Charles Kettering

Image
The key to economic prosperity is the organized creation of dissatisfaction.
Charles Kettering
Image
We have reason not to be afraid of the machine, for there is always constructive change, the enemy of machines, making them change to fit new conditions.
Charles Kettering
Image
If I have had any success, it's due to luck, but I notice the harder I work, the luckier I get.
Charles Kettering
Image
Believe and act as if it were impossible to fail.
Charles Kettering
Image
All human development, no matter what form it takes, must be outside the rules otherwise we would never have anything new.
Charles Kettering
Image
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.
Charles Kettering
Image
The whole fun of living is trying to make something better.
Charles Kettering
Image
I am not interested in the past. I am interested in the future, for that is where I expect to spend the rest of my life.
Charles Kettering
Image
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.
Charles Kettering
Image
Logic is a system whereby one may go wrong with confidence.
Charles Kettering
Image
No one would have crossed the ocean if he could have gotten off the ship in the storm.
Charles Kettering
Image
Industry prospers when it offers people articles which they want more than they want anything they now have. The fact is that people never buy what they need. They buy what they want.
Charles Kettering
Image
Thinking is one thing no one has ever been able to tax.
Charles Kettering
Image
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.
Charles Kettering
Image
Research means that you don't know, but are willing to find out.
Charles Kettering
Image
Inventing is a combination of brains and materials. The more brains you use, the less material you need.
Charles Kettering
Image
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.
Charles Kettering
Image
The Wright brothers flew right through the smoke screen of impossibility.
Charles Kettering
Image
We have been measuring too much in terms of the dollar. What we should do is think in terms of useful materials-things that will be of value to us in our daily life.
Charles Kettering
Image
I don't want men of experience working for me. The experienced man is always telling me why something can't be done. The fellow who has not had any experience is so dumb he doesn't know a thing can't be done - and he goes ahead and does it.
Charles Kettering