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A significant inventionmust be startling, unexpected. It must come to a world that is not prepared for it.

Edwin Land

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Edwin Land
Age: 81 †
Born: 1909
Born: May 7
Died: 1991
Died: March 1
Entrepreneur
Inventor
Photographer
Physicist
Bridgeport
Connecticut
Edwin Land
Edwin Herbert Land
E.H. Land
Prepared
Science
Startling
Come
Unexpected
Must
Preparation
World
Invention
Acceptance
Significant

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Politeness is the poison of collaboration.
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We can be dramatic, even theatrical we can be persuasive but the message we are telling must be true.
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Creativity is the sudden cessation of stupidity.
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The most important thing about power is to make sure you don't have to use it.
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My motto is very personal and may not fit anyone else or any other company. It is: Don't do anything that someone else can do. Don't undertake a project unless it is manifestly important and nearly impossible.
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In this country, there is an opportunity for the development of man's intellectual, cultural, and spiritual potentialities that has never existed before in the history of our species. I mean not simply an opportunity for greatness for a few, but an opportunity for greatness for the many.
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The future may require not so much having a new idea as stopping having an old idea.
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A premature attempt to explain something that thrills you will destroy your perceptivity rather than increase it, because your tendency will be to explain away rather than seek out.
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Marketing is what you do when your product is no good.
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Profundity and originality are attributes of single, if not singular, minds.
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I submit to you that when in each man the dream of personal greatness dies, democracy loses the real source of its future strength.
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Aladdin in his most intoxicated moments would never have dreamed of asking his [djinn] for [a polaroid] ... It's utterly new in concept and appearance, utilizing an utterly revolutionary flash system, an utterly revolutionary viewing system, utterly revolutionary electronics, and utterly revolutionary film structure.
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Look, if the picture you get instantly is as beautiful as the picture you get by waiting seven days, then it is absolute madness to say that there is virtue in waiting.
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I believe each incoming freshman [in college] must be started at once on his own research project if we are to preserve his secret dream of greatness and make it come true.
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The world belongs to the articulate.
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Over the years, I have learned that every significant invention has several characteristics. By definition it must be startling, unexpected, and must come into a world that is not prepared for it. If the world were prepared for it, it would not be much of an invention.
Edwin Land
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I believe quite simply that the small company of the future will be as much a research organization as it is a manufacturing company.
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Do not do anything that anyone else can do readily.
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You cannot separate the composition from the life of the moment. It is all one thing, to be decided in a split second while you're living through it.
Edwin Land
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The first thing you do is teach the person to feel that the vision is very important and nearly impossible. That draws out the drive in the winner.
Edwin Land