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Why do I want to believe what I believe?... Science, to put it somewhat vulgarly, is a technique to keep yourself from kidding yourself.

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
Somewhat
Technique
Science
Keep
Believe
Thinking
Vulgarly
Kidding

More quotes by Edwin Land

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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.
Edwin Land
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Industry is best at the intersection of science and art.
Edwin Land
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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.
Edwin Land
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Work only on problems that are manifestly important and seem to be nearly impossible to solve. That way you will have a natural market for your product and no competition.
Edwin Land
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Someone is going to make your product obsolete. Make sure it's you.
Edwin Land
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Our society is changing so rapidly that none of us can know what it is or where it is going.
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
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It is a curious property of research activity that after the problem has been solved the solution seems obvious.
Edwin Land
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The very essence of democracy is the absolute faith that while people must cooperate, the first function of democracy, its peculiar gift, is to develop each individual into everything that he might be.
Edwin Land
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We can be dramatic, even theatrical we can be persuasive but the message we are telling must be true.
Edwin Land
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We took nothing from anybody. We gave a great deal to the world. The only thing keeping us alive is our brilliance. The only thing that keeps our brilliance alive is our patents.
Edwin Land
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In a few wretched buildings, we created a whole new industry with international significance.
Edwin Land
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An invention that is quickly accepted will turn out to be a rather trivial alteration of something that has already existed.
Edwin Land
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A mistake is an event, the full benefit of which has not yet been turned to your advantage.
Edwin Land
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The test of an invention is the power of an inventor to push it through in the face of staunch-not opposition, but indifference-in society.
Edwin Land
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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.
Edwin Land
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Anything worth doing is worth doing to excess.
Edwin Land
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The most important thing about power is to make sure you don't have to use it.
Edwin Land
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As I review the nature of the creative drive in the inventive scientists that have been around me, as well as in myself, I find the first event is an urge to make a significant intellectual contribution that can be tangible embodied in a product or process.
Edwin Land
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The future may require not so much having a new idea as stopping having an old idea.
Edwin Land