Quotable Quotes

Here is a collection of quotes that I think are directly or indirectly applicable to innovation.  Some are old, some are ancient, some are new, and they're in no particular order.  Some have editorial comments.  Please let me know if you have others you'd like to add - including your own editorial comments, related stories or original quotes.

• "Don't just anticipate the future. Create it!" - anon. (...but often claimed and used.)
• "Don't explain why it can't be done.  Discover how it can be done." - MoTao, 404-329 B.C.
• "An idea is salvation by imagination." - Frank Lloyd Wright
• "Innovation means committing to revolutionary ideas. You have to be willing to accept failure." - John Hake, Global Design Director, Nike
• "Defending yesterday - that is, not innovating - is far more risky than making tomorrow. An established company which, in an age demanding innovation is not able to innovate, is doomed to extinction." - Peter Drucker (or, in three words: innovate or die.)
• "Ideas are capital.  The rest is just money." - anon.
• "The beginning is the most important part of the work." - Plato
• "Man is most nearly himself when he achieves the seriousness of a child at play." - Heraclitus, Greek philosopher, 500BC (See Dr. Seuss, below.)
• "Conventional wisdom is an oxymoron." - David Neeleman, CEO, JetBlue Airways
• "It is not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory." - W. Edwards Deming
• "Because its purpose is to create a customer, the business enterprise has two, and only these two basic functions: marketing and innovation.  Marketing and innovation produce results.  All the rest are just costs." - Peter Drucker (Having been involved in marketing and innovation most of my adult life, I love this one!)
• "All growth is a leap in the dark, a spontaneous, unpremeditated act without benefit of experience." - Henry Miller (Innovation is often like that, but so are a lot of fun things.)
• "The man who has no imagination has no wings." Muhammed Ali
• "Probable impossibilities are to be preferred to improbable possibilities." - Aristotle
• "He that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils, for time is the greatest innovator." - Francis Bacon
• "If you have enough information to make a business case, you're too late." - Bill Gates (He's done OK.)
• "Innovation is a team sport, but it depends on individual competencies." - anon.
• "Only a fool would make predictions - especially about the future." - Samuel Goldwyn (I wonder if he knew Yogi Berra?)
• "The most effective way to cope with change is to create it." - anon. (...but also often claimed/used.)
• "Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
• "Never be afraid to try something new or challenge conventional wisdom. Remember, amateurs built the ark.  Professionals built the Titanic." - anon.
• "The only sustainable competitive advantage comes from out-innovating the competition." - James Morse
• "An idea is not a reality until it becomes an action." - Jean-Paul Sartre (...and he really existed.)
• "The goal is not to speculate on what might happen, but to imagine what you can actually make happen." - Gary Hamel (one of the best authors on innovation out there today)
• "When the rate of change outside is greater than the rate of change inside, the end is in sight." - Jack Welch (I learned a great deal of what I know from Jack & company at GE.)
• "Don't compete. Do something different." - Charles Handy (Irish author/philosopher specializing in organizational behavior and management)
• "The biggest limitation we face is how fast we can innovate.  We're constrained by how fast ur brains can work." - Jerry Yang, co-founder of Yahoo
• "The problem is never how to get new, innovative thoughts into your mind, but how to get old ones out." Dee Hock, Visa
• "People who seem to have a new idea have often simply stopped having an old idea." - Edwin Land, founder of Polaroid (I worked for him at Polaroid once long ago, but disagreed with another of his quotes: "Marketing is what people do who don't have an idea.)
• "Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower." - Steve Jobs
• "If you're a traditional employer, beware: You're a way station for talent just until the economy clears up." - Bruce Tulgan, founder, RainmakerThinking and author of Winning the Talent Wars
• "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.” - Margaret Mead, 1901 -1978 (...or a small group of innovation zealots!)
• “I like nonsense,it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living.”
  Theodore Geisel a.k.a. Dr. Seuss, 1904 -1991 (works for me, whether it's reading his books to my grandkids, or taking this advice to offset the often too-serious world of business.)
• "Competition is not healthy. I don't like it.  It's not good for me or my business.  I think I'll just do something new and different, and confuse those guys." - Irving Jacobs (a successful guy from NYC that I met in the plastics business many years ago - but never forgot.)
• "Our favorite quotes are those that resonate with us somehow - and catalyze us to think new thoughts and take new actions." - Conrad Zumhagen, Innovation Zealot

Reader Contributions

• "Speed is God, Time is the Devil" – Silicon Valley saying
• "The sooner you fall behind, the more time you'll have to catch up. The historical records show that humans have never, ever opted for slower."– Stephen Kern, historian
• "Wealth in the new regime flows directly from innovation, not optimization; that is, wealth is not gained by perfecting the known, but by imperfectly seizing the unknown." – Kevin Kelly, in New Rules for the New Economy
  
  The three items above come from the short book, Carpe Mañana by Price Pritchett, courtesy of reader Mark Symonik, Jan. 20, 2008.

And a few more, recently contributed by colleague and friend, Paul Kerivan

• "Minds are like parachutes. They only function when they are open." - Sir James Dewar, Scientist (1877-1925)
• "If you can't describe what you are doing as a process, you don't know what you're doing." - W. Edwards Deming
• "When all think alike, no one is thinking very much." -Walter Lippmann (1889-1974)
• "Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity." - Charles Mingus, jazz musician & composer
• "The important thing is never to stop questioning." - Albert Einstein
• "It's kind of fun to do the impossible." - Walt Disney