Echoes

The secret of change is to focus all of your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new.

The best way to predict the future is to invent it.

Progress lies not in enhancing what is, but in advancing toward what will be.

It ought to be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. Because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new. This coolness arises partly from fear of the opponents, who have the laws on their side, and partly from the incredulity of men, who do not readily believe in new things until they have had a long experience of them.

Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.

A man must shape himself to a new mark when the old one goes to ground.

It is not a dream, it is a simple feat of scientific electrical engineering, only expensive — blind, faint-hearted, doubting world! . . . Humanity is not yet sufficiently advanced to be willingly led by the discover's keen searching sense. But who knows? Perhaps it is better in this present world of ours that a revolutionary idea or invention instead of being helped and patted, be hampered and ill-treated in its adolescence — by want of means, by selfish interest, pedantry, stupidity and ignorance; that it be attacked and stifled; that it pass through bitter trials and tribulations, through the heartless strife of commercial existence. So do we get our light. So all that was great in the past was ridiculed, condemned, combated, suppressed — only to emerge all the more powerfully, all the more triumphantly from the struggle.

The empires of the future are the empires of the mind.

I must create a system, or be enslaved by another man's; I will not Reason and Compare: my business is to Create.

A part of good science is to see what everyone else can see but think what no one else has ever said.

Without accepting the fact that everything changes, we cannot find perfect composure.

Taking a new step, uttering a new word, is what people fear most.

When you grow up you tend to get told that the world is the way it is and your life is just to live your life inside the world. Try not to bash into the walls too much. Try to have a nice family, have fun, save a little money. That's a very limited life. Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact: Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you and you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use.

Make the best use of what is in your power, and take the rest as it happens.

Difficulties are just things to overcome, after all.

I will either find a way, or make one.

The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.

Genius, in truth, means little more than the faculty of perceiving in an unhabitual way.

Whatever America hopes to bring to pass in the world must first come to pass in the heart of America.

Don't judge the future of a person based on his present conditions, because time has the power to change black coal to shiny diamond.

The creator gives no heed to the critic unless he becomes a barren inventor.

What cannot be eschewed must be embraced

I cannot help fearing that men may reach a point where they look on every new theory as a danger, every innovation as a toilsome trouble, every social advance as a first step toward revolution, and that they may absolutely refuse to move at all.

When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.

The snake which cannot cast its skin has to die.