Innovation is not just one of today’s most popular buzzwords. Innovation is the stuff of successful people – whatever their line of work is.
It is said that innovation is the foundation of entrepreneurship. Successful entrepreneurs are endowed with the innovative spirit – to do things differently, better, faster, more efficiently, more aesthetically, etc. etc.
Wikipedia defines innovation as the application of better solutions that meet new requirements, unarticulated needs of existing marketing needs. This is accomplished through more effective products, processes, services, technologies or ideas that are readily available to markets, governments, and society.
The term innovation can be defined as something original and, as a consequence, new, that “breaks into” the market or society.
Here are quotes on innovation – as compiled by Mitch D. of the Heart of Innovation, which may inspire all of us not to be satisfied with the existing ways of doing things and aspire for something better. Perhaps, who knows, the inspiration may lead some of us to entrepreneurial paths.
1. “I want to put a ding in the universe.” – Steve Jobs
2. “Ideas won’t keep. Something must be done about them.” – Alfred North Whitehead
3. “Intuition will tell the thinking mind where to look next.” – Jonas Salk
4. “If you have always done it that way, it is probably wrong.” – Charles Kettering
5. “Security is mostly a superstition. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.” – Helen Keller
6. “If you can dream it, you can do it.” – Walt Disney
7. “You can’t solve a problem on the same level that it was created. You have to rise above it to the next level.” – Albert Einstein
8. “Do not fear mistakes. There are none.” – Miles Davis
9. “The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect, but by the play instinct arising from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the object it loves.” – Carl Jung
10. “There is only one thing stronger than all the armies of the world: and that is an idea whose time has come.” – Victor Hugo
11. “If you lose the power to laugh, you lose the power to think.”
– Clarence Darrow
12. “Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen.” – John Steinbeck
13. “To accomplish great things we must dream as well as act.” – Anatole France
14. “It is the essence of genius to make use of the simplest ideas.”
– Charles Peguy
15. “There’s no good idea that cannot be improved on.” – Michael Eisner
16. “We don’t see things as they are, we see things as we are.” – Anais Nin
17. “We don’t know a millionth of one percent about anything.”
– Thomas Edison
18. “The best vision is insight.” – Malcolm Forbes
19. “Genius is infinite painstaking.” – Michelangelo
20. “Nothing will change the fact that I cannot produce the least thing without absolute solitude.” – Goethe
21. “Neither a lofty degree of intelligence, nor imagination, nor both together, go to the making of genius. Love, Love, Love. That is the soul of genius.” – Mozart
22. “Swipe from the best, then adapt.” – Tom Peters
23. “Give me the young man who has brains enough to make a fool of himself.” – Robert Louis Stevenson
24. “You can expect no influence if you are not susceptible to influence.” – Carl Jung
25. “Whether or not you can observe a thing depends upon the theory you use. It is the theory which decides what can be observed.” – Albert Einstein
26. “Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.” – Goethe
27. “Sit, walk, or run, but don’t wobble.” – Zen proverb
28. “The greater the contrast, the greater the potential. Great energy only comes from a correspondingly great tension of opposites.” – Carl Jung
29. “We don’t know who discovered water, but we’re certain it wasn’t a fish.” – John Culkin
30. “I will act as if what I do will make a difference.” – William James
(To be continued)
Photo: from www.knowledge4innovation