Charles Kettering quotes

Charles Kettering was an influential American inventor, engineer, and businessman. Renowned for his invention of the electric starter and numerous automotive innovations, he held over 180 patents. He played a key role in shaping modern automotive technology and fostering industrial research. Here are 55 of his quotes:

My interest is in the future because I am going to spend the rest of my life there. (Charles Kettering)
There is a great difference between knowing and understanding: you can know a lot about something and not really understand it. View quote
Charles Kettering
Keep on going, and the chances are that you will stumble on something, perhaps when you are least expecting it. I never heard of anyone ever stumbling on something sitting down. View quote
Charles Kettering
High achievement always takes place in the framework of high expectation. View quote
Charles Kettering
Our imagination is the only limit to what we can hope to have in the future. View quote
Charles Kettering
An inventor is simply a fellow who doesn't take his education too seriously. View quote
Charles Kettering
The Wright brothers flew right through the smoke screen of impossibility. View quote
Charles Kettering
Thinking is one thing no one has ever been able to tax. View quote
Charles Kettering
A problem well stated is a problem half-solved. View quote
Charles Kettering
You can't have a better tomorrow if you are thinking about yesterday all the time. View quote
Charles Kettering
The world hates change, yet it is the only thing that has brought progress. (Charles Kettering)
Believe and act as if it were impossible to fail. View quote
Charles Kettering
It doesn't matter if you try and try and try again, and fail. It does matter if you try and fail, and fail to try again. View quote
Charles Kettering
The whole fun of living is trying to make something better. View quote
Charles Kettering
Inventing is a combination of brains and materials. The more brains you use, the less material you need. View quote
Charles Kettering
No one would have crossed the ocean if he could have gotten off the ship in the storm. View quote
Charles Kettering
You will never stub your toe standing still. The faster you go, the more chance there is of stubbing your toe, but the more chance you have of getting somewhere. View quote
Charles Kettering
One fails forward toward success. View quote
Charles Kettering
You are always too late with a development if you are so slow that people demand it before you yourself recognize it. The research department should have foreseen what was necessary and had it ready to a point where people never knew they wanted it until it was made available to them. View quote
Charles Kettering
A problem thoroughly understood is always fairly simple. Found your opinions on facts, not prejudices. We know too many things that are not true. View quote
Charles Kettering
An inventor fails 999 times, and if he succeeds once, he's in. He treats his failures simply as practice shots. (Charles Kettering)
The opportunities of man are limited only by his imagination. But so few have imagination that there are ten thousand fiddlers to one composer. View quote
Charles Kettering
The key to economic prosperity is the organized creation of dissatisfaction. View quote
Charles Kettering
Why is the human skull as dense as it is? Nowadays we can send a message around the world in one-seventh of a second, but it takes years to drive an idea through a quarter-inch of human skull. View quote
Charles Kettering
If you want to kill any idea in the world, get a committee working on it. View quote
Charles Kettering