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Quotes by Charles F. Kettering


The world hates change, yet it is the only thing that has brought progress.
– Charles F. Kettering

A problem well stated is a problem half-solved.
– Charles F. Kettering
A person must have a certain amount of intelligent ignorance to get anywhere.
– Charles F. Kettering
An inventor fails 999 times, and if he succeeds once, he's in. He treats his failures simply as practice shots.
– Charles F. Kettering
An inventor is simply a fellow who doesn't take his education too seriously.
– Charles F. Kettering
Believe and act as if it were impossible to fail.
– Charles F. Kettering
Every time you tear a leaf off a calendar, you present a new place for new ideas and progress.
– Charles F. Kettering
High achievement always takes place in the framework of high expectation.
– Charles F. Kettering
If you have always done it that way, it is probably wrong.
– Charles F. Kettering
If you want to kill any idea in the world, get a committee working on it.
– Charles F. Kettering
In America we can say what we think, and even if we can't think, we can say it anyhow.
– Charles F. Kettering
Inventing is a combination of brains and materials. The more brains you use, the less material you need.
– Charles F. 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.
– Charles F. Kettering
Keep on going and the chances are you will stumble on something, perhaps when you are least expecting it. I have never heard of anyone stumbling on something sitting down.
– Charles F. Kettering
My definition of an educated man is the fellow who knows the right thing to do at the time it has to be done. You can be sincere and still be stupid.
– Charles F. Kettering
My interest is in the future because I am going to spend the rest of my life there.
– Charles F. Kettering
No one would have crossed the ocean if he could have gotten off the ship in the storm.
– Charles F. Kettering
One fails forward toward success.
– Charles F. Kettering
Our imagination is the only limit to what we can hope to have in the future.
– Charles F. Kettering
People are very open-minded about new things - as long as they're exactly like the old ones.
– Charles F. Kettering
People think of the inventor as a screwball, but no one ever asks the inventor what he thinks of other people.
– Charles F. Kettering
Problems are the price of progress. Don't bring me anything but trouble. Good news weakens me.
– Charles F. Kettering
The biggest job we have is to teach a newly hired employee how to fail intelligently. We have to train him to experiment over and over and to keep on trying and failing until he learns what will work.
– Charles F. Kettering
The future can be anything we want it to be, providing we have the faith and that we realize that peace, no less than war, required blood and sweat and tears.
– Charles F. Kettering
The only difference between a problem and a solution is that people understand the solution.
– Charles F. Kettering
The only time you mustn't fail is the last time you try.
– Charles F. 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.
– Charles F. Kettering
The Wright brothers flew right through the smoke screen of impossibility.
– Charles F. Kettering
There exist limitless opportunities in every industry. Where there is an open mind, there will always be a frontier.
– Charles F. Kettering
There is a great difference between knowing and understanding: you can know a lot about something and not really understand it.
– Charles F. Kettering
Thinking is one thing no one has ever been able to tax.
– Charles F. Kettering
We should all be concerned about the future because we will have to spend the rest of our lives there.
– Charles F. Kettering
When I was research head of General Motors and wanted a problem solved, I'd place a table outside the meeting room with a sign: LEAVE SLIDE RULES HERE! If I didn't do that, I'd find some engineer reaching for his slide rule. Then he'd be on his feet saying, Boss you can't do that.
– Charles F. Kettering
You can't have a better tomorrow if you are thinking about yesterday all the time.
– Charles F. 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.
– Charles F. Kettering