Eli Whitney Quotes

As a child, I was always interested in building things. Instead of buying candy, I would purchase nails, which I used to construct things out of scrap wood. My mother always claimed that my spending my money on nails instead of on candy was why I was so skinny as a kid.

If I need something, I'll invent it.

I'm a DIY kinda guy.

I used to unwind the wire tags that labeled the crates of vegetables and took the fine brass and steel wires and braided and twisted them together to make bracelets, rings, and figures.

My dad used to give me old electrical equipment that didn't work anymore, and I'd put things together. I think that's why I like to mix things that don't belong.

Building and tinkering were such a huge part of our childhood, whether we were trying to entertain ourselves as kids, helping our parents out on the ranch, or getting creative with school projects.

One reason that we're so adaptable is that humans are excellent tool users and homebuilders. When our environment doesn't provide us with something that we need, we try to make it ourselves out of whatever is available, whether that's rock or wood or ore or DNA.

The best substitute for money is ingenuity.

My mother could make something out of nothing - and everything started from scratch.

When I was an orphan, I was the richest kid at the orphanage because everyone else was complaining about not having anything. But when I discovered that you could get two cents for a Coca-Cola bottle, I would follow people around who were drinking it and ask them if they were almost through with it.

I grew up in a family where our mother made our clothing. We didn't have a lot of money, so we learned how to scrimp, and we learned how to invent and to create. And those are learned skills.

I credit my mom with inspiring in me a love of design, matched by her creative problem-solving abilities. This is a woman who could find an old, discarded piece of furniture, bring it home and turn it into something fabulous.

Food became for me a way of becoming self-sufficient with my hands, to regain manual literacy, which I think has been lost on our generation and certainly younger generations. Very few people can actually make things with their hands and do things with their hands.

As the editor-in-chief of the do-it-yourself magazine 'Make,' I've met scores of dedicated makers. They come from all walks of life - rich, poor, young, old, male, female, religious, atheist, liberal, conservative.

I would like Americans to make things with their hands. Thomas Jefferson and I feel that makes for a much stronger nation.

I went to junkyards, abandoned car lots. I asked supermarkets for the big jugs they put pig guts in, to make cabinets for my bass speakers.

I still have the first bottle opener I made on my MakerBot. Things you fabricate are things you care more about. I think there will always be people who go and buy crap at the dollar store. But I think it is cool when people craft things themselves.

I wanted a choker, and couldn't find one I liked, so I thought, 'I'll just make it.'

We had grain but no mills, so I designed a special mill of wood so we could make flour.

I think frugality drives innovation, just like other constraints do. One of the only ways to get out of a tight box is to invent your way out.

I like working with my hands. It feels good to build something yourself.

As far back as I remember, and earlier, I was an artisan, a maker and doer. Mechanically minded, my parents said.

One man's trash is another man's treasure, and the by-product from one food can be perfect for making another.

You can do great things with low-tech stuff.

The maker movement is about people who want to gain more control of the human design world that they interact with every day. Instead of accepting off-the-shelf solutions from institutions and corporations, makers would like to make, modify, and repair their own tools, clothing, food, toys, furniture, and other physical objects.