Elmo R. Zumwalt Quotes

A good scientist is a person with original ideas. A good engineer is a person who makes a design that works with as few original ideas as possible. There are no prima donnas in engineering.

Serious-minded people have few ideas. People with ideas are never serious.

I've never taken any issue off the table for lack of suitability. Only for lack of imagination.

Ideas are like pizza dough, made to be tossed around.

You need to be open and explore while heading where you want to go. You can never be too in love with your own ideas. If you can remember every idea that is yours in a script, as opposed to someone else's, then something is wrong.

The artists who stick around for a while are the ones who go, 'Oh, that's cool, never thought of that. Ought to do that.'

I'm a great collaborator. I really am. I will steal anyone's idea if it is a good one.

As the world we live in is so unpredictable, the ability to learn and to adapt to change is imperative, alongside creativity, problem-solving, and communication skills.

In an age of exponential change, we need the power of diverse thinking, and we cannot afford to leave any talent untapped.

What's wonderful about Google is that as long as you bring ideas to the table, it doesn't matter what else is going on.

Adapt your techniques to an idea, not an idea to your techniques.

I love being around people that contribute. It doesn't matter where the good idea comes from. A good idea is a good idea.

Collaboration is important not just because it's a better way to learn. The spirit of collaboration is penetrating every institution and all of our lives. So learning to collaborate is part of equipping yourself for effectiveness, problem solving, innovation and life-long learning in an ever-changing networked economy.

An open-minded person running a business might catch a problem faster than a closed-minded person. And when they identify a problem, they can fix it much faster.

It's not the style that motivates me, as much as an attitude of openness that I have when I go into a project.

Without an open-minded mind, you can never be a great success.

I've had a bit of experience at lots and lots of different arenas as it were, some of them completely creative, some of them quite technical. The interesting thing is, is that I found that the technical arenas actually are also very creative or can be very creative.

Ideas are nothing. They're irrelevant. If you think your idea is so important, you're doomed. The reality is if you don't like one idea, I've got 299 more. If I tell you my idea, and you can execute better against that idea than I can - great; I get to play a terrific game.

And in order to succeed in later life, you need creative skills because look at how fast the world is changing.

In my work, I have never had any use for anything that I have known in advance.

I just find things that work and embellish them.

Creativity has always depended on openness and flexibility, so let us hope for more of both in the future.

We can always find creative ways to do things.

To invent is to discern, to choose.

The first complete sentence out of my mouth was probably that line about consistency being the hobgoblin of small minds.