Steven Johnson Quotes

To me, innovations are the wheel, fire, language, movable type. There are not 3 million innovations; there are 3 million inventions.

Key is the question of where do new ideas come from. Historically, four places: government labs, big corporations, startup companies, and research universities.

Man keeps inventing things all the time.

New ideas in technology are literally a dime-a-dozen, or cheaper than that.

Innovation is the key to the future, but basic research is the key to future innovation.

Every new idea in any field needs protection.

Washington is no place in which to carry out inventions

It's hard to invent a new thing, and it's just as hard to invent another new thing.

Invention presupposes imagination but should not be confused with it.

Think for a moment of the great agents and engines of our civilization, and then think what shadowy ideas they all once were. The wheels of the steamship turned as swiftly as they do now, but as silent and unsubstantial as the motions of the inventor's thought; and in the noiseless loom of his meditation were woven the sinews of the printing-press, whose thunder shakes the world.

If we look at the fact, we shall find that the great inventions of the age are not, with us at least, always produced in universities.

All I want to be is, someone that makes, new things and, thinks about them.

The answers to our problems don't lie beyond our reach. They exist in our laboratories and universities; in our fields and our factories; in the imaginations of our entrepreneurs and the pride of the hardest-working people on Earth. Those qualities that have made America the greatest force of progress and prosperity in human history we still possess in ample measure.

Invention is almost the only literary labour which blindness cannot obstruct.

Every piece of technology, every piece of art, basically everything manmade comes from an idea.

Without science, there would be no such hope.

The progressive development of man is vitally dependent on invention.

If new ideas are the lifeblood of any thriving organisation-and, trust me, they are-managers must learn to revere, not merely tolerate, the people who come up with those ideas.

This is not yet a scientific age.

The inventor is a man who looks around upon the world and is not contented with things as they are. He wants to improve whatever he sees, he wants to benefit the world; he is haunted by an idea. The spirit of invention possesses him, seeking materialization.

Invention consists in the capacity of seizing on the capabilities of a subject, and in the power of moulding and fashioning ideas suggested to it.

When Lord Kelvin was in this country [U.S.], he said that nothing interested him so much as Mr. Hewitt's work and his vacuum lamp.

We've invented most of the stuff that we need and now we're just messing about

Our friends up north spend over five billion dollars on research and development and all they seem to do is copy Google and Apple.

At school, new ideas are thrust at you every day. Out in the world, you’ll have to find the inner motivation to search for new ideas on your own. With any luck at all, you’ll never need to take an idea and squeeze a punchline out of it, but as bright, creative people, you’ll be called upon to generate ideas and solutions all your lives. Letting your mind play is the best way to solve problems.