Sam Phillips Quotes

What really excites me in a project is when it goes in a way you haven't been before.

If your goal is to change the world, you can't start by doing things the same old way because it sells better.

When you innovate, you've got to be prepared for everyone telling you you're nuts.

In the old days, you would chastise people for reinventing the wheel. Now we beg, 'Oh, please, please reinvent the wheel.'

If your idea is truly innovative, you're going to hear from the naysayers. After all, if it really were such a good idea, someone would have already done it, right?

If you're not failing every now and again, it's a sign you're not doing anything very innovative.

Since I was in my early twenties, at ABC, I was always only interested in things that were not already being done.

Don't hold back in your writing. Take risks. Go ahead and tackle that crazy idea that you think will never fly, because that may be the one that makes you stand out from the crowd. Keep pushing the envelope.

How to teach people to do what hasn't been done is a great riddle.

Innovation never comes from the established institutions.

All I know is, I'm trying to do things that are a little different whenever I can.

If I do something I think is new, it will be misunderstood, but if people like it, I will be disappointed because I haven't pushed them enough. The more people hate it, maybe the newer it is. Because the fundamental human problem is that people are afraid of change.

Mindless habitual behavior is the enemy of innovation.

There's always a risk if you don't do things the way you've done things before.

To innovate is not to reform.

Entrepreneurs almost always have to step out of existing institutions that embody old ways of doing things to build their vision.

The trouble in America is not that we are making too many mistakes, but that we are making too few.

I believe you have to be willing to be misunderstood if you're going to innovate.

A key ingredient in innovation is the ability to challenge authority and break rules.

There's real peril in trying to repeat yourself, and apply rules that applied to something else to a new project.

You don't break ground by doing the same thing over and over and over. That's like standing in place. You have to risk to gain it all.

If you are not willing to risk the unusual, you will have to settle for the ordinary.

If the idea is really new and unique and big, other people will all think it is bad and is going to fail.

Unless you are breaking stuff, you are not moving fast enough.

If you want to do something different, you're going to come up against a lot of naysayers.