Clifford Stoll Quotes

If people like Edison had waited to make every - or Ben Franklin or some of those people had waited to solve every problem on Earth before they did their research or before they were curious about doing something new, we'd never have made a lot of the progress we have.

Everybody's a mad scientist, and life is their lab.

I'm sort of an experimenter; I thought it'd be interesting to play around and see what's there.

That's the nice thing about doing research. Whatever you do is novel, so you always have this sense of novelty, even if you are only using a new gadget.

I just like to experiment.

The only way we can fly planes and use computers is because people were curious about their world and also skeptical about the things they were told to be immutable, so they figured out other ways of doing things.

Galileo called doubt the father of invention; it is certainly the pioneer.

In trying to make something new, half the undertaking lies in discovering whether it can be done. Once it has been established that it can, duplication is inevitable.

Kids should be allowed to break stuff more often. That's a consequence of exploration. Exploration is what you do when you don't know what you're doing. That's what scientists do every day.

Fundamental research is needed to make progress, which you cannot do solely by copying others. If you only do applied research, you quickly lose creativity.

Because we imagine, we can have invention and technology. It's actually play, not necessity, that is the mother of invention.

As a child, I wanted to know how things worked and to control them. With a friend, I built a number of complicated models that I could control.

Necessity may be the mother of invention, but play is certainly the father.

I'm more interested in what I discover than what I invent.

Every great inspiration is but an experiment - though every experiment we know, is not a great inspiration.

I think we always move from imitation to assimilation to innovation, but I can't name you 20 people outside those we've already recognized who ever got to point three: innovation.

The most wonderful discovery made by scientists is science itself.

To be honest, I think we should find first the possibility to make it. Research is first - if you're not interested, you never can find something. Many things happen from forgotten machines - ones that are no longer used.

Well, I like to be kept on my toes. I look for a challenge. I don't like to recreate steps that I've already walked. I like to see if I can create something new.

I have always been more interested in experiment, than in accomplishment.

What makes our world so fascinating is that continuously there are novel and creative ideas spurring people to leave old ways and try something new.

Basic research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing.

People ask me, 'Don't you ever run out of ideas?' Well, on the first place, I don't use ideas. Every time I have an idea, it's too limiting and usually turns out to be a disappointment. But I haven't run out of curiosity.

With any new medium, the full power is only unearthed with experimentation.

I've stopped making frocks, but not making discoveries.