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Speculation drives human progress

Speculation, in all its forms, is what drives human progress. This is the core message behind Michael Bigger’s recent post, “The Desire to Speculate”.
An excerpt from Michael’s essay: 
“It is said that the desire to speculate is very strong in the American people. That is why our country has made greater progress than any other country in the world, because progress is the result of speculation. We are not referring merely to stock speculations, but to the word in its broadest sense. Every new undertaking is a speculation.

An inventor speculates on what he is going to invent. Often such speculations result in losses, because many inventors, or would-be-inventors, never accomplish very much. They spend their money, time, and efforts, and probably live years in poverty, and then if the invention is not profitable, they are heavy losers.

It is the same thing with every new business. It is purely a speculation…”  (more…)

Life Insights From Great Inventors


* “Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.” – Thomas Edison.

* “The scientists of today think deeply instead of clearly. One must be sane to think clearly, but one can think deeply and be quite insane.” – Nikola Tesla

* “Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work at hand. The sun’s rays do not burn until brought to a focus.” – Alexander Graham Bell

* “A problem well stated is a problem half-solved.” – Charles Kettering

* “The best thinking has been done in solitude. The worst has been done in turmoil.” – Thomas Edison

* “There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it’s going to be a butterfly.” – R. Buckminster Fuller

* “A successful person isn’t necessarily better than her less successful peers at solving problems; her pattern-recognition facilities have just learned what problems are worth solving.” – Ray Kurzweil

* “It doesn’t matter if you try and try and try again, and fail. It does matter if you try and fail, and fail to try again.” – Charles Kettering

* “What we do during our working hours determines what we have; what we do in our leisure hours determines what we are.” – George Eastman

* “God, to me, it seems, is a verb not a noun, proper or improper.” – R. Buckminster Fuller

* “Everything comes to him who hustles while he waits.” – Thomas Edison

* “When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.” – Alexander Graham Bell

* “We often say that the biggest job we have is to teach a newly hired employee to fail intelligently… to experiment over and over again and to keep on trying and failing until he learns what will work.” – Charles Kettering