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Edwin H. Land Quotes
1909–1991 United States
Edwin Herbert Land (May 7, 1909 – March 1, 1991) was an American scientist and inventor. Among other things, he invented inexpensive filters for polarizing light, a practical system of in-camera instant photography, and his retinex theory of color vision.
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Our society is changing so rapidly that none of us can know what it is or where it is going.
Of what meaning is the world without mind? The question cannot exist.
My whole life has been spent trying to teach people that intense concentration for hour after hour can bring out in people resources they didn't know they had.
There's a tremendous popular fallacy which holds that significant research can be carried out by trying things.
We can be dramatic, even theatrical; we can be persuasive; but the message we are telling must be true.
There's a rule they don't teach you at the Harvard Business School. It is, if anything is worth doing, it's worth doing to excess.
There is no tremor in what we call the "outside world" that is not locked by a thousand chains and gossamers to inner structures that vibrate and move with it and are a part of it.
One of the best ways to keep a great secret is to shout it.
This is the kind of change that survives.
Generation of Greatness (1957)
If you sense a deep human need, then you go back to all the basic science. If there is some missing, then you try to do more basic science and applied science until you get it.
An essential aspect of creativity is not being afraid to fail.
Each of these men felt secretly — it was his very special secret and his deepest secret — that he could be great.
Generation of Greatness (1957)
One of my jests is to say that we work empirically — we use bull's eye empiricism. We try everything, but we try the right thing first!
As I visualize it, the business of the future will be a scientific, social and economic unit.
Congressional testimony (1945)
The great contribution of science is to say that this second theory is nonsense.
Generation of Greatness (1957)
Sharpen up the edges of ideas for the students in fields other than your own.
Generation of Greatness (1957)
Haven't you wondered how they could have survived, when, in all of our experimental work every small change we make dies?
Generation of Greatness (1957)
Over the years, I have learned that every significant invention has several characteristics. By definition it must be startling, unexpected, and must come into a world that is not prepared for it. If the world were prepared for it, it would not be much of an invention.
In a few wretched buildings, we created a whole new industry with international significance.
Now, partly that was work, and partly that was brains, but very largely it was having the guts, the guts to be immodest in the right way.
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