Charles Kettering
Charles Kettering
Charles Franklin Ketteringwas an American inventor, engineer, businessman, and the holder of 186 patents. He was a founder of Delco, and was head of research at General Motors from 1920 to 1947. Among his most widely used automotive developments were the electrical starting motor and leaded gasoline. In association with the DuPont Chemical Company, he was also responsible for the invention of Freon refrigerant for refrigeration and air conditioning systems. At DuPont he also was responsible for the development of...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionEntrepreneur
Date of Birth29 August 1876
CityLoudonville, OH
CountryUnited States of America
Charles Kettering quotes about
When I was research head of General Motors and wanted a problem solved, I'd place a table outside the meeting room with a sign: "Leave slide rules here." If I didn't do that, I'd find someone reaching for his slide rule. Then he'd be on his feet saying, "Boss, you can't do it."
The price of progress is trouble.
It is easy to build a philosophy - it doesn't have to run
All human development, no matter what form it takes, must be outside the rules; otherwise we would never have anything new.
The simplest way to assure sales is to keep changing the product the market for new things is indefinitely elastic. One of the fundamental purposes of advertising, styling, and research is to foster a healthy dissatisfaction.
Research is an organized method for keeping you reasonably dissatisfied with what you have.
A man must have a certain amount of intelligent ignorance to get anywhere.
Whenever you look at a piece of work and you think the fellow was crazy, then you want to pay some attention to that. One of you is likely to be, and you had better find out which one it is. It makes an awful lot of difference.
The sure ways to create new ventures of discovery are to keep an open mind.
In many ways ideas are more important than people - they are much more permanent.
If I have had any success, it's due to luck, but I notice the harder I work, the luckier I get.
Research is industrial prospecting. The oil prospectors use every scientific means to find new paying wells. Oil is found by each one of a number of methods. My own group of men are prospecting in a different field, using every possible scientific means. We believe there are still things left to be discovered. We have only stumbled upon a few barrels of physical laws from the great pool of knowledge. Some day we are going to hit a gusher.
A research problem is not solved by apparatus; it is solved in a man's head.
Bankers regard research as most dangerous a thing that makes banking hazardous due to the rapid changes it brings about in industry.