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
Every great improvement has come after repeated failures. Virtually nothing comes out right the first time. Failures, repeated failures, are finger posts on the road to achievement. One fails forward toward success.
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.
I often say that research is a way of finding out what you are going to do when you can't keep on doing what you are doing now.
If I want to stop a research program I can always do it by getting a few experts to sit in on the subject, because they know right away that it was a fool thing to try in the first place.
Logic is a system whereby one may go wrong with confidence.
The person who doesn't know something can't be done will often find a way to go ahead and do it.
The sure ways to create new ventures of discovery are to keep an open mind.
My definition of an educated man is the fellow who knows the right thing to do at the time it has to be done. You can be sincere and still be stupid.
People think of the inventor as a screwball, but no one ever asks the inventor what he thinks of other people.
We work day after day, not to finish things; but to make the future better ... because we will spend the rest of our lives there.
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.