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
Obsolescence is a factor which says that the new thing I bring you is worth more than the unused value of the old thing.
People see the wrongness in an idea much quicker that the rightness.
I object to people running down the future. I am going to live all the rest of my life there.
We have reason not to be afraid of the machine, for there is always constructive change, the enemy of machines, making them change to fit new conditions.
If a fellow wants to be nobody in the business world, let him neglect sending the mailman to somebody on his behalf.
Every father should remember one day his son will follow his example, not his advice.
The typical eye sees the ten per cent bad of an idea and overlooks the ninety per cent good.
If I have had any success, it's due to luck, but I notice the harder I work, the luckier I get.
The future can be anything we want it to be, providing we have the faith and that we realize that peace, no less than war, required blood and sweat and tears.
Great steps in human progress are made by things that don't work the way philosophy thought they should. If things always worked the way they should, you could write the history of the world from now on. But they don't, and it is those deviations from the normal that make human progress.
We have a lot of people revolutionizing the world because they've never had to present a working model.
I've never heard of anyone stumbling on something sitting down.
We have been measuring too much in terms of the dollar. What we should do is think in terms of useful materials-things that will be of value to us in our daily life.
Every honest researcher I know admits he's just a professional amateur. He's doing whatever he's doing for the first time. That makes him an amateur. He has sense enough to know that he's going to have a lot of trouble, so that makes him a professional.