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
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.
There is a great difference between knowing and understanding: you can know a lot about something and not really understand it.
There will always be a frontier where there is an open mind and a willing hand.
If you have always done it that way, it is probably wrong.
You can't have a better tomorrow if you are thinking about yesterday all the time.
Knowing is not understanding. There is a great difference between knowing and understanding: you can know a lot about something and not really understand it.
My interest is in the future because I am going to spend the rest of my life there.
You will never stub your toe standing still. The faster you go, the more chance there is of stubbing your toe, but the more chance you have of getting somewhere.
You can't have a better tomorrow if you are thinking about yesterday all the time.
If a fellow wants to be a nobody in the business world, let him neglect sending the mail man to somebody on his behalf.
I bought him an attractive bird cage made in Switzerland,
It is not a disgrace to fail. Failing is one of the greatest arts in the world.
You are always too late with a development if you are so slow that people demand it before you yourself recognize it. The research department should have foreseen what was necessary and had it ready to a point where people never knew they wanted it until it was made available to them.
The opportunities of man are limited only by his imagination. But so few have imagination that there are ten thousand fiddlers to one composer.