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
The opportunities of man are limited only by his imagination. But so few have imagination that there are ten thousand fiddlers to one composer.
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.
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.
People see the wrongness in an idea much quicker that the rightness.
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.
We are just in the kindergarten of uncovering things; there is no downcurve in science.
There exist limitless opportunities in every industry. Where there is an open mind, there will always be a frontier.
The only time you mustn't fail is the last time you try.
Problems are the price of progress. Don't bring me anything but trouble. Good news weakens me.
Inventing is a combination of brains and materials. The more brains you use, the less material you need.
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.
Every father should remember one day his son will follow his example, not his advice.
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.