Words matter. These are the best Dean Kamen Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
New ideas in technology are literally a dime-a-dozen, or cheaper than that.
Nobody expects that just because they’ve made computers better they’re going to give them to you free.
I don’t work on a project unless I believe that it will dramatically improve life for a bunch of people.
If you’re going to fail, you might as well fail at the big ones.
We can’t live any more in a world which is based on stuff and not ideas. If you want to live with the world of stuff, we’re all doomed.
I would argue that education, actual learning – it is hard work. It’s very personal. Your parents don’t teach you anything. Your teachers don’t teach you anything. The government doesn’t teach you anything. You read it. You don’t understand it; you read it again. You break a pencil and read it again.
You can’t look at the problem and say, ‘I want them to do more, better, faster miracles – and not invest in research, not invest in development, and have those miracles delivered to me free.’ It’s unrealistic.
Get used to dealing with failure as long as it doesn’t hurt people around you, as long as it doesn’t hurt you physically, or it doesn’t hurt you so much that you can’t pick yourself up.
You have teenagers thinking they’re going to make millions as NBA stars when that’s not realistic for even 1 percent of them. Becoming a scientist or engineer is.
My plane is a Premiere; it has very efficient gas turbine engines. It goes very fast on relatively little fuel. Flying has been my passion since I was a kid.
I don’t want to think about how many people have thought or still think that I’m crazy.
Don’t be irresponsible in your risks, but as long as the project can fail without it causing the person to fail, keep trying; keep taking the best shots. Learn from them; pick yourself up.
To me, innovations are the wheel, fire, language, movable type. There are not 3 million innovations; there are 3 million inventions.
Nothing that has value, real value, has no cost. Not freedom, not food, not shelter, not healthcare.
My father spent his entire early career as an illustrator for comic books: EC Comics like ‘Tales from the Crypt’ and ‘Creepshow,’ then moving on to such magazines as ‘Mad’ and ‘Weird Science.’
There is just so much stuff in the world that, to me, is devoid of any real substance, value, and content that I just try to make sure that I am working on things that matter.
Sporting competitions seem to be what we obsess over, frankly. So if we can put engineering, science, technology into a format of healthy, fun competition, we can attract all sorts of kids that might not see the kind of activity we do as accessible or rewarding.
Everybody has to be able to participate in a future that they want to live for. That’s what technology can do.
As we move towards 8 or 10 billion people on the planet, there’s a little less gold per capita. Each one of us will continue to be fighting over an ever smaller percentage of total resources. This is not a happy thought.
Innovation is so hard and so frustrating; it takes the intersections of people with courage, vision, and resources.
When I’m told absolutely no, it’s a definite maybe.
I do not want to waste any time. And if you are not working on important things, you are wasting time.
More than ever, the world needs good engineers. However, the pool of talent is shrinking not growing.
My biggest worry is I’m running out of time and energy. Thirty years ago I thought 10 years was a really long time.
Sometimes we crash and burn. It’s better to do it in private.
