Innovation Sayings and Quotes

Below you will find our collection of inspirational, wise, and humorous old innovation quotes, innovation sayings, and innovation proverbs, collected over the years from a variety of sources.

Innovation is the specific instrument of entrepreneurship. The act that endows resources with a new capacity to create wealth. Peter Drucker
Innovation accelerates and compounds. Each point in front of you is bigger than anything that ever happened. Marc Andreessen
A spirit of innovation is generally the result of a selfish temper and confined views. People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors. Edmund Burke
Pure innovation is more gross than error. George Chapman
Innovation is creativity with a job to do. John Emmerling
Innovation happens because there are people out there doing and trying a lot of different things. Edward Felten
Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower. Steve Jobs
Innovation is taking two things that already exist and putting them together in a new way. Tom Freston
Innovation is the calling card of the future. Anna Eshoo
There is no innovation and creativity without failure. Period. Brene Brown
Innovation is serendipity, so you don't know what people will make. Tim Berners-Lee
Innovation is the whim of an elite before it becomes a need of the public. Ludwig Von Mises
Innovation is moving at a scarily fast pace. Bill Gates
A key ingredient in innovation is the ability to challenge authority and break rules. Vivek Wadhwa
The best way to have a good idea is to have a lot of ideas. Dr. Linus Pauling
Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought. Albert Szent-Gyorgyi
To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle, requires creative imagination and marks real advance in science. Albert Einstein
Once we rid ourselves of traditional thinking we can get on with creating the future. James Bertrand
There's a way to do it better - find it. Thomas Edison
The essential part of creativity is not being afraid to fail. Edwin H. Land
Creativity is not the finding of a thing, but the making something out of it after it is found. James Russell Lowell
The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources. Albert Einstein
Discoveries are often made by not following instructions, by going off the main road, by trying the untried. Frank Tyger
Innovation is the process of turning ideas into manufacturable and marketable form. Watts Humprey
Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties. Erich Fromm
If you're not prepared to be wrong, you'll never come up with anything original. Ken Robinson
A new idea is delicate. It can be killed by a sneer or a yawn; it can be stabbed to death by a quip and worried to death by a frown on the right man's brow. Charles Brower
All great deeds and all great thoughts have a ridiculous beginning. Albert Camus
The best way to predict the future is to invent it. Alan Kay
The more original a discovery, the more obvious it seems afterwards. Arthur Koestler
Innovation is the ability to convert ideas into invoices. L. Duncan
The only way to discover the limits of the possible is to go beyond them into the impossible. Arthur C. Clarke
Innovation is the creation of the new or the re-arranging of the old in a new way. Michael Vance
Get a good idea, and stay with it. Dog it, and work at it until it's done, and done right. Walt Disney
If you're not failing every now and again, it's a sign you're not doing anything very innovative. Woody Allen
Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity. General George Patton
Ideas won't keep. Something must be done about them. Alfred North Whitehead
Innovation is all about people. Innovation thrives when the population is diverse, accepting and willing to cooperate. Vivek Wadhwa
An innovation will get traction only if it helps people get something that they're already doing in their lives done better. Clayton M. Christensen
Predicting innovation is something of a self-canceling exercise: the most probable innovations are probably the least innovative. P. J. O'Rourke
An innovation is one of those things that society looks at and says, if we make this part of the way we live and work, it will change the way we live and work. Dean Kamen
Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations. Steve Jobs
When you innovate, you've got to be prepared for everyone telling you you're nuts. Larry Ellison
For good ideas and true innovation, you need human interaction, conflict, argument, debate. Margaret Heffernan
Innovation, being avant garde, is always polemic. Ferran Adria
The process of innovation is, of course, never ending. Alan Greenspan
Never before in history has innovation offered promise of so much to so many in so short a time. Bill Gates
Innovation is the central issue in economic prosperity. Michael Porter
Innovation is the ability to see change as an opportunity - not a threat. Steve Jobs
Creativity is the ability to see relationships where none exist. Thomas Disch
A clever person solves a problem. A wise person avoids it. Albert Einstein
The heart and soul of the company is creativity and innovation. Bob Iger
Vulnerability is the birthplace of innovation, creativity and change. Brene Brown
The key to success is for you to make a habit throughout your life of doing the things you fear. Brian Tracy
The greater the contrast, the greater the potential. Great energy only comes from a correspondingly great tension of opposites. Carl Jung
problem well stated is a problem half-solved. Charles Kettering
All human development, no matter what form it takes, must be outside the rules; otherwise we would never have anything new. Charles Kettering
It is the essence of genius to make use of the simplest ideas. Charles Peguy
If you lose the power to laugh, you lose the power to think. Clarence Darrow
Small opportunities are often the beginning of great enterprises. Demosthenes
Imagination plus innovation equals realization. Denis Waitley
Creativity involves breaking out of established patterns in order to look at things in a different way. Edward de Bono
Nothing is more dangerous than an idea when it is the only one you have. Emile Chartier
The five essential entrepreneurial skills for success are concentration, discrimination, organization, innovation and communication. Harold Geneen
Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently. Henry Ford
If you are not willing to risk the unusual, you will have to settle for the ordinary. Jim Rohn
I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones. John Cage
There are no dreams too large, no innovation unimaginable and no frontiers beyond our reach. John S. Herrington
The achievement of excellence can only occur if the organization promotes a culture of creative dissatisfaction. Lawrence M. Miller
You can have brilliant ideas, but if you can't get them across, your ideas won't get you anywhere. Lee Iacocca
The best vision is insight. Malcolm Forbes
Innovation is fostered by information gathered from new connections; from insights gained by journeys into other disciplines or places; from active, collegial networks and fluid, open boundaries. Innovation arises from ongoing circles of exchange, where information is not just accumulated or stored, but created. Knowledge is generated anew from connections that weren't there before. Margaret J. Wheatley
We look at the present through a rear view mirror. We march backwards into the future. Marshall McLuhan
In order to attain the impossible, one must attempt the absurd. Miguel de Cervantes
Success doesn’t necessarily come from breakthrough innovation but from flawless execution. A great strategy alone won’t win a game or a battle; the win comes from basic blocking and tackling. Naveen Jain
By believing passionately in something that still does not exist, we create it. The nonexistent is whatever we have not sufficiently desired. Nikos Kazantzakis
If you want something new, you have to stop doing something old. Peter Drucker
The enterprise that does not innovate ages and declines. And in a period of rapid change such as the present, the decline will be fast. Peter Drucker
Marketing and innovation produce results; all the rest are costs. Peter Drucker
Mindless habitual behavior is the enemy of innovation. Rosabeth Moss Kanter
No organization ever created an innovation. People innovate, not companies. Seth Godin
If failure is not an option, neither is success. Innovation is just repeated failure till you come up with something that works. Seth Godin
Creativity is thinking up new things. Innovation is doing new things. Theodore Levitt
Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration. Thomas A. Edison
I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work. Thomas A. Edison
To have a great idea, have a lot of them. Thomas A. Edison
The best thinking has been done in solitude. The worst has been done in turmoil. Thomas A. Edison
Innovation- any new idea-by definition will not be accepted at first. It takes repeated attempts, endless demonstrations, monotonous rehearsals before innovation can be accepted and internalized by an organization. This requires courageous patience. Warren G. Bennis
What is now proved was once only imagined. William Blake
Learning and innovation go hand in hand. The arrogance of success is to think that what you did yesterday will be sufficient for tomorrow. William Pollard