Name the greatest of all inventors. Accident.

The revolutionary breakthrough will come with rockets that are fully and rapidly reusable. We will never conquer Mars unless we do that. It’ll be too expensive. The American colonies would never have been pioneered if the ships that crossed the ocean hadn’t been reusable.

I’m trying to construct a world that maximises the probability that SpaceX continues its mission without me.

The earth was probably born by accident; but, in accordance with one of the most general laws of evolution, scarcely had this accident happened than it was immediately made use of and recast into something naturally directed.

I can no longer type, so I use TalkingPoint and Dragon Dictate. It’s a speech-to-text program, and there’s an add-on for talking which some guys came up with.

We are second-hand people. We have lived on what we have been told, either guided by our inclinations, our tendencies, or compelled to accept by circumstances and environment. We are the result of all kinds of influences, and there is nothing new in us, nothing that we have discovered for ourselves: nothing original, pristine, clear.

I have discovered that my interest in my dear pupil, Mabel, has ripened into a far deeper feeling than that of mere friendship. In fact, I know that I have learned to love her very sincerely.

I never thought, in my lifetime, that you’d be able to watch movies, read books and listen to music from a phone, but I guess the technology of tomorrow is here today.

I’ve always been at the intersection of computers and whatever they can revolutionize.

Scientists have become the bearers of the torch of discovery in our quest for knowledge.

The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not ‚Eureka!‘ but ‚That’s funny…‘

We call first truths those we discover after all the others.

If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?

It is not, of course, complete yet – but some sentences were understood this afternoon… I feel that I have at last struck the solution of a great problem – and the day is coming when telegraph wires will be laid onto houses just like water or gas – and friends converse with each other without leaving home.

Because, you know, resilience – if you think of it in terms of the Gold Rush, then you’d be pretty depressed right now because the last nugget of gold would be gone. But the good thing is, with innovation, there isn’t a last nugget. Every new thing creates two new questions and two new opportunities.

The truth of Moore’s law has made remarkable things possible. On the software side, I think natural user interfaces in all their forms are equally significant.

I fell and broke my pelvic bone in three places. So, I’m still sort of an invalid now.

I just want to keep pushing the envelope without it feeling forced.

We believe that if men have the talent to invent new machines that put men out of work, they have the talent to put those men back to work.

People use technology only to mean digital technology. Technology is actually everything we make.

One must be an inventor to read well. There is then creative reading as well as creative writing.

One thing I’ve always loved about the culture at Microsoft is there is nobody who is tougher on us, in terms of what we need to learn and do better, than the people in the company itself. You can walk down these halls, and they’ll tell you, ‚We need to do usability better, push this or that frontier.‘

California has a special relationship with the Internet. Many of the core technologies that power the Internet were invented here. Many of the most successful online entrepreneurs and content creators – in business, the arts, and countless other endeavors – got their start here.

You can’t really imagine music without technology.

Originality is a thing we constantly clamour for, and constantly quarrel with.

We must develop as quickly as possible technologies that make possible a direct connection between brain and computer, so that artificial brains contribute to human intelligence rather than opposing it.

I have never started a poem yet whose end I knew. Writing a poem is discovering.

The idea that you encourage companies to take their innovative thinkers and think about the most needy – even beyond the market opportunities – that’s something that appropriately ought to be done.

Love is an adventure and a conquest. It survives and develops, like the universe itself, only by perpetual discovery.

Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.

Science is a tool, and we invent tools to do things we want. It’s a question of how those tools are used by people.

It is a rare mind indeed that can render the hitherto non-existent blindingly obvious. The cry ‚I could have thought of that‘ is a very popular and misleading one, for the fact is that they didn’t, and a very significant and revealing fact it is too.

America’s experience, like many others, teaches us that fostering entrepreneurship is not just about crafting the right economic policy or developing the best educated curricula. It’s about creating an entire climate in which innovation and ideas flourish.

Games is probably the biggest industry today that has gone really social, right. I mean, the incumbent game companies are really being disrupted and are quickly trying to become social. And you have companies like Zynga.

The civilized man has built a coach, but has lost the use of his feet.

I’ve made an odd discovery. Every time I talk to a savant I feel quite sure that happiness is no longer a possibility. Yet when I talk with my gardener, I’m convinced of the opposite.

Genius always finds itself a century too early.

What is Apple, after all? Apple is about people who think ‚outside the box,‘ people who want to use computers to help them change the world, to help them create things that make a difference, and not just to get a job done.

To discover and know has always been a deep tendency of our nature. Can we not recognize it already in caveman?

Right now it’s only a notion, but I think I can get the money to make it into a concept, and later turn it into an idea.

Man is a tool-using animal. Without tools he is nothing, with tools he is all.

Entrepreneurs are natural problem-solvers, which means that we always have ideas for new businesses popping into our heads. Having a lot of options is great, but sometimes it can be hard to focus on one when you are keen to move onto the next.

Silicon Valley has some of the smartest engineers and technology business people in the world.

The first and simplest emotion which we discover in the human mind, is curiosity.

I welcome and seek your ideas, but do not bring me small ideas; bring me big ideas to match our future.

There’s no point in starting a business unless you’re going to make a dramatic difference to other people’s lives. So if you’ve got an idea that’s gonna make a big difference to other people’s lives, then just get on and do it.

It was wonderful to find America, but it would have been more wonderful to miss it.

I cannot discover that anyone knows enough to say definitely what is and what is not possible.

I spend my money on my props and my creations. I’m an inventor.

Innovation is a good thing. The human condition – put aside bioterrorism and a few footnotes – is improving because of innovation.

We have soon to have everywhere smoke annihilators, dust absorbers, ozonizers, sterilizers of water, air, food and clothing, and accident preventers on streets, elevated roads and in subways. It will become next to impossible to contract disease germs or get hurt in the city, and country folk will got to town to rest and get well.

I give infinite thanks to God, who has been pleased to make me the first observer of marvelous things.

I’ve always been amazed by Da Vinci, because he worked out science on his own. He would work by drawing things and writing down his ideas. Of course, he designed all sorts of flying machines way before you could actually build something like that.

We will explore the mysteries of science and harness the power of technology and innovation. We will realise the opportunities of the digital world. Our youth will learn more from – and with – each other.

No grand idea was ever born in a conference, but a lot of foolish ideas have died there.

A hundred struggle and drown in the breakers. One discovers the new world. But rather, ten times rather, die in the surf, heralding the way to that new world, than stand idly on the shore.

Music is changing so quickly, and the landscape of the music industry itself is changing so quickly, that everything new, like Spotify, all feels to me a bit like a grand experiment.

A teacher should have a creative mind.

Today, if you invent a better mousetrap, the government comes along with a better mouse.

What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have never been discovered.

The two most engaging powers of an author are to make new things familiar, familiar things new.