Charles Kettering's Quotes

One fails forward toward success.

Charles Kettering

The Wright brothers flew right through the smoke screen of impossibility.

Charles Kettering

High achievement always takes place in the framework of high expectation.

Charles Kettering

Believe and act as if it were impossible to fail.

Charles Kettering

It is not a disgrace to fail. Failing is one of the greatest arts in the world.

Charles Kettering

We need to teach the highly educated man that it is not a disgrace to fail and that he must analyze every failure to find its cause. He must learn how to fail intelligently, for failing is one of the greatest arts in the world.

Charles Kettering

People think of the inventor as a screwball, but no one ever asks the inventor what he thinks of other people.

Charles Kettering

My interest is in the future because I am going to spend the rest of my life there.

Charles Kettering

We should all be concerned about the future because we will have to spend the rest of our lives there.

Charles Kettering

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.

Charles Kettering

A person must have a certain amount of intelligent ignorance to get anywhere.

Charles Kettering

You can't have a better tomorrow if you are thinking about yesterday all the time.

Charles Kettering

Every time you tear a leaf off a calendar, you present a new place for new ideas and progress.

Charles Kettering

Thinking is one thing no one has ever been able to tax.

Charles Kettering

Keep on going and the chances are you will stumble on something, perhaps when you are least expecting it. I have never heard of anyone stumbling on something sitting down.

Charles Kettering

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.

Charles Kettering

The biggest job we have is to teach a newly hired employee how to fail intelligently. We have to train him to experiment over and over and to keep on trying and failing until he learns what will work.

Charles Kettering

The opportunities of man are limited only by his imagination. But so few have imagination that there are ten thousand fiddlers to one composer.

Charles Kettering

Our imagination is the only limit to what we can hope to have in the future.

Charles Kettering