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
Every great improvement has come after repeated failures. Virtually nothing comes out right the first time. Failures, repeated failures, are finger posts on the road to achievement. One fails forward toward success.
It is the 'follow through' that makes the great difference between ultimate success and failure, because it is so easy to stop.
The only time you mustn't fail is the last time you try.
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.
An inventor is simply a person who doesn't take his education too seriously. You see, from the time a person is six years old until he graduates form college he has to take three or four examinations a year. If he flunks once, he is out. But an inventor is almost always failing. He tries and fails maybe a thousand times. It he succeeds once then he's in. These two things are diametrically opposite. We often say that 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.
We should all be concerned about the future because we will have to live the rest of our lives there.
I bought him an attractive bird cage made in Switzerland,
It is the follow through that makes the great difference between ultimate successand failure, because it is so easy to stop.
There will always be a frontier where there is an open mind and a willing hand.
If you have always done it that way, it is probably wrong.
You can't have a better tomorrow if you are thinking about yesterday all the time.
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.
My interest is in the future because I am going to spend the rest of my life there.
We often say that the biggest job we have is to teach a newly hired employee to fail intelligently... to experiment over and over again and to keep on trying and failing until he learns what will work.