7 Quotes by Willis R. Whitney

Necessity is not the mother of invention. Knowledge and experiment are its parents. It sometimes happens that successful search is made for unknown materials to fill well-recognized and predetermined requirements. It more often happens that the acquirement of knowledge of the previously unknown properties of a material suggests its trial for some new use. These facts strongly indicate the value of knowledge of properties of materials and indicate a way for research.

The valuable attributes of research men are conscious ignorance and active curiosity.

Our immediate interests are after all of but small moment. It is what we do for the future, what we add to the sum of man's knowledge, that counts most. As someone has said, 'The individual withers and the world is more and more.' Man dies at 70, 80, or 90, or at some earlier age, but through his power of physical reproduction, and with the means that he has to transmit the results of effort to those who come after him, he may be said to be immortal.

Some men have thousands of reasons why they cannot do something, when all they need is one reason why they can.

Research is appreciation.

In the advance of civilization, it is new knowledge which paves the way, and the pavement is eternal.

Somebody is always reflectively monkeying with some of the parts of an infinite universe – monkeying as distinct from aping.