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Latest comment: 7 years ago by Nbarth in topic "My interest is in the future"
  • "A problem thoroughly understood is fairly simple. Found your opinions on facts, not prejudices, we know too many things that are not true"

can anyone verify this quote a charles kettering

—This unsigned comment is by 74.14.57.165 (talkcontribs) .
This seems a very slight variant of a statement attributed to him in Dynamic Work Simplification (1971) by W. Clements Zinck, p. 122:
A problem thoroughly understood is always fairly simple. Found your opinions on facts, not prejudices. We know too many things that are not true.

Unsourced

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  • An inventor fails 999 times, and if he succeeds once, he's in. He treats his failures simply as practice shots.
  • High achievement always takes place in the framework of high expectation.
  • If you have always done it that way, it is probably wrong.
  • It doesn't matter if you try and try and try again, and fail. It does matter if you try and fail, and fail to try again.
  • It's amazing what ordinary people can do if they set out without preconceived notions.
  • Nothing ever built arose to touch the skies unless some man dreamed that it should, some man believed that it could, and some man willed that it must.
  • People are very open-minded about new things - as long as they're exactly like the old ones.
  • The opportunities of man are limited only by his imagination. But so few have imagination that there are ten thousand fiddlers to one composer.
  • The world hates change, yet it is the only thing that has brought progress.
  • There will always be a frontier where there is an open mind and a willing hand.
  • A problem well stated is a problem half solved.
  • You can't have a better tomorrow if you are thinking about yesterday all the time.
  • You can be sincere and still be stupid.

"My interest is in the future"

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I found the original form of the "My interest is in the future because I am going to spend the rest of my life there." quote; see 2225121. The original form (in a GM publication, 1936) is:

You know, you read about the future. You can't help that. I don't look upon the future. I am not a politician. I am not worried about the future at all. I don't like to run it down. I don't like to think of it being too dark because I expect to spend all the rest of my life there and I don't want to have a nasty end to it.

This is less pithy, and has a rather darker tone; this may reflect the era (impending world war).

—Nils von Barth (nbarth) (talk) 02:51, 21 February 2017 (UTC)Reply