Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by Buckminster Fuller (American Inventor, Philosopher)

Richard Buckminster Fuller (1895–1983) was an American inventor, engineer, architect, mathematician, poet, and cosmologist. Among the most original thinkers of the twentieth century, he was a significant contributor to scientific engineering and environmental studies.

Born in Milton, Massachusetts, Fuller was a nonconformist even at an early age. He rejected formal education at Harvard. After the death of a young daughter, Fuller blamed himself and contemplated committing suicide by jumping into Lake Michigan in Chicago. However, he was saved by an epiphany that he should devote himself entirely to the betterment of all humanity.

Fuller spent the next year without speaking to anyone as a mental discipline to focus his thoughts and toil. He worked ceaselessly on solving modern world problems using technology and invented several revolutionary designs.

Fuller also wrote about technology and went on the lecture circuit. By the 1960s, he had become a counterculture legend and a messiah of modern technology. His primary interest was housing and shelter—using the world’s resources with maximum purpose and least waste. He is best known for inventing the geodesic dome—a system of interlocking triangles that enclosed the maximum volume of space with the minimum of raw materials.

Fuller was awarded 25 U.S. patents; he wrote 28 books, received 47 honorary doctorates and numerous awards, and circled the globe fifty-seven times. Besides, he was nominated for several Nobel Prizes. His notable publications include Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth (1969) and Earth Inc. (1973.)

More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Buckminster Fuller

The pyramids, attached with age, have forgotten the names of their founders.
—Buckminster Fuller
Topics: History, Historians

Man is a self-balancing, 28-jointed adapter-base biped, and electro-chemical reduction plant, integral with the segregated stowages of special energy extracts in storage batteries, for subsequent activation of thousands of hydraulic and pneumatic pumps, with motors attached; 62,000 miles of capillaries, millions of warning signal, railroad and conveyor systems, crushers and cranes, and a universally distributed telephone system needing no service for seventy years if well managed, the whole extraordinary complex mechanism guided with exquisite precision from a turret in which are located telescopic and microscopic self-registering and recording range-finders, a spectroscope, etc. .. the turret control being closely allied with an air-conditioning intake and exhaust, and a main fuel intake.
—Buckminster Fuller
Topics: Man, Mankind

People should think things out fresh and not just accept conventional terms and the conventional way of doing things.
—Buckminster Fuller
Topics: Tradition

God is a verb, not a noun.
—Buckminster Fuller
Topics: Faith, God, Divinity

Children are born true scientists. They spontaneously experiment and experience and reexperience again. They select, combine, and test, seeking to find order in their experiences – which is the mostest? which is the leastest? They smell, taste, bite, and touch-test for hardness, softness, springiness, roughness, smoothness, coldness, warmness: the heft, shake, punch, squeeze, push, crush, rub, and try to pull things apart.
—Buckminster Fuller
Topics: Children

The minute you choose to do what you really want to do it’s a different kind of life.
—Buckminster Fuller

You can never learn less; you can only learn more. The reason I know so much is because I have made so many mistakes.
—Buckminster Fuller
Topics: Mistake, Reason, Learn

We are called to be architects of the future, not its victims.
—Buckminster Fuller
Topics: Humanity, Humankind, Activism, Future

There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it’s going to be a butterfly.
—Buckminster Fuller

The end move in politics is always to pick up a gun.
—Buckminster Fuller
Topics: Politics, Politicians

If success or failure of this planet and of human beings depended on how I am and what I do… how would I be? What would I do?
—Buckminster Fuller

Parents are usually more careful to bestow knowledge on their children rather than virtue, the art of speaking well rather than doing well; but their manners should be of the greatest concern.
—Buckminster Fuller
Topics: Parenting, Manners

If humanity does not opt for integrity we are through completely. It is absolutely touch and go. Each one of us could make the difference.
—Buckminster Fuller
Topics: Integrity

Most of my advances were by mistake. You uncover what is when you get rid of what isn’t.
—Buckminster Fuller
Topics: Mistakes

Don’t fight forces, use them.
—Buckminster Fuller
Topics: Architecture

Everyone is born a genius, but the process of living de-geniuses them.
—Buckminster Fuller
Topics: Genius, Intelligence

Gold and silver from the dead turn often into lead.
—Buckminster Fuller
Topics: Gold

The purpose of our lives is to add value to the people of this generation and those that follow.
—Buckminster Fuller
Topics: People, Live, Follow, Purpose

I’m not a genius. I’m just a tremendous bundle of experience.
—Buckminster Fuller
Topics: Genius

Dictators never invent their own opportunities.
—Buckminster Fuller
Topics: Tyranny

Those who play with the devil’s toys will be brought by degrees to wield his sword.
—Buckminster Fuller
Topics: Evil

Dare to be naive.
—Buckminster Fuller
Topics: Ignorance, Risk

Love is metaphysical gravity.
—Buckminster Fuller
Topics: Love

You can never learn less, you can only learn more.
—Buckminster Fuller
Topics: Learning, Learn

We are not going to be able to operate our Spaceship Earth successfully nor for much longer unless we see it as a whole spaceship and our fate as common. It has to be everybody or nobody.
—Buckminster Fuller
Topics: Help, Cooperation

Out of my general world-pattern-trend studies there now comes strong evidence that nothing is going to be quite so surprising and abrupt in the future history of man as the forward evolution in the educational process.
—Buckminster Fuller
Topics: Education

When I am working on a problem I never think about beauty. I only think about how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong.
—Buckminster Fuller

Now there is one outstanding important fact regarding spaceship earth, and that is that no instruction book came with it.
—Buckminster Fuller
Topics: World, Earth

The reward for being a good problem solver is to be heaped with more and more difficult problems to solve.
—Buckminster Fuller
Topics: Problems

Ninety-nine percent of who you are is invisible and untouchable.
—Buckminster Fuller
Topics: The Mind, Mind

Wondering Whom to Read Next?

Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *