Anything in excess is a poison.

Creativity is thinking up new things. Innovation is doing new things.

What is often lacking is not creativity in the idea-creating sense but innovation in the action-producing sense, i.e. putting ideas to work.

You want to dig your well where you have the best chance of finding water with the least amount of digging

People don’t want quarter-inch drills. They want quarter-inch holes.

Kodak sells film, but they don’t advertise film; they advertise memories.

The fact that a consistendy highly creative person is generally irresponsible in the sense that we have used this term is in part predictable from what is known about the freewheeling fantasies of very young children.

All organizations are hierarchical. At each level people serve under those above them. An organization is therefore a structured institution. If it is not structured, it is a mob. Mobs do not get things done, they destroy things.

Organizations exist to enable ordinary people to do extraordinary things.

Organizations, by their very nature are designed to promote order and routine. They are inhospitable environments for innovation.

Ideas are useless unless used. The proof of their value is in their implementation. Until then, they are in limbo.

Just as energy is the basis of life itself, and ideas the source of innovation, so is innovation the vital spark of all human change, improvement and progress.

Customers buy 1/4 holes, not 1/4 bits.

A powerful new idea can kick around unused in a company for years, not because its merits are not recognized, but because nobody has assumed the responsibility for converting it from words into action.