Edwin H. Land Quotes

The world is a scene changing so rapidly that it takes every bit of intuitive ability you have, every brain cell each one of you has, to make the sensible decision about what to do next. You cannot rely upon what you have been taught. All you have learned from history is old ways of making mistakes. There is nothing that history can tell you about what we must do tomorrow. Only what we must not do.

It was not a question of the ineptitude that might be revealed by the truth, or the possible damage that the whole program of negotiation for peace may have suffered … and it was not a question of whether with foresight that particular crisis could have been avoided. The issue was this: Does an American, when he represents all Americans, have to tell the truth at any cost? The answer is yes, and the consequence of the answer is that our techniques for influencing the rest of the world cannot be rich and flexible like the techniques of our competitors. We can be dramatic, even theatrical; we can be persuasive; but the message we are telling must be true.

In a few wretched buildings, we created a whole new industry with international significance.

One of the best ways to keep a great secret is to shout it.

Now, partly that was work, and partly that was brains, but very largely it was having the guts, the guts to be immodest in the right way.

We live in a world changing so rapidly that what we mean frequently by common sense is doing the thing that would have been right last year.