Cowper William 1731-1800
The Task ‘The Sofa'
Thus first necessity invented stools,
Convenience next suggested elbow-chairs,
And luxury the accomplished sofa last.
Duell Charles H.
(US Office of Patents 1899)
Everything that can be invented has been invented.
Frye Northrop 1912-1991
The most technologically efficient machine that man has ever invented is the book.
Mancroft Lord
Bees in Some Bonnets
Cricket - a game which the English, not being a spiritual people, have invented in order to give themselves some conception of eternity.
Picasso Pablo 1881-1973
God is really only another artist. He invented the giraffe, the elephant, and the cat. He has no real style. He just goes on trying other things.
Brecht Bertholt 1898-1956
Today every invention is received with a cry of triumph
which soon turns into a cry of fear.
Byron Lord 1788-1824
Letter to John Murray
Pure invention is but the talent of a liar.
Hemingway Ernest 1899-1961
His (the writer's) standard of fidelity to the truth should be so high that his invention, out of his experience, should produce a truer
account than anything factual can be.
Keats John 1795-1821
Letter to Benjamin Bailey
A long poem is a test of invention which I take to be the polar star of poetry, as fancy is the sails, and imagination the rudder.
Leonardo Da Vinci 1452-1519
Human subtlety ... will never devise an invention more beautiful, more simple or more direct than does Nature, because in her
inventions nothing is lacking, and nothing is superfluous.
Milton John 1608-1674
Paradise Lost ‘The Verse'
Rhyme being no necessary adjunct or true ornament of poem or good verse, in longer works especially, but the invention of a barbarous age,
to set off wretched matter and lame metre.
Plato 429-347 BC
Apology
Socrates is guilty of corrupting the minds of the young, and of believing in deities of his own invention instead of the gods
recognized by the State.
Proverbs and Sayings
If it is not true, it is happy invention.
Shakespeare William 1564-1616
Henry V
O! for a Muse of fire, that would ascend
The brightest heaven of invention;
A kingdom for a stage, princes to act
And monarchs to behold the swelling scene.