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

There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it's going to be a butterfly.

—R. Buckminster Fuller

I look for what needs to be done. After all, that's how the universe designs itself.

—R. Buckminster Fuller

The earth is like a spaceship that didn't come with an operating manual.

—R. Buckminster Fuller

Rarely do great beauty and great virtue dwell together.

—R. Buckminster Fuller

I just invent, then wait until man comes around to needing what I've invented.

—R. Buckminster Fuller

I keep the subject of my inquiry constantly before me, and wait till the first dawning opens gradually, by little and little, into a full and clear light.

—Isaac Newton

Two paradoxes are better than one; they may even suggest a solution.

—Edward Teller

There is always a well-known solution to every human problem—neat, plausible, and wrong.

—H. L. Mencken