James Dyson Quotes

We need to encourage investors to invest in high-technology startups.

Don't listen to experts.

The computer dictates how you do something, whereas with a pencil you're totally free.

Design and technology should be the subject where mathematical brainboxes and science whizzkids turn their bright ideas into useful products.

One of the most fun inventions of my lifetime is the Mini.

Companies are not ingenious, it's the people in them that are.

Beauty can come in strange forms.

Everybody recognizes that if you can make very efficient electric motors, you can make a quantum leap forward.

I made 5,127 prototypes of my vaccum before I got it right. There were 5,126 failures. But I learned from each one. That’s how I came up with a solution. So I don’t mind failure.

[In my home workshop,] generally I'm mending things, which is interesting because you learn a lot about why they broke.

I think the search engines are the new equivalent of publishing: an enabler of information.

The key to success is failure… Success is made of 99 percent failure.

Children want the challenge of difficult tasks - just look how much better they are than their parents on a computer.

Manufacturing is more than just putting parts together. It's coming up with ideas, testing principles and perfecting the engineering, as well as final assembly.

In the past, the U.K. got away with selling things that weren't unusual. Now it's no use trying to export without having something that's unusual and better.

Stumbling upon the next great invention in an 'ah-ha!' moment is a myth.

[M]anufacturing, science and engineering are ... incredibly creative. I'd venture to say more so than creative advertising agencies and things that are known as the creative industries.

Anyone developing new products and new technology needs one characteristic above all else: hope.

There's nothing wrong with things taking time.

So I think the winners in recession are the people who produce new technology that does things better, which people really want.

As an engineer I'm constantly spotting problems and plotting how to solve them.

An inventor's path is chorused with groans, riddled with fist-banging and punctuated by head scratches.

We’re taught to do things the right way. But if you want to discover something that other people haven’t, you need to do things the wrong way. Initiate a failure by doing something that’s very silly, unthinkable, naughty, dangerous. Watching why that fails can take you on a completely different path. It’s exciting, actually. To me, solving problems is a bit like a drug. You’re on it, and you can’t get off.

Business is constantly changing, constantly evolving.

If you really want to improve technology, if you want things to work better and be better, you've got to protect the person who spends a lot of effort, money, and time developing that new technology.

Life is a mountain of solvable problems and I enjoy that.

It's the unlikely juxtaposition of creativity and logic which causes the wooliness and confusion around the term 'innovation'. Everybody wants to be innovative; many companies and ideas are proclaimed to be innovative and no one doubts that innovation is a money spinner. And, thus, we are all looking for the magic formula. Well, here you go: Creativity + Iterative Development = Innovation.

As a modern employer you have to treat people well.

Today, computers are almost second nature to most of us.

I just think things should work properly.

I was frustrated as a child when I had to use a vacuum. It had a screaming noise and the smell of stale dog and a lack of performance.

Enjoy failure and learn from it. You never learn from success.

You need a stubborn belief in an idea in order to see it realised.

When decisions on nuclear power stations and runways are delayed and the government dilly-dallies, people think they aren't important.

Everyone gets knocked back, no one rises smoothly to the top without hindrance. The ones who succeed are those who say, right, let’s give it another go.

Far too few designers put any thought into usability, ending up with a great product that's completely inaccessible.

In order to fix it, you need a passionate anger about something that doesn't work well.

When I started off, I was working in a shed behind my house. All I had was a drill, an electric drill. That was the only machine I had.

The way the world is going, it's technology driven. And it isn't just driven by the old super powers, it's driven by the far east and new emerging economies.

If robots are to clean our homes, they'll have to do it better than a person.