The oil industry is a stunning example of how science, technology, and mass production can divert an entire group of companies from their main task. ... No oil company gets as excited about the customers in its own backyard as about the oil in the Sahara Desert. ... But the truth is, it seems to me, that the industry begins with the needs of the customer for its products. From that primal position its definition moves steadily back stream to areas of progressively lesser importance until it finally comes to rest at the search for oil.

Though progress starts with the imagination, only work can make things happen. And work itself works best when fueled, again by the imagination.

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.

Nothing drives progress like the imagination. The idea precedes the deed. The only exceptions are accidents and natural selection.

One should not focus on the differences between people but look for commonality and similarity.

A product is not a product unless it sells. Otherwise it is merely a museum piece.

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.