Buckminster Fuller Quotes

You cannot change how someone thinks, but you can give them a tool to use which will lead them to think differently.

In order to change an existing paradigm you do not struggle to try and change the problematic model. You create a new model and make the old one obsolete.

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

Pollution is nothing but the resources we are not harvesting. We allow them to disperse because we've been ignorant of their value.

Mistakes are great, the more I make the smarter I get.

If you want to teach people a new way of thinking, don't bother trying to teach them. Instead, give them a tool, the use of which will lead to new ways of thinking.

We are called to be architects of the future, not its victims.

You can rest assured that if you devote your time and attention to the highest advantage of others, the Universe will support you, always and only in the nick of time.

Love is metaphysical gravity.

Integrity is the essence of everything successful.

The pyramids, attached with age, have forgotten the names of their founders.

When I am working on a problem, I never think about beauty but when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong.

As long as one human being is hungry, the entire human race is hungry.

Ninety-nine per cent of who you are is invisible and untouchable.

We are not going to be able to operate our Spaceship Earth successfully nor for much longer unless we see it as a whole spaceship and our fate as common. It has to be everybody or nobody.

Everything you've learned in school as "obvious" becomes less and less obvious as you begin to study the universe.

All children are born geniuses; 9,999 out of every 10,000 are swiftly, inadvertently degeniusized by grownups.

Our beds are empty two-thirds of the time. Our living rooms are empty seven-eighths of the time. Our office buildings are empty one-half of the time. It's time we gave this some thought.

To do more and more with less and less until eventually you can do everything with nothing.

The minute you begin to do what you really want to do, it's really a different kind of life.

Never forget that you are one of a kind. Never forget that if there weren't any need for you in all your uniqueness to be on this earth, you wouldn't be here in the first place.

Whether it is to be Utopia or Oblivion will be a touch-and-go relay race right up to the final moment.... Humanity is in 'final exam' as to whether or not it qualifies for continuance in Universe.

There is no such thing as a failed experiment, only experiments with unexpected outcomes.

Let architects sing of aesthetics that bring Rich clients in hordes to their knees; Just give me a home, in a great circle dome Where stresses and strains are at ease.

Thinking is a momentary dismissal of irrelevancies.

It is not for me to change you. The question is, how can I be of service to you without diminishing your degrees of freedom?

Real wealth is ideas plus energy.

There is no energy crisis, only a crisis of ignorance.

A designer is an emerging synthesis of artist, inventor, mechanic, objective economist and evolutionary strategist.

It is essential to release humanity from the false fixations of yesterday which seem now to bind it to a rationale of action leading only to extinction.

I have spent most of my life unlearning things that were proved not to be true

You never change people by fighting their existing reality.

You can't change the way people think, all you can do is give them a tool, the use of which will change their thinking.

The World has become too dangerous for anything less than Utopia.

Dear reader, traditional human power structures and their reign of darkness are about to be rendered obsolete.

[My vision is] To make the world work for 100% of humanity in the shortest possible time through spontaneous cooperation without ecological offense or the disadvantage of anyone.

Humanity is acquiring all the right technology for all the wrong reasons.

To expose a 4.2 Trillion dollar ripoff of the American people by the stockholders of the 1000 largest corporations over the last one-hundred years will be a tall order of business.

Search others for their virtue, and yourself for your vices.

Humans beings always do the most intelligent thing…after they’ve tried every stupid alternative and none of them have worked

If we do more with less, our response will be adequate to take care of everybody.

Tombs are the clothes of the dead and a grave is a plain suit; while an expensive monument is one with embroidery.

Everyone has the perfect gift to give the world-and if each of us is freed up to give our unique gift, the world will be in total harmony.

Don't fight forces, use them.

The purpose of our lives is to add value to the people of this generation and those that follow.

There is enough for everyone. People think that there isn't enough, so they get as much as they can, so many people don't have enough.

It is the integrity of each individual human that is in final examination. On personal integrity hangs humanity's fate.

Geniuses are just people who had good mothers.

To ask a politician to lead us is to ask the tail of a dog to lead the dog.

I do not look upon human beings as good or bad.