There is no less invention in aptly applying a thought found in a book, than in being the first author of the thought.
As the archaeology of our thought easily shows, man is an invention of recent date. And one perhaps nearing its end.
Industry has operated against the artisan in favor of the idler, and also in favor of capital and against labor. Any mechanical invention whatsoever has been more harmful to humanity than a century of war.
O! for a muse of fire, that would ascend the brightest heaven of invention.
Marriage is a wonderful invention: then again, so is a bicycle repair kit.
The march of invention has clothed mankind with powers of which a century ago the boldest imagination could not have dreamt.
Bras are a ludicrous invention; but if you make bralessness a rule, you're just subjecting yourself to yet another repression.
Necessity may well be called the mother of invention but calamity is the test of integrity.
Science fiction readers probably have the gene for novelty, and seem to enjoy a cascade of invention as much as a writer enjoys providing one.
You can't name the inventor of the camera. The 19th-century invention was chemical: the fixative.
The notion of directing a film is the invention of critics - the whole eloquence of cinema is achieved in the editing room.
The classy gangster is a Hollywood invention.
The 'fiscal cliff' is a ruse, an invention by the right and the rich, to try and keep their huge tax breaks.
The practice of narrative and argument does not lead to invention, but it compels a certain coherence of thought.
Invention consists in avoiding the constructing of useless contraptions and in constructing the useful combinations which are in infinite minority.
Was there ever a better invention in the cookie world than the Oreo?
Graphic design, which evokes the symmetria of Vituvius, the dynamic symmetry of Hambidge, the asymmetry of Mondrian; which is a good gestalt, generated by intuition or by computer, by invention or by a system of coordinates, is not good design if it does not communicate.
That is to say, epic poetry has been invented many times and independently; but, as the needs which prompted the invention have been broadly similar, so the invention itself has been.
As far as I'm concerned, the essentials of jazz are: melodic improvisation, melodic invention, swing, and instrumental personality.
It is an invention of the devil, an infernal falsity for the destruction of all Christianity.