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

-Fuller, R(ichard) Buckminster
  On his innovative geodesic domes. In Time,10  Jun.

Wer richtig r a« sonniert, erfindet auch; und wer erfinden will, muss r a« sonnieren k o« nnen. Nur die glauben, dass sich das eine von dem anderen trennen lasse, die zu keinem von beiden aufgelegt sind. The man who can reason properly can invent; and anyone who wants to invent must be able to reason. The only people who think that the one can be separated from the other are those who have no inclination for either.

-Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim
  Hamburgische Dramaturgie.

Pour e¤  crire ce livre essentiel, le seul livre vrai, un grand e¤  crivain n'a pas, dans le sens courant, a'   l'inventer puisqu'il existe de¤ j a'   en chacun de nous, mais a'   le traduire. To write the essential book, the only true book, a great writerdoesnot needto invent becausethebook already exists inside each one of us and merely needs translation.

-Proust, Marcel
' 1927  A la recherche du temps perdu,'LeTemps retrouve¤ ' .

Vous e"  tes libre, choisissez, c'est-a'  -dire, inventez. Aucune morale ge¤  ne¤  rale ne peut vous indiquer ce qu'il y a a' faire. You are free, therefore chooseöthat is to say, invent. No rule of general moralitycan show you what you ought to do.

-Sartre,Jean-Paul
  L'Existentialisme est un humanisme (Existentialism and Humanism,1948) (translated by Philip Mairet).

Si Dieu n'existait pas, il faudrait l'inventer. If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.

-Voltaire pseudonym of  Fran c° ois Marie Arouet
' Ep|"  tres,'A l'Auteur du Livre desTrois Imposteurs'.

You must invent because you enjoy it.

-Wilson, Edmund
  On making his first recumbent bicycle in1955. US  literary  critic,  social  commentator,  and  novelist.  Although his own fiction, plays  and poems are now little read, he was  an influential critic with a wide-ranging perspective on art, history and society.