David Sarnoff Quotes

#1. What the human mind can conceive and believe it can accomplish.

David Sarnoff

#2. Work and live to serve others, to leave the world a little better than you found it and garner for yourself as much peace of mind as you can. This is happiness.

David Sarnoff

#3. The difference between our decadence and the Russians is that while theirs is brutal, ours is apathetic.

David Sarnoff

#4. It is probable that television drama of high caliber and produced by first-rate artists will materially raise the level of dramatic taste of the nation.

David Sarnoff

#5. Nobody can be a success if they don't love their work.

David Sarnoff

#6. Whatever course you have chosen for yourself, it will not be a chore but an adventure if you bring to it a sense of the glory of striving.

David Sarnoff

#7. The human brain must continue to frame the problems for the electronic machine to solve.

David Sarnoff

#8. We are too prone to make technological instruments the scapegoats for the crimes of those who wield them. The products of modern science are not in themselves good or bad; it is the way they are used that determines their value.

David Sarnoff

#9. Let us not paralyze our capacity for good by brooding of man's capacity for evil.

David Sarnoff

#10. Competition brings out the best in products and the worst in people.

David Sarnoff

#11. Atoms for peace. Man is still the greatest miracle and the greatest problem on earth. [Message tapped out by Sarnoff using a telegraph key in a tabletop circuit demonstrating an RCA atomic battery as a power source.]

David Sarnoff

#12. The thrill, believe me, is as much in the battle as in the victory.

David Sarnoff

#13. We hate those who will not take our advice, and despise them who do.

David Sarnoff

#14. Freedom is the oxygen without which science cannot breathe.

David Sarnoff

#15. I hitched my wagon to an electron rather than the proverbial star.

David Sarnoff

#16. Research: the distance between an idea and its realization.

David Sarnoff

#17. We cannot banish dangers, but we can banish fears. We must not demean life by standing in awe of death.

David Sarnoff

#18. The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?

David Sarnoff

#19. Anything that the human mind can conceive can be produced ultimately.

David Sarnoff

#20. An inventor is someone who makes another man rich.

David Sarnoff

#21. Man is still the greatest miracle and the greatest problem on this earth.

David Sarnoff

#22. I ... began my career as a wireless amateur. After 43 years in radio, I do not mind confessing that I am still an amateur. Despite many great achievements in the science of radio and electronics, what we know today is far less than what we have still to learn.

David Sarnoff

#23. At their best, at their most creative, science and engineering are attributes of liberty-noble expressions of man's God-given right to investigate and explore the universe without fear of social or political or religious reprisals.

David Sarnoff

#24. I have learned to have more trust in the scientist than he does in himself.

David Sarnoff

#25. No man can be successful, unless he first loves his work.

David Sarnoff

#26. Nobody can be successful if he doesn't love his work, love his job.

David Sarnoff

#27. A life that hasn't a definite plan is likely to become driftwood.

David Sarnoff

#28. Success, in a generally accepted sense of the term, means the opportunity to experience and to realize to the maximum the forces that are within us.

David Sarnoff