How to Invent Everything Quotes

“Quotation is a serviceable substitute for wit.*”
― Ryan North, How to Invent Everything: A Survival Guide for the Stranded Time Traveler

“bikes have also been fundamental to early women’s liberation. While this will hopefully not be an issue in your civilization—you’re starting on a better foot than we ever did, seeing as you don’t have to labor under the hangover of thousands of years of patriarchy—it’s worth noting how something as simple as giving people the ability to cheaply transport themselves under their own power changed European society in the late 1800s CE. This newfound mobility not only allowed women to participate in civilization in ways they couldn’t before, but actually changed the way women saw themselves. They were no longer observers moved around by society: instead, they were active participants who could—and would—move themselves. The clothing women wore also changed in response to the bicycle, as demands for a new “rational dress” that allowed for a modicum of physical activity meant the end of the restrictive corsets, starched petticoats, and ankle-length skirts that had previously been worn.”
― Ryan North, How to Invent Everything: A Survival Guide for the Stranded Time Traveler

“Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. —You (also, Martin Luther King Jr.)”
― Ryan North, How to Invent Everything: A Survival Guide for the Stranded Time Traveler

“Scientists are often seen as turbonerds, but the philosophical foundations of science are actually those of pure punk-rock anarchy: never respect authority, never take anyone’s word on anything, and test all the things you think you know to confirm or deny them for yourself.”
― Ryan North, How to Invent Everything: A Survival Guide for the Stranded Time Traveler

“London’s dramatic and hugely expensive sewer system—still in use today—was constructed for entirely the wrong reasons and only happened to improve public health by accident.”
― Ryan North, How to Invent Everything: A Survival Guide for the Stranded Time Traveler

“Europeans—who generally like to think of themselves as being a pretty savvy lot—managed to forget and then rediscover this fact about vitamin C at least seven more times over the next five hundred years, including rediscoveries in 1593 CE, 1614 CE, 1707 CE, 1734 CE, 1747 CE, and 1794 CE, until the idea finally stuck in 1907.”
― Ryan North, How to Invent Everything: A Survival Guide for the Stranded Time Traveler

“Let the future tell the truth and evaluate each one according to his work and accomplishments. The present is theirs; the future, for which I really worked, is mine. —You (also, Nikola Tesla)”
― Ryan North, How to Invent Everything: A Survival Guide for the Stranded Time Traveler

“Cats are useful for killing vermin (mice, rats) but beyond that provide very little use to humans, except companionship, and even then only according to their capricious whims.”
― Ryan North, How to Invent Everything: A Survival Guide for the Stranded Time Traveler

“Specialization gives the people in your civilization the opportunity to go further in any direction of study than any other human has gone before. It unlocks doctors who can devote their entire lives to curing disease, librarians who can devote their entire lives to ensuring the accumulated knowledge of humanity remains safe and accessible, and writers who, fresh out of school, take the first job they find and devote the most productive years of their lives to writing corporate repair manuals for rental-market time machines that their bosses almost certainly don't even read,* ironically for so little money that they can't possibly afford to go back and fix that one horrible, horrible mistake.”
― Ryan North, How to Invent Everything: Rebuild All of Civilization

“This is a painting that is at best one-third “I love religion so I’m gonna paint my favorite religious figures enjoying a meal” and at least two-thirds “Bro, my vanishing point is off the hook, seriously, check out my wall rectangles, you don’t even know.”
― Ryan North, How to Invent Everything: A Survival Guide for the Stranded Time Traveler

“Dualism: There are good and bad forces in this world: for every high-five, there is a corresponding anti-high-five that is both down low and, sadly, too slow.”
― Ryan North, How to Invent Everything: A Survival Guide for the Stranded Time Traveler

“Babylonians used 60 as their base (which remains with us today when we talk about each hour having 60 minutes and each circle having 360 degrees; see Section 4) and”
― Ryan North, How to Invent Everything: A Survival Guide for the Stranded Time Traveler

“My grandfather once told me that there were two kinds of people: those who do the work and those who take the credit. He told me to try to be in the first group; there was much less competition there. —You (also, Indira Gandhi)”
― Ryan North, How to Invent Everything: A Survival Guide for the Stranded Time Traveler

“Here is the thing about human teeth: they’re the only tissue we’ve got that doesn’t self-regenerate. You cut your skin, it heals, but your teeth just sit there getting covered in plaque (food particles, which are unavoidable if you eat food, which you have to do to live) until they decay. Ridiculous!”
― Ryan North, How to Invent Everything: A Survival Guide for the Stranded Time Traveler

“It’s brought you from the Stone Age, through the Bronze Age, and all the way into the Iron Age, which is pretty good for some weird dirt that you found down by the river.”
― Ryan North, How to Invent Everything: A Survival Guide for the Stranded Time Traveler

“Can be selectively bred into kale, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower, and more. All are descended from the same ancestor, making this plant very versatile for selective breeding!”
― Ryan North, How to Invent Everything: A Survival Guide for the Stranded Time Traveler

“Boil them, mash them, stick them in a stew,”
― Ryan North, How to Invent Everything: A Survival Guide for the Stranded Time Traveler

“When modern humans first invented computer ray tracing, they generated thousands if not millions of images of reflective chrome spheres hovering above checkerboard tiles, just to show off how gorgeously ray tracing rendered those reflections. When they invented lens flares in Photoshop, we all had to endure years of lens flares being added to everything, because the artists involved were super excited about a new tool they’d just figured out how to use. The invention of perspective was no different, and since it coincided with the Renaissance going on in Europe at the same time, some of the greatest art in the European canon is dripping with the 1400s CE equivalent of lens flares and hovering chrome spheres.”
― Ryan North, How to Invent Everything: A Survival Guide for the Stranded Time Traveler

“Among the worst is the Australian stinging bush, also known as the “suicide plant” after stories of both humans and animals killing themselves to escape the pain it produces. When you touch this plant, the neurotoxin-coated hollow hairs covering it pierce your skin, causing an unbearable pain described as similar to being burnt with acid and electrocuted at the same time, and the only treatment is to soak the affected area of your body in hydrochloric acid and then remove the plant hairs with tweezers—carefully, because if they break off inside the skin, that only increases the pain.”
― Ryan North, How to Invent Everything: A Survival Guide for the Stranded Time Traveler