67 Inspirational R. Buckminster Fuller Quotes (CHANGE)

Top 10 Most Famous R. Buckminster Fuller Quotes (BEST)

“You do not belong to you. You belong to the universe. The significance of you will remain forever obscure to you, but you may assume you are fulfilling your significance if you apply yourself to converting all you experience to highest advantage to others. Make the world work, for 100% of humanity, in the shortest possible time, through spontaneous cooperation, without ecological offense or the disadvantage of anyone.”
Buckminster Fuller

You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete. — You never **change** things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.

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

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

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

“It is now highly feasible to take care of everybody on Earth at a ‘higher standard of living than any have ever known.’ It no longer has to be you or me. Selfishness is unnecessary and henceforth unrationalizable as mandated by survival.”
Buckminster Fuller

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

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

If humanity does not opt for integrity, we are through completely. It is absolutely touch and go. Each one of us could make the difference.

I'm not trying to counsel any of you to do anything really special except dare to think. And to dare to go with the truth. And to dare to really love completely. — I’m not trying to counsel any of you to do anything really special except dare to think. And to dare to go with the **truth**. And to dare to really **love** completely.

4 R. Buckminster Fuller Quotes on Geniuses

Geniuses are just people who had good mothers. — Geniuses are just people who had **good mothers**.

I'm not a genius. I'm just a tremendous bundle of experience. — I’m not a genius. I’m just a tremendous bundle of experience.

Everyone is born a genius, but the process of living de-geniuses them. — Everyone is born a **genius**, but the process of living de-geniuses them.

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

11 Wise R. Buckminster Fuller Quotes About Innovation & Change

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. — 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.

A problem adequately stated is a problem well on its way to being solved.

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

Don't fight forces, use them. — Don’t fight forces, use them.

Most of my advances were by mistake. You uncover what is when you get rid of what isn't. — Most of my advances were by mistake. You uncover what is when you get rid of what isn’t.

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

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

People should think things out fresh and not just accept conventional terms and the conventional way of doing things.

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

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

8 Inspirational R. Buckminster Fuller Quotes about Life & the Future

“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. And never forget, no matter how overwhelming life‘s challenges and problems seem to be, that one person can make a difference in the world. In fact, it is always because of one person that all the changes that matter in the world come about. So be that one person.”
Buckminster Fuller

Here is God's purpose - for God, to me, it seems, is a verb not a noun, proper or improper. — Here is God’s **purpose** – for God, to me, it seems, is a verb not a noun, proper or improper.

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

You can never learn less, you can only learn more. — You can never **learn** less, you can only learn more.

“I live on Earth at present, and I don’t know what I am. I know that I am not a category. I am not a thing — a noun. I seem to be a verb, an evolutionary process – an integral function of the universe.”
Buckminster Fuller

When individuals join in a cooperative venture, the power generated far exceeds what they could have accomplished acting individually.

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

The future is a choice between Utopia and oblivion. — The **future** is a choice between Utopia and oblivion.

2 R. Buckminster Fuller Quotes About Love

Love is omni-inclusive, progressively exquisite, understanding and compassionately attuned to other than self. — **Love** is omni-inclusive, progressively exquisite, understanding and compassionately attuned to other than self.

Love is metaphysical gravity. — **Love** is metaphysical gravity.

2 R. Buckminster Fuller Quotes on Following the Truth

The courage to cooperate or initiate are based entirely on the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth as the divine mind within you tells you the truth is. — The **courage** to cooperate or initiate are based entirely on the **truth**, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth as the divine mind within you tells you the truth is.

It really does require a courage and a self-disciplining to go along with that truth. — It really does require a courage and a **self-disciplining** to go along with that truth.

2 R. Buckminster Fuller Quotes About Wealth

Real wealth is ideas plus energy. — Real **wealth** is ideas plus energy.

American labor will realize that its function is not to increase jobs, but to multiply the wealth and to expand the numbers benefited by the wealth at the swiftest possible rate.

4 R. Buckminster Fuller Quotes on School and Education

“We should do away with the absolutely specious notion that everybody has to earn a living. It is a fact today that one in ten thousand of us can make a technological breakthrough capable of supporting all the rest. The youth of today are absolutely right in recognizing this nonsense of earning a living. We keep inventing jobs because of this false idea that everybody has to be employed at some kind of drudgery because, according to Malthusian Darwinian theory he must justify his right to exist. So we have inspectors of inspectors and people making instruments for inspectors to inspect inspectors. The true business of people should be to go back to school and think about whatever it was they were thinking about before somebody came along and told them they had to earn a living.”
Buckminster Fuller

“If I ran a school, I’d give the average grade to the ones who gave me all the right answers, for being good parrots. I’d give the top grades to those who made a lot of mistakes and told me about them, and then told me what they learned from them.”
Buckminster Fuller

“Parents are usually more careful to bestow knowledge on their children rather than virtue, the art of speaking well rather than doing well; but their manners should be of the greatest concern.”
Buckminster Fuller

“What usually happens in the educational process is that the faculties are dulled, overloaded, stuffed and paralyzed so that by the time most people are mature they have lost their innate capabilities.”
Buckminster Fuller

4 R. Buckminster Fuller Quotes on Nature & Climate Change

“Nature is a totally efficient, self-regenerating system. IF we discover the laws that govern this system and live synergistically within them, sustainability will follow and humankind will be a success.”
Buckminster Fuller

Nature is trying very hard to make us succeed, but nature does not depend on us. We are not the only experiment.

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

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

3 R. Buckminster Fuller Quotes About Spaceship Earth

“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.”
Buckminster Fuller

I am a passenger on the spaceship Earth.

Now there is one outstandingly important fact regarding Spaceship Earth, and that is that no instruction book came with it.

4 R. Buckminster Fuller Quotes on Technology

“There are over 2 million cars standing in front of red lights with their engines going. Then we have over 2 million times approximately 100 horsepower being generated as they are idling there, so that we have something like 200 million horses jumping up and down and going nowhere. Now, we have to count that in our economy when we begin to get down to what is the efficiency of the economy.”
Buckminster Fuller

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

“One in ten thousand of us can make a technological breakthrough capable of supporting all the rest. The youth of today are absolutely right in recognizing this nonsense of earning a wage.”
Buckminster Fuller

I am convinced that creativity is a priority to the integrity of the universe and that life is regenerative and conformity meaningless.

9 R. Buckminster Fuller Quotes that Will Make You Think

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

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.

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

Faith is much better than belief. Belief is when someone else does the thinking. — **Faith** is much better than belief. Belief is when someone else does the thinking.

If you are the master be sometimes blind, if you are the servant be sometimes deaf.

Those who play with the devil's toys will be brought by degrees to wield his sword. — Those who play with the devil’s toys will be brought by degrees to wield his sword.

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

4 R. Buckminster Fuller Quotes on Politics

“It is essential that anyone reading this book know at the outset that the author is apolitical. I was convinced in 1927 that humanity’s most fundamental survival problems could never be solved by politics.”
Buckminster Fuller