Buckminster Fuller
Inventor of geodesic dome, systems thinker
Most quoted
"We are blessed with technology that would be indescribable to our forefathers. We have the wherewithal, the know-it-all to feed everybody, clothe everybody, and give every human on Earth a chance. We know now what we could never have known before—that we now have the option for all humanity to make it successfully on this planet in this lifetime. Whether it is to be Utopia or Oblivion will be a touch-and-go relay race right up to the final moment."
— from Critical Path, 1980
"If you are in a shipwreck and all the boats are gone, a piano top buoyant enough to keep you afloat that comes along makes a fortuitous life preserver. But this is not to say that the best way to design a life preserver is in the form of a piano top. I think that we are clinging to a great many piano tops in accepting yesterday's fortuitous contrivings as constituting the only means for solving a given problem."
— from Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth, 1969
"The function of what I call design science is to solve problems by introducing into the environment new artifacts, the availability of which will induce their spontaneous employment by humans and thus, coincidentally, cause humans to abandon their previous problem-producing behaviors and devices."
— from Critical Path
All quotes by Buckminster Fuller (245)
We must move into the universe not as conquerors but as partners.
The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool.
Every child is born a genius.
The universe seems to be designed with a built-in effort to keep itself going.
I live on Earth at present, and I don't know what I am going to do tomorrow.
The most noble thing a man can do is to just look at reality.
Our brains are wired to see patterns, but sometimes we see patterns where none exist.
Success is a learned skill.
The dome is the most efficient structure for enclosure.
Human beings were given a left foot and a right foot to make a mistake first to the left, then to the right, left again and repeat.
Knowledge is the most democratic source of power.
The future is a race between education and catastrophe.
In the universe, everything has a place and purpose.
I am a verb.
Dare to be naïve.
Whether humanity is to continue to enjoy the Earth depends entirely on the conscious daily decision-making of all of us.
Love is omni-inclusive, progressively exquisite, understanding and compassionately attuned to the totality of all that which is.
The most important thing to remember about Spaceship Earth is that it came without an operating manual.
We are not going to be able to operate our Spaceship Earth successfully for much longer unless we see it as a whole spaceship and our fate as common. It has to be everybody or nobody.
There is no such thing as a straight line in the universe. Only in the mind of man.
Contemporaries of Buckminster Fuller
Other Architectures born within 50 years of Buckminster Fuller (1895–1983).