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)
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.
The truth is that the universe is a system of energy, and we are all part of it.
There is no such thing as a problem without a gift for you in its hands. You seek problems because you need their gifts.
I live on Earth at the moment, 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.
There is no such thing as a straight line.
The minute you understand that you can poke holes in the universe, you will be able to do it.
Love is omni-inclusive, progressively exquisite, and a priori to all experience.
I did not set out to design a geodesic dome. I set out to discover the principles of how the universe works. I found that the universe is made of triangles.
Man is a self-balancing, 28-jointed adapter-base biped, an electrochemical reduction plant, integral with the universe.
The things to do are: the things that need doing, that you see need to be done, and that no one else is doing.
We are all born with the ability to think, but we are not all born with the ability to think for ourselves.
The highest function of ecology is the understanding of consequences.
What I'm trying to do is to develop a comprehensive anticipatory design science that can make the world work for 100% of humanity, in the shortest possible time, through spontaneous cooperation, without ecological offense or the disadvantage of anyone.
The only way to make a living is to give something away.
I'm not a genius. I'm just a guy who's been around for a long time and has seen a lot of things.
The more we learn, the more we discover how much we don't know.
The universe is a continuous process. It is not a thing, but a happening.
If you want to understand something, try to change it.
The world is a great school, and life is its curriculum.
To make the world work for 100% of humanity in the shortest possible time through spontaneous cooperation without ecological offense or the disadvantage of anyone.
Contemporaries of Buckminster Fuller
Other Architectures born within 50 years of Buckminster Fuller (1895–1983).