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R. Buckminster Fuller
(12 Jul 1895 - 1 Jul 1983)
American engineer, inventor, architect and philosopher.
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Science Quotes by R. Buckminster Fuller (29 quotes)
[Instead of fattening cattle:] If all the corn and grain going into useless fat were converted into alcohol for driving our cars, it would take care of much of our energy fuel needs.
— R. Buckminster Fuller
In Critical Path (1982), 272.
All of humanity now has the option to “make it” successfully and sustainably, by virtue of our having minds, discovering principles and being able to employ these principles to do more with less.
— R. Buckminster Fuller
Epigraph, Utopia or Oblivion: The Prospects for Humanity” (1963), 7.
Clothing represented man’s first environment-controlling and ecology-transforming tool.
— R. Buckminster Fuller
In Utopia or Oblivion: The Prospects for Humanity (1963), 86.
Corn and other grains fed to the cattle to fatten them renders those grains and kernels saleable as fat for prices tenfold what they bring simply as grain.
— R. Buckminster Fuller
In Critical Path (1982), 272.
Dare to be naïve.
— R. Buckminster Fuller
Motto for Synergetics: Explorations for the Geometry of Thinking (1975), xix.
Don’t fight forces, use them.
[His motto of the early thirties.]
[His motto of the early thirties.]
— R. Buckminster Fuller
In Shelter 2 (May 1932), 2 No. 4, 36, and (Nov 1932) No. 5, 108. Cited in Richard Buckminster Fuller, Joachim Krausse (ed.) and Claude Lichtenstein (ed.), Your Private Sky: Discourse (2001), 17.
Experience can only increase.
— R. Buckminster Fuller
In Critical Path (1982), 198.
Fire is the Sun unwinding from the tree’s log. … Each ring of the many rings of the saw-cut log is one year’s Sun-energy impoundment.
— R. Buckminster Fuller
In Critical Path (1982), 62.
How much does your building weigh?
A question often used to challenge architects to consider how efficiently materials were used for the space enclosed.
A question often used to challenge architects to consider how efficiently materials were used for the space enclosed.
— R. Buckminster Fuller
In Thomas T. K. Zung, Buckminster Fuller (2002), 5.
Humanity is about to learn that a lunatic (touched by the moon) is not a crazy man but one so sane, well-informed, well-coordinated, self-disciplined, cooperative and fearless as to be the first earthian human to have been ferried to a physical landing upon the moon, and thereafter to have been returned safely to reboard his mother space vehicle earth.
— R. Buckminster Fuller
In 'Reactions to Man’s Landing on the Moon Show Broad Variations in Opinions', The New York Times (21 Jul 1969), 6.
Humanity need do very little further mining. The … present scrap resources of almost all metals adequate to take care of all humanity’s forward needs.
— R. Buckminster Fuller
In Critical Path (1982), 208.
I am certain that none of the world’s problems … have any hope of solution except through total democratic society’s becoming thoroughly … self-educated.
— R. Buckminster Fuller
In Critical Path (1982), 266.
I am convinced all of humanity is born with more gifts than we know. Most are born geniuses and just get de-geniused rapidly.
— R. Buckminster Fuller
Statement made in 1974, quoted in People magazine. In Thomas T. K. Zung, Buckminster Fuller: Anthology for the New Millenium (2002), 174.
I assumed that nature would “evaluate” my work as I went along. If I was doing what nature wanted done, and if I was doing it in promising ways, permitted by nature’s principles, I would find my work being economically sustained—and vice versa, in which latter negative case I must quickly cease doing what I had been doing and seek logically alternative courses until I found the new course that nature signified her approval of by providing for its physical support.
— R. Buckminster Fuller
In Critical Path (1982), 145.
I look for what needs to be done. … After all, that’s how the universe designs itself.
— R. Buckminster Fuller
In Christian Science Monitor (3 Nov 1964).
In Los Angeles, backyard-incinerator and later car-pollution laws were passed to shift the blame for smog from industry to citizens. [A page-summary paraphrase; not verbatim.]
— R. Buckminster Fuller
This is a totally paraphrased summary of a page-length passage. This is NOT a verbatim quote, but the meaning is Fuller’s. See original wording in Critical Path (1982), 279.
It costs … more than a million dollars to produce each gallon of petroleum when the amount of energy as heat and pressure used for the length of time necessary … is charged for at [1980 U.S. retail rates for electrical energy].
— R. Buckminster Fuller
In Critical Path (1982), 200.
It has been found that within a 100 mile radius a wind is always blowing. Windmills installed around
the world converting their direct current into alternating current and feeding the electric energy into the world network can harvest the planet Earth’s prime daily energy income source—the wind—and adequately supply all the world’s energy needs.
— R. Buckminster Fuller
In Critical Path (1982), 208.
Nature never “fails.” Nature complies with its own laws. Nature is the law. When Man lacks understanding of Nature’s laws and a Man-contrived structure buckles unexpectedly, it does not fail. It only demonstrates that Man did not understand Nature’s laws and behaviors. Nothing failed. Man’s knowledge or estimating was inadequate.
— R. Buckminster Fuller
In "How Little I Know", in Saturday Review (12 Nov 1966), 152. Excerpted in Buckminster Fuller and Answar Dil, Humans in Universe (1983), 31.
Organization of the Apollo Project [involved] two million tasks…, a million of which required technological performances the design, production, and successful operation of which had never before been undertaken by humans.
— R. Buckminster Fuller
In Critical Path (1982), 248.
Realistic thinking accrues only after mistake making, which is the cosmic wisdom's most cogent way of teaching each of us how to carry on.
— R. Buckminster Fuller
In Buckminster Fuller and Answar Dil, Humans in Universe (1983), 218.
The drive to make money … seeks to monopolize order while leaving … disorder to overwhelm others.
— R. Buckminster Fuller
In Critical Path (1982), 276.
The National Science Foundation asked the great “breakthrough” scientists what they felt to be the most dominantly favorable factor in their educational experience. The answer was almost uniformly, “Intimate association with a great, inspiring teacher.”
— R. Buckminster Fuller
In "How Little I Know", in Saturday Review (12 Nov 1966), 152. Excerpted in Buckminster Fuller and Answar Dil, Humans in Universe (1983), 70.
We have not been seeing our Spaceship Earth as an integrally-designed machine which to be persistently successful must be comprehended and serviced in total.
— R. Buckminster Fuller
In Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth (1969), 52.
We speak erroneously of “artificial” materials, “synthetics”, and so forth. The basis for this erroneous terminology is the notion that Nature has made certain things which we call natural, and everything else is “man-made”, ergo artificial. But what one learns in chemistry is that Nature wrote all the rules of structuring; man does not invent chemical structuring rules; he only discovers the rules. All the chemist can do is find out what Nature permits, and any substances that are thus developed or discovered are inherently natural. It is very important to remember that.
— R. Buckminster Fuller
From 'The Comprehensive Man', Ideas and Integrities: A Spontaneous Autobiographical Disclosure (1963), 75-76.
What the scientists have always found by physical experiment was an a priori orderliness of nature, or Universe always operating at an elegance level that made the discovering scientist’s working hypotheses seem crude by comparison. The discovered reality made the scientists’ exploratory work seem relatively disorderly.
— R. Buckminster Fuller
As quoted by L.L. Larison Cudmore in The Center of Life: A Natural History of the Cell (1977), xi.
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.
— R. Buckminster Fuller
Quoted in David J. Darling, The Universal Book of Mathematics (2004). 34.
Whole cities are most efficiently enclosed under one large dome.
— R. Buckminster Fuller
In Critical Path (1982), 209.
World Game finds that 60 percent of all the jobs in the U.S.A. are not producing any real wealth—i.e., real life support. They are in fear-underwriting industries or are checking-on-other-checkers, etc.
— R. Buckminster Fuller
In Critical Path (1982), 223.
Quotes by others about R. Buckminster Fuller (2)
The amoeba had the architectural ideas of R. Buckminster Fuller before there was anyone around capable of having an idea.
In The Center of Life: A Natural History of the Cell (1977), 16.
In design, people like Buckminster Fuller amazed me at the levels at which he could think. He could think molecularly. And he could think at the almost galactic scale. And the idea that somebody could actually talk about molecules and talk about buildings and structures and talk about space just amazed me. As I get older–I’ll be 60 next year–what I’ve discovered is that I find myself in those three realms too.
In interview with Kerry A. Dolan, 'William McDonough On Cradle-to-Cradle Design', Forbes (4 Aug 2010)
See also:
- 12 Jul - short biography, births, deaths and events on date of Fuller's birth.
In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
(1987) -- 
