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Every time man makes a new experiment he always learns more. He cannot learn less. He may learn that what he thought was true was not true. By the elimination of a false premise, his basic capital wealth which in his given lifetime is disembarrassed of further preoccupation with considerations of how to employ a worthless time-consuming hypothesis. Freeing his time for its more effective exploratory investment is to give man increased wealth.

Buckminster Fuller#30

LearningTimeExperimentWisdom

About this quote

What does it mean?
Every experiment teaches something, even if it disproves a belief, freeing up time for more valuable pursuits.
In plain terms
Experiments always teach you something, even if you're wrong.
What can you take from it?
Learn from every experiment to free up time.

Where it applies

  • research
  • innovation
  • daily decisions

Putting it to work

  • discard false hypotheses quickly
  • value learning time

Questions to consider

  • What did this experiment teach you?
  • How can you use this time?

Another view

Some failures consume resources without clear lessons.

More from Buckminster Fuller

  1. Einstein, Planck, and other leading scientists said, 'We're going to have to reassess and redefine the physical universe.' - They defined the physical universe…

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  2. Sum-totally, we find that the physical constituent of wealth-energy-cannot decrease and that the metaphysical constituent-know-how-can only increase. This is t…

    Permalink to quote #31
  3. The procedure we are pursuing is that of true democracy. Semi-democracy accepts the dictatorship of a majority in establishing its arbitrary, ergo, unnatural, …

    Permalink to quote #28

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