I also served on many government committees. Leo Baekeland More Quotes by Leo Baekeland More Quotes From Leo Baekeland I was trying to make something really hard, but then I thought I should make something really soft instead, that could be molded into different shapes. That was how I came up with the first plastic. I called it Bakelite. Leo Baekeland shapes different trying Knowledge is like a knife. In the hands of a well-balanced adult it is an instrument for good of inestimable value; but in the hands of a child, an idiot, a criminal, a drunkard or an insane man, it may cause havoc, misery, suffering and crime. Science and religion have this in common, that their noble aims, their power for good, have often, with wrong men, deteriorated into a boomerang to the human race. Leo Baekeland science children knowledge If I had my life to live over again I would not devote it to develop new industrial processes: I would try to add my humble efforts to use Science to the betterment of the human race. I despair of the helter-skelter methods of our vaulted homo sapiens, misguided by his ignorance and his politicians. If we continue our ways, there is every possibility that the human race may follow the road of former living races of animals whose fossils proclaim that they were not fit to continue. Religion, laws and morals is not enough. We need more. Science can help us. Leo Baekeland ignorance humility humble Well, it was kind of an accident, because plastic is not what I meant to invent. I had just sold photograph paper to Eastman Kodak for 1 million dollars. Leo Baekeland dollars photography paper How few people will realize how much detail had to be gone into before Bakelite was a commercial success. Leo Baekeland details success people Then I was president of the Bakelite Corporation from 1910 to 1930 Leo Baekeland 1930s corporations president In 1893 I founded a chemical company which I ran until 1899. Leo Baekeland ran company chemicals
