A couple of months ago, I wrote about (among other things) a quote about "inventing the future".

This morning, via a Wired article, I came across the Quote Investigator blog, who has a large archives of quotes for which he has dug out the true sources.

Needless to say, he did a more in-depth job than me; although Alan Kay has stated that he originated the maxim of the form "The best way to predict the future is to invent it", and began using it by 1971, but in 1961 the line "The future cannot be predicted, but futures can be invented." appears in a book by Dennis Gabor (inventor of holography) called "Inventing the future".

The future cannot be predicted, but futures can be invented. It was man’s ability to invent which has made human society what it is. The mental processes of inventions are still mysterious. They are rational but not logical, that is to say, not deductive.