Necessity is the mother of invention

1. A need or problem encourages creative efforts to meet the need or solve the problem. This saying appears in the dialogue Republic, by the ancient Greek philosopher Plato .

Idioms and Phrases

Inventiveness and ingenuity are stimulated by difficulty. For example, The first prisoner to tie together bedsheets to escape knew that necessity was the mother of invention . This proverb first appeared in English in 1519 in slightly different form, “Need taught him wit,” and exists in many other languages as well.