Thomas A. Edison Quotes

“Vision without execution is delusion.”

“None of my inventions came by accident. I see a worthwhile need to be met and I make trial after trial until it comes. What it boils down to is one per cent inspiration and ninety-nine per cent perspiration.”

“What a man's mind can create, man's character can control.”

“I speak without exaggeration when I say that I have constructed 3,000 different theories in connection with the electric light, each one of them reasonable and apparently likely to be true. Yet only in two cases did my experiments prove the truth of my theory. My chief difficulty was in constructing the carbon filament... Every quarter of the globe was ransacked by my agents, and all sorts of the queerest materials used, until finally the shred of bamboo, now utilized by us, was settled upon.”

“There is a better way to do it - Find it!”

“If the Nation can issue a dollar bond it can issue a dollar bill. The element that makes the bond good makes the bill good also. The difference between the bond and the bill is that the bond lets the money broker collect twice the amount of the bond and an additional 20%. Whereas the currency, the honest sort provided by the Constitution pays nobody but those who contribute in some useful way. It is absurd to say our Country can issue bonds and cannot issue currency. Both are promises to pay, but one fattens the usurer and the other helps the People.”

“Direct thought is not an attribute of feminity. In this, women are now centuries behind man.”

“The body is a community made up of its innumerable cells or inhabitants.”

“Your worth consists in what you are and not in what you have.”

“Being busy does not always mean real work.”

“Today, I am wondering what would have happened to me by now, if, fifty years ago, some fluent talker had converted me to the theory of the eight-hour day and convinced me that it was not fair to my fellow-workers to put forth my best efforts in my work? I am glad that the eight-hour day had not been invented when I was a young man. If my life had been made up of eight-hour days, I don't believe I could have accomplished a great deal.”

“Surprises and reverses can serve as an incentive for great accomplishment. There are no rules here, we're just trying to accomplish something.”

“X-rays ... I am afraid of them. I stopped experimenting with them two years ago, when I came near to losing my eyesight and Dally, my assistant practically lost the use of both of his arms.”

“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.”

“I have not failed 700 times. I have not failed once. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work.”

“No Such Thing as Bad Results”

“My main purpose in life is to make money so I can afford to go on creating more inventions.”

“I have friends in overalls whose friendship I would not swap for the favor of the kings of the world.”

“It is the best book ever written on the subject. There is nothing like it!”

“Negative results are just what I want. They’re just as valuable to me as positive results. I can never find the thing that does the job best until I find the ones that don’t.”

“Great ideas originate in the muscles.”

“Remember, life is all what you focus on. Learn lessons and keep moving forward towards your goals and dreams... "I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work."”

“To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk.”

“This problem, once solved, will be simple.”

“Consider data without prejudice.”