Thomas A. Edison Quotes

“A diamond is a piece of coal that stuck to the job”

“It is absurd to say that our country can issue $30,000,000 in bonds and not $30,000,000 in currency. Both are promises to pay; but one promise fattens the usurer (banker), and the other helps the people. If the currency issued by the Government were no good, then the bonds issued would be no good either. It is a terrible situation when the Government, to increase the national wealth, must go into debt and submit to ruinous interest charges at the hands of men who control the fictitious values of gold.”

“I know of over 3,000 ways [that] a light bulb does not work.”

“Mr. Edison worked endlessly on a problem, using the method of elimination. If a person asked him if he were discouraged because so many attempts proved unavailing, he would say, "No, I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward.".”

“A good intention, with a bad approach, often leads to a poor result.”

“There is no substitute for hard work.”

“When you have exhausted all possibilities, remember this - you haven't.”

“The greatest invention in the world is the mind of a child.”

“My success is due more to my ability to work continuously on one thing without stopping than to any other single quality.”

“When we learn how to store electricity, we will cease being apes ourselves; until then we are tailless orangutans. You see, we should utilize natural forces and thus get all of our power. Sunshine is a form of energy, and the winds and the tides are manifestations of energy. Do we use them? Oh, no! We burn up wood and coal, as renters burn up the front fence for fuel. We live like squatters, not as if we owned the property.”

“Sleep is like a drug. Take too much at a time and it makes you dopey. You lose time and opportunities.”

“Work while others are wishing.”

“A lawsuit is the suicide of time.”

“I find out what the world needs. Then I go ahead and try to invent it”

“I never failed once. It just happened to be a 2000-step process.”

“Never Say I Failed 99 Times, Say I Discovered 99 Ways Which Causes Failure!”

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

“I have not failed. I have successfully discovered 1200 ideas that don't work.”

“The most necessary task of civilization is to teach people how to think. It should be the primary purpose of our public schools. The mind of a child is naturally active, it develops through exercise. Give a child plenty of exercise, for body and brain. The trouble with our way of educating is that it does not give elasticity to the mind. It casts the brain into a mold. It insists that the child must accept. It does not encourage original thought or reasoning, and it lays more stress on memory than observation.”

“The great trouble is that the preachers get the children from six to seven years of age and then it is almost impossible to do anything with them.”

“When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work.”

“My main purpose in life is to make enough money to create ever more inventions…. The dove is my emblem…. I want to save and advance human life, not destroy it…. I am proud of the fact that I have never invented weapons to kill….”

“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.”

“I am both pleased but astonished by the fact that mankind has not yet begun to use all the means and devices that are available for destruction. I hope that such weapons are never manufactured in quantity.”

“We haven't failed. We now know a thousand things that won't work, so we are much closer to finding what will.”

“If I could solve all the problems myself, I would.”

“There is great value in disaster. All our mistakes are burned up. Thank God we can start a new.”

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

“I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.”

“We shall have no better conditions in the future if we are satisfied with all those which we have at present.”

“A good idea is never lost. Even though its originator or possessor may die, it will someday be reborn in the mind of another.”

“I have had a lot of success with failure”

“Genius? Nothing! Sticking to it is the genius! Any other bright-minded fellow can accomplish just as much if he will stick like hell and remember nothing that's any good works by itself. You've got to make the damn thing work!...I failed my way to success.”

“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."”

“Show me a completely contented person and I'll show you a failure.”

“Never go to sleepwithout a request to your subconscious.”

“It is remarkable to what lengths people will go to avoid thought.”

“Genius? Nothing! Sticking to it is the genius! ...I've failed my way to success.”

“The secret of success is focus of purpose.”

“Friendship is the heaven of life.”

“The successful person makes a habit of doing what the failing person doesn't like to do.”

“The thing I lose patience with the most is the clock. Its hands move too fast”

“Keep on the lookout for novel ideas that others have used successfully. Your idea has to be original only in its adaptation to the problem you're working on.”

“There's a way to do it better - find it.”

“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.”

“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.”

“Genius is not inspired. Inspiration is perspiration.”

“I believe that the motion picture is destined to revolutionize our educational system and that in a few years it will supplant largely, if not entirely, the use of textbooks.”

“I will not say I failed 1000 times, I will say that I discovered there are 1000 ways that can cause failure”

“Results? Why, man, I have gotten lots of results! If I find 10,000 ways something won't work, I haven't failed. I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is often a step forward.”