Thomas A. Edison quotes:

Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.

Being busy does not always mean real work. The object of all work is production or accomplishment and to either of these ends there must be forethought, system, planning, intelligence, and honest purpose, as well as perspiration. Seeming to do is not doing.

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

Restlessness is discontent and discontent is the first necessity of progress. Show me a thoroughly satisfied man and I will show you a failure.

Be courageous. I have seen many depressions in business. Always America has emerged from these stronger and more prosperous. Be brave as your fathers before you. Have faith! Go forward!

There will one day spring from the brain of science a machine or force so fearful in its potentialities, so absolutely terrifying, that even man, the fighter, who will dare torture and death in order to inflict torture and death, will be appalled, and so abandon war forever.

The three great essentials to achieve anything worth while are: Hard work, Stick-to-itiveness, and Common sense.

Just because something doesn't do what you planned it to do doesn't mean it's useless.

Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.

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

I know this world is ruled by infinite intelligence. Everything that surrounds us- everything that exists - proves that there are infinite laws behind it. There can be no denying this fact. It is mathematical in its precision.

To my mind the old masters are not art; their value is in their scarcity.

They say President Wilson has blundered. Perhaps he has, but I notice he usually blunders forward.

Accomplishing something provides the only real satisfaction in life.

Anything that won't sell, I don't want to invent. Its sale is proof of utility, and utility is success.

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

Nearly every man who develops an idea works it up to the point where it looks impossible, and then he gets discouraged. That's not the place to become discouraged.

One might think that the money value of an invention constitutes its reward to the man who loves his work. But... I continue to find my greatest pleasure, and so my reward, in the work that precedes what the world calls success.

The chief function of the body is to carry the brain around.

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

Results! Why, man, I have gotten a lot of results. I know several thousand things that won't work.

I find my greatest pleasure, and so my reward, in the work that precedes what the world calls success.

The best thinking has been done in solitude. The worst has been done in turmoil.

The reason a lot of people do not recognize opportunity is because it usually goes around wearing overalls looking like hard work.

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.

Show me a thoroughly satisfied man and I will show you a failure.

I am proud of the fact that I never invented weapons to kill.

I never did a day's work in my life. It was all fun.

We will make electricity so cheap that only the rich will burn candles.

The first requisite for success is the ability to apply your physical and mental energies to one problem incessantly without growing weary.

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

I never did anything worth doing entirely by accident. . . Almost none of my inventions came about totally by accident. They were achieved by having trained myself to endure and tolerate hard work.

I am so deaf I am debarred from hearing all the time articulation and have to depend on the judgment of others.

So far as religion of the day is concerned, it is a damned fake...Religion is all bunk.

Be brave as your fathers before you. Have faith and go forward.

Be courageous! Have faith! Go forward.

Never be discouraged, because every wrong turn attempt, when left behind you, is another step forward taking you closer to your goals.

Being busy does not always mean real work.

Until man duplicates a blade of grass, nature can laugh at his so called scientific knowledge.

Until man duplicates a blade of grass, nature can laugh at his so-called scientific knowledge. Remedies from chemicals will never stand in favor compared with the products of nature, the living cell of the plant, the final result of the rays of the sun, the mother of all life.

I didn't fail 1000 times. The light bulb was an invention with 1000 steps.

Religion is all bunk.

If we did all the things we are capable of, we would literally astound ourselves.

To do much clear thinking a person must arrange for regular periods of solitude when they can concentrate and indulge the imagination without distraction.

I'd put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don't have to wait til oil and coal run out before we tackle that.

I cannot believe in the immortality of the soul. No, all this talk of an existence for us, as individuals, beyond the grave is wrong. It is born of our tenacity of life - our desire to go on living - our dread of coming to an end.

The radio craze will die out in time.

The doctor of the future will no longer treat the human frame with drugs, but rather will cure and prevent disease with nutrition.

Every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward

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....

Discontent is the first necessity of progress.

Our greatest weakness lies in giving up.

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

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.

For faith, as well intentioned as it may be, must be built on facts, not fiction - faith in fiction is a damnable false hope.

To those searching for truth -- not the truth of dogma and darkness but the truth brought by reason, search, examination, and inquiry, discipline is required. For faith, as well intentioned as it may be, must be built on facts, not fiction -- faith in fiction is a damnable false hope.

Baseball is the greatest of American games. Some say football, but it is my firm belief, and it shall always be, that baseball has no superior.

Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.

Never go to sleep without a request to your subconscious.

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

To have a great idea, have a lot of them.

Great ideas originate in the muscles.

I consider Paine our greatest political thinker. As we have not advanced, and perhaps never shall advance, beyond the Declaration and Constitution, so Paine has had no successors who extended his principles.

Having a vision for what you want is not enough...Vision without execution is hallucination

There is no substitute for hard work.

The doctor of the future will give no medication, but will interest his patients in the care of the human frame, diet and in the cause and prevention of disease. ~

I have never seen the slightest scientific proof of the religious theories of heaven and hell, of future life for individuals, or of a personal God.

Everything comes to him who hustles while he waits.

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

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

I never did anything by accident, nor did any of my inventions come by accident; they came by work.

When down in the mouth, remember Jonah. He came out all right.

Waste is worse than loss. The time is coming when every person who lays claim to ability will keep the question of waste before him constantly. The scope of thrift is limitless.

I am more of a sponge than an inventor. I absorb ideas from every source. I take half-matured schemes for mechanical development and make them practical. I am a sort of a middleman between the long-haired and impractical inventor and the hard-headed business man who measures all things in terms of dollars and cents. My principal business is giving commercial value to the brilliant but misdirected ideas of others.

Maturity is often more absurd than youth and very frequently is most unjust to youth.

We tried some experiments in mind reading which were not very successful. Think mind reading contrary to common sense, wise provision of the Bon Dieu that we cannot read each others minds, twould stop civilization and everybody would take to the woods. In fifty or hundred thousand centuries when mankind have become perfect by evolution then perhaps this sense could be developed with safety to the state.

Many a person who could not comprehend Rousseau, and would be puzzled by Montesquieu, could understand Paine as an open book. He wrote with a clarity, a sharpness of outline and exactness of speech that even a schoolboy should be able to grasp.

I failed my way to success.

Nobody knows whether our personalities pass on to another existence or sphere, but if we can evolve an instrument so delicate to be manipulated by our personality as it survives in the next life such an instrument ought to record something...

Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages.

Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work. It is astonishing how many have difficulty in putting their brains definitely and systematically to work....

The perils of overwork are slight compared with the dangers of inactivity.

In 'Common Sense' Paine flared forth with a document so powerful that the Revolution became inevitable. Washington recognized the difference, and in his calm way said that matters never could be the same again.

I make more mistakes than anyone else I know, and sooner or later, I patent most of them.

Invention is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration

His genius he was quite content in one brief sentence to define; Of inspiration one percent, of perspiration, ninety nine.

Genius is not inspired. Inspiration is perspiration.

Genius is 1 percent inspiration, 99 percent perspiration.

Invention is 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration.

Genius defined: of inspiration 1% percent, of perspiration, 99%.

Of all my inventions, I liked the phonograph best

I told [Kruesi] I was going to record talking, and then have the machine talk back. He thought it absurd. However, it was finished, the foil was put on; I then shouted "Mary had a little lamb," etc. I adjusted the reproducer, and the machine reproduced it perfectly. On first words spoken on a phonograph.

I never did anything worth doing by accident, nor did any of my inventions come indirectly through accident, except the phonograph. No when I have fully decided that a result is worth getting, I go about it, and make trial after trial, until it comes.

I never knew I had an inventive talent until Phrenology told me so. I was a stranger to myself until then!

Most of the exercise I get is from standing and walking around laboratory tables all day. I derive more benefit and entertainment from this than some of my friends and competitors get from playing games like golf.

It is apparent to me that the possibilities of the aeroplane, which two or three years ago were thought to hold the solution to the [flying machine] problem, have been exhausted, and that we must turn elsewhere.

I do not believe any type of religion should ever be introduced into the public schools of the United States.

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.".

Success is the result of hard work.

We often miss opportunity because it's dressed in overalls and looks like work

Unfortunately, there seems to be far more opportunity out there than ability.... We should remember that good fortune often happens when opportunity meets with preparation.

The three great essentials to achieve anything worthwhile are, first, hard work; second, stick-to-itiveness; third, common sense.

I never pick up an item without thinking of how I might improve it. I never perfected an invention that I did not think about in terms of the service it might give others. I want to save and advance human life, not destroy it. I am proud of the fact that I never invented weapons to kill. The dove is my emblem.

A teacher sent the following note home with a six-year-old boy 'He is too stupid to learn.' That boy was Thomas A. Edison.

A reporter called on Edison to interview him about a substitute for lead in the manufacture of storage batteries that the scientist was seeking. Edison informed the man that he had made 20,000 experiments but none had worked. "Aren't you discouraged by all this waste of effort?" the reporter asked. Edison: "Waste! There's nothing wasted. I have discovered 20,000 things that won't work."

Failure is the most effective technique to optimize strategic planning, implementation and processes.

The endeavor to change universal power by selfish supplication I do not believe in.

I have always consistently opposed high-tension and alternating systems of electric lighting...not only on account of danger, but because of their general unreliability and unsuitability for any general system of distribution.

Problems in human engineering will receive during the coming years the same genius and attention which the nineteenth century gave to the more material forms of engineering. We have laid good foundations for industrial prosperity, now we want to assure the happiness and growth of the workers through vocational education, vocational guidance, and wisely managed employment departments. A great field for industrial experimentation and statemanship is opening up.

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

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.

The first requisite of success is the ability to apply your physical and mental energies to one problem without growing weary.

Five percent of the people think; ten percent of the people think they think; and the other eighty-five percent would rather die than think.

It is astonishing what an effort it seems to be for many people to put their brains definitely and systematically to work.

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

What you are will show in what you do.

There is far more opportunity than there is ability.

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

A failure teaches you that something can't be done-that way.

A genius is a talented person who does his homework.