Thomas A. Edison Quotes
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Fooling around with alternating currents is just a waste of time. Nobody will use it, ever. It's too dangerous . . . it could kill a man as quick as a bolt of lightning. Direct current is safe.
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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.
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I know this world is ruled by Infinite Intelligence. It required Infinite Intelligence to create it and it requires Infinite Intelligence to keep it on its course ... It is mathematical in its precision.
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Nothing that's good works by itself, you've got to make the damn thing work.
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We shall have no better conditions in the future if we are satisfied with all those which we have at present.
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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.
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Every failure is a lesson learned about your strategy.
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Everyone steals in commerce and industry. I've stolen a lot, myself. But I know how to steal! They don't know how to steal!
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It is the people who constitute the basis of Government credit. Why then cannot the people have benefit of their own gilt-edge credit by receiving non-interest bearing currency-instead of bankers receiving the benefit of the people's credit in interest-bearing bonds. If the United States Government will adopt this policy of increasing its national wealth without contributing to the interest collector-for the whole national debt is made up on interest charges-then you will see an era of progress and prosperity in this country such as could never have come otherwise.
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Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.
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Show me a completely contented person and I'll show you a failure.
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Religion is all bunk.
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It is remarkable to what lengths people will go to avoid thought.
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Not only will atomic power be released, but someday we will harness the rise and fall of the tides and imprison the rays of the sun.
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The United States, and other advanced nations, will someday be able to produce instruments of death so terrible the world will be in abject terror of itself and its ability to end civilization.... Such war-making weapons should be developed - but only for purposes of discovery and experimentation
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I start where the last man left off. What the mind of man can conceive and believe, the mind of a man can achieve.
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I have friends in overalls whose friendship I would not swap for the favor of the kings of the world.
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Even though I am nearly deaf, I seem to be gifted with a kind of inner hearing which enables me to detect sounds and noises which the ordinary person does not hear.
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We haven't failed. We now know a thousand things that won't work, so we are much closer to finding what will.
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If there is a better solution... find it.
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During all those years of experimentation and research, I never once made a discovery. All my work was deductive, and the results I achieved were those of invention, pure and simple. I would construct a theory and work on its lines until I found it was untenable. Then it would be discarded at once and another theory evolved. This was the only possible way for me to work out the problem.
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I failed my way to success.
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To Monsieur Eiffel the Engineer, the brave builder of so gigantic and original a specimen of modern Engineering from one who has the greatest respect and admiration for all Engineers including the Great Engineer the Bon Dieu.
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First, study the present construction. Second, ask for all past experiences ...study and read everything you can on the subject.