Thomas A. Edison Quotes
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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.".
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The successful person makes a habit of doing what the failing person doesn't like to do.
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I am quite correctly described as 'more of a sponge than an inventor....'
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If there is a better solution... find it.
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Show me a thoroughly satisfied man - and I will show you a failure.
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Everything comes to him who hustles while he waits.
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The value of an idea lies in the using of it.
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I have not failed. I have successfully discovered 1200 ideas that don't work.
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Oh these mathematicians make me tired! When you ask them to work out a sum they take a piece of paper, cover it with rows of A's, B's, and X's and Y's ... scatter a mess of flyspecks over them, and then give you an answer that's all wrong!
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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.
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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.
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After we had conducted thousands of experiments on a certain project without solving the problem, one of my associates, after we had conducted the crowning experiment and it had proved a failure, expressed discouragement and disgust over our having failed to find out anything. I cheerily assured him that we had learned something. For we had learned for a certainty that the thing couldnt be done that way, and that we would have to try some other way.
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The very first thing an executive must have is a fine memory. Of course it does not follow that a man with a fine memory is necessarily a fine executive. But if he has the memory he has the first qualification, and if he has not the memory nothing else matters.
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When I have fully decided that a result is worth getting I go ahead of it and make trial after trial until it comes.
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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.
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Results! Why, man, I have gotten a lot of results. I know several thousand things that won't work.
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The chief function of the body is to carry the brain around.
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There is no substitute for hard work.
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There's a way to do it better - find it.
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Because I readily absorb ideas from every source - frequently starting where the last person left off - I never pick up an item without thinking of how I might improve it.