Thomas A. Edison Quotes
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Discontent is the first necessity of progress.
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The injurious agent in cigarettes comes principally from the burning paper wrapper. The substance thereby formed is called "acrolein." It has a violent action on the nerve centers, producing degeneration of the cells of the brain, which is quite rapid among boys. Unlike most narcotics, this degeneration is permanent and uncontrollable. I employ no person who smokes cigarettes.
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Being busy does not always mean real work.
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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.
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Through all the years of experimenting and research, I never once made a discovery. I start where the last man left off... All my work was deductive, and the results I achieved were those of invention pure and simple.
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I get my ideas from listening from within.
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There is a better way for everything. Find it.
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I would construct and work along various lines until I found them untenable. When one theory was discarded, I developed another at once. I realized very early that this was the only possible way for me to work out all the problems.
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The inventor can't do it all, you've got to change people. We have an enormous capacity to invent super-machinery. But our desire to install the device is weak. Human inertia is the problem, not invention. Something in man makes him resist change.
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Time is really the only capital that any human being has, and the only thing he can't afford to lose.
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Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration.
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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."
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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.
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Let the public throw bouquets to the inventors and in time we will all be happy.
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Consider data without prejudice.
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I was at the foot of my class.
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Success is the result of hard work.
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Sticking to it is the genius.
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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.
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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.
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His genius he was quite content in one brief sentence to define; Of inspiration one percent, of perspiration, ninety nine.
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The perils of overwork are slight compared with the dangers of inactivity.
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I've never made a mistake. I've only learned from experience.
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I have a peculiar theory about radium, and I believe it is the correct one. I believe that there is some mysterious ray pervading the universe that is fluorescing to it. In other words, that all its energy is not self-constructed but that there is a mysterious something in the atmosphere that scientists have not found that is drawing out those infinitesimal atoms and distributing them forcefully and indestructibly.