Thomas A. Edison Quotes
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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.
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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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I never failed once. It just happened to be a 2000-step process.
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IF PARENTS PASS ENTHUSIASM ALONG TO THEIR CHILDREN, THEY WILL LEAVE THEM AN ESTATE OF INCALCULABLE VALUE
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Consider data without prejudice.
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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.
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The world owes nothing to any man, but every man owes something to the world.
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The best thinking has been done in solitude. The worst has been done in turmoil.
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Focus on how the end-user customers perceive the impact of your innovation - rather than on how you, the innovators, perceive it.
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I do not believe any type of religion should ever be introduced into the public schools of the United States.
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I get my ideas from listening from within.
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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.
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If I could solve all the problems myself, I would.
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I never failed. It just didn't work 10,000 times.
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Negative results are just what I want. They’re just as valuable to me as positive results. I can never find the thing that does the job best until I find the ones that don’t.
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Any large extension of the Government into business affairs - no matter what the pretense and no matter how the the extension is labeled - will be bound to promote waste and put a curb on our prosperity and progress.
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There is always a better way.
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Whatever the mind of man creates, should be controlled by man's character.
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Continued innovation is the best way to beat the competition.
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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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Success is the result of hard work.
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From his neck down a man is worth a couple of dollars a day, from his neck up he is worth anything that his brain can produce.
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I have been at work for some time building an apparatus to see if it is possible for personalities which have left this earth to communicate with us.
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Tomorrow Is My Exam But I Don’t Care Because A Single Sheet Of Paper Can’t Decide My Future.