Thomas A. Edison Quotes
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Being busy does not always mean real work.
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I never did anything worth doing by accident, nor did any of my inventions come indirectly through accident, except the phonograph.
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I owe my success to the fact that I never had a clock in my workroom. Seventy-five of us worked twenty hours every day and slept only four hours - and thrived on it.
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The perils of overwork are slight compared with the dangers of inactivity.
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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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Restlessness is discontent and discontent is the first necessity of progress. Show me a thoroughly satisfied man and I will show you a failure.
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If I had not had so much ambition and not tried to do so many things, I probably would have been happier, but less useful.
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I never failed once. It just happened to be a 2000-step process.
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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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The best thinking has been done in solitude. The worst has been done in turmoil.
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Perhaps dandruff is the excreta of the mind the quantity of this material being directly proportional to the amount of reading one indulges in. A book on German metaphysics would thus easily ruin a dress suit.
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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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The doctor of the future will give no medicine, but will involve the patient in the proper use of food, fresh air and exercise.
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The dove is my emblem.
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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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I do not believe any type of religion should ever be introduced into the public schools of the United States.
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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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We don't know a millionth of one percent about anything.
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It has been just so in all my inventions. The first step is an intuition-and comes with a burst, then difficulties arise. This thing that gives out and then that-"Bugs"as such little faults and difficulties are called show themselves and months of anxious watching, study and labor are requisite before commercial success-or failure-is certainly reached.
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Never be discouraged, because every wrong turn attempt, when left behind you, is another step forward taking you closer to your goals.
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Life's most soothing things are a child's goodnight and sweet music.
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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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Sticking to it is the genius.
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The inventor tries to meet the demand of a crazy civilization.