Thomas A. Edison Quotes
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Work while others are wishing.
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The thing I lose patience with the most is the clock. Its hands move too fast.
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The beauty of a great idea lies in the art of using it.
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I have better use for my brain than to poison it with alcohol. To put alcohol in the human brain is like putting sand in the bearings of an engine.
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It is apparent to me that the possibilities of the aeroplane, which two or three years ago were thought to hold the solution to the [flying machine] problem, have been exhausted, and that we must turn elsewhere.
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One might think that the money value of an invention constitutes its reward to the man who loves his work. But... I continue to find my greatest pleasure, and so my reward, in the work that precedes what the world calls success.
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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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Genius? Nothing! Sticking to it is the genius! Any other bright-minded fellow can accomplish just as much if he will stick like hell and remember nothing that's any good works by itself. You've got to make the damn thing work!...I failed my way to success.
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The biggest failure of man is that he gives up before he realizes how close he was to success.
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First be sure a thing is wanted or needed, then go ahead.
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I never failed. It just didn't work 10,000 times.
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I am so deaf I am debarred from hearing all the time articulation and have to depend on the judgment of others.
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I believe that the science of chemistry alone almost proves the existence of an intelligent creator.
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The first requisite for success is to develop the ability to focus.
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Radio is just a fashion contrivance that will soon die out. It is obvious that there never will be invented a proper receiver!
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A failure teaches you that something can't be done-that way.
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They say President Wilson has blundered. Perhaps he has, but I notice he usually blunders forward.
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The real measure of success is the number of experiments that can be crowded into 24 hours.
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Never Say I Failed 99 Times, Say I Discovered 99 Ways Which Causes Failure!
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I know of over 3,000 ways [that] a light bulb does not work.
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I do not believe in the God of the theologians; but that there is a Supreme Intelligence I do not doubt.
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There will one day spring from the brain of science a machine or force so fearful in its potentialities, so absolutely terrifying, that even man, the fighter, who will dare torture and death in order to inflict torture and death, will be appalled, and so abandon war forever.
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Keep on the lookout for novel ideas that others have used successfully. Your idea has to be original only in its adaptation to the problem you're working on.
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I have never seen the slightest scientific proof of the religious ideas of heaven and hell, of future life for individuals, or of a personal God.