Thomas A. Edison Quotes

“I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.”
― Thomas A. Edison

“Five percent of the people think;
ten percent of the people think they think;
and the other eighty-five percent would rather die than think.”
― Thomas A. Edison

“Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.”
― Thomas A. Edison

“We often miss opportunity because it's dressed in overalls and looks like work”
― Thomas A. Edison

“Genius is 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration.”
― Thomas A. Edison

“If we all did the things we are capable of, we would astound ourselves.”
  ― Thomas A. Edison

“Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages.”
― Thomas A. Edison

“When you have exhausted all possibilities, remember this - you haven't.”
― Thomas A. Edison

“Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is to try just one more time.”
― Thomas A. Edison

“To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk.”
― Thomas A. Edison

“There are no rules here -- we're trying to accomplish something.”
― Thomas A. Edison

“Vision without execution is hallucination.”
― Thomas A. Edison

“What you are will show in what you do.”
― Thomas A. Edison

“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.”
― Thomas A. Edison

“The three great essentials to achieve anything worthwhile are, first, hard work; second, stick-to-itiveness; third, common sense.”
― Thomas A. Edison

“I have friends in overalls whose friendship I would not swap for the favor of the kings of the world.”
― Thomas A. Edison

“Just because something doesn't do what you planned it to do doesn't mean it's useless.”
― Thomas A. Edison

“i never did a day’s work in my life. it was all fun.”
― Thomas A. Edison

“Failure is really a matter of conceit. People don't work hard because, in their conceit, they imagine they'll succeed without ever making an effort. Most people believe that they'll wake up some day and find themselves rich. Actually, they've got it half right, because eventually they do wake up.”
― Thomas A. Edison

“The doctor of the future will give no medication, but will interest his patients in the care of the human frame, diet and in the cause and prevention of disease. ~ ”
― Thomas A. Edison

“To do much clear thinking a person must arrange for regular periods of solitude when they can concentrate and indulge the imagination without distraction.”
― Thomas A. Edison

“There is no substitute for hard work.”
― Thomas A. Edison

“There is time for everything.”
― Thomas A. Edison

“There is always a better way.”
― Thomas A. Edison

“We are like tenant farmers chopping down the fence around our house for fuel when we should be using Nature’s inexhaustible sources of energy--sun, wind and tide. I’d put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don’t have to wait until oil and coal run out before we tackle that.”
― Thomas A. Edison

“Your worth consists in what you are and not in what you have.”
― Thomas A. Edison

“Everything comes to him who hustles while he waits.”
― Thomas A. Edison

“This problem, once solved, will be simple.”
― Thomas A. Edison

“Discontent is the first necessity of progress.”
― Thomas A. Edison

“Show me a thoroughly satisfied man and I will show you a failure”
― Thomas A. Edison

“Unfortunately, there seems to be far more opportunity out there than ability.... We should remember that good fortune often happens when opportunity meets with preparation.”
― Thomas A. Edison

“The value of an idea lies in using it”
― Thomas A. Edison

“I find out what the world needs. Then I go ahead and try to invent it”
― Thomas A. Edison

“We have but two ears and one mouth so that we may listen twice as much as we speak”
― Thomas A. Edison

“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.”
― Thomas A. Edison

“I have never seen the slightest scientific proof of the religious theories of heaven and hell, of future life for individuals, or of a personal God.”
― Thomas A. Edison

“There is no expedient to which a man will not go to avoid the real labor of thinking.”
― Thomas A. Edison

“Being busy does not always mean real work. The object of all work is production or accomplishment and to either of these ends there must be forethought, system, planning, intelligence, and honest purpose, as well as perspiration. Seeming to do is not doing”
― Thomas A. Edison

“It is very beautiful over there. (last words)”
― Thomas A. Edison

“The first requisite for success is the ability to apply your physical and mental energies to one problem incessantly without growing weary.”
― Thomas A. Edison

“I never did anything worth doing by accident, nor did any of my inventions come by accident; they came by work.”
― Thomas A. Edison

“People who will not turn a shovel full of dirt on the project nor contribute a pound of material, will collect more money from the United States than will the People who supply all the material and do all the work. This is the terrible thing about interest ...But here is the point: If the Nation can issue a dollar bond it can issue a dollar bill. The element that makes the bond good makes the bill good also. The difference between the bond and the bill is that the bond lets the money broker collect twice the amount of the bond and an additional 20%. Whereas the currency, the honest sort provided by the Constitution pays nobody but those who contribute in some useful way. It is absurd to say our Country can issue bonds and cannot issue currency. Both are promises to pay, but one fattens the usurer and the other helps the People. If the currency issued by the People were no good, then the bonds would be no good, either. It is a terrible situation when the Government, to insure the National Wealth, must go in debt and submit to ruinous interest charges at the hands of men who control the fictitious value of gold. Interest is the invention of Satan.”
― Thomas A. Edison

“There's a way to do it better - find it.”
― Thomas A. Edison

“I know this world is ruled by infinite intelligence. Everything that surrounds us- everything that exists - proves that there are infinite laws behind it. There can be no denying this fact. It is mathematical in its precision.”
― Thomas A. Edison

“I am proud of the fact that I never invented weapons to kill.”
― Thomas A. Edison

“Nature is truly wonderful. Only man is truly foul.”
― Thomas A. Edison

“If we did the things we are capable of, we would literally astound ourselves.”
― Thomas A. Edison

“Nearly every person who develops an idea works at it up to the point where it looks impossible, and then gets discouraged. That's not the place to become discouraged.”
― Thomas A. Edison