Education isn't play--and it can't be made to look like play. It is hard, hard work. But it can be made interesting work.

I didn't fail 1000 times. The light bulb was an invention with 1000 steps.

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.

I am afraid of radium and polonium ... I don't want to monkey with them.

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.

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."

I never once failed at making a light bulb. I just found out 99 ways not to make one.