I never did anything worth doing entirely by accident. . . Almost none of my inventions came about totally by accident. They were achieved by having trained myself to endure and tolerate hard work.

I owe my success to the fact that I never had a clock in my workroom.

Absorb ideas from every source.

I am much less interested in what is called God's word than in God's deeds. All bibles are man-made.

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.

I told [Kruesi] I was going to record talking, and then have the machine talk back. He thought it absurd. However, it was finished, the foil was put on; I then shouted "Mary had a little lamb," etc. I adjusted the reproducer, and the machine reproduced it perfectly. On first words spoken on a phonograph.

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