When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work.

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."

Sticking to it is the genius.

Many a person who could not comprehend Rousseau, and would be puzzled by Montesquieu, could understand Paine as an open book. He wrote with a clarity, a sharpness of outline and exactness of speech that even a schoolboy should be able to grasp.

I believe that the motion picture is destined to revolutionize our educational system and that in a few years it will supplant largely, if not entirely, the use of textbooks.

Most of the exercise I get is from standing and walking around laboratory tables all day. I derive more benefit and entertainment from this than some of my friends and competitors get from playing games like golf.

Nothing that's good works by itself, you've got to make the damn thing work.