The Bible of nature is the best damn Bible in the world. Its laws are perfect and grand, and all the prayers in the world can't change them. There is intelligence and law in this world, and there may be supreme intelligence and law, but so far as the religion of the day is concerned, it is all a damned fake.

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

When down in the mouth, remember Jonah. He came out all right.

A diamond is a piece of coal that stuck to the job

The great trouble is that the preachers get the children from six to seven years of age and then it is almost impossible to do anything with them.

I never did anything worth doing by accident, nor did any of my inventions come indirectly through accident, except the phonograph. No, when I have, fully decided that a result is worth getting, I go about it, and make trial after trial, until it comes.

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