Nineteen hundred and three will bring great advances in surgery, in the study of bacteria, in the knowledge of the cause and prevention of disease. Medicine is played out. Every new discovery of bacteria shows us all the more convincingly that we have been wrong and that the million tons of stuff we have taken was all useless.

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 never pick up an item without thinking of how I might improve it. I never perfected an invention that I did not think about in terms of the service it might give others. I want to save and advance human life, not destroy it. I am proud of the fact that I never invented weapons to kill. The dove is my emblem.

First be sure a thing is wanted or needed, then go ahead.

For faith, as well intentioned as it may be, must be built on facts, not fiction - faith in fiction is a damnable false hope.

If I had not had so much ambition and not tried to do so many things, I probably would have been happier, but less useful.

I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.