Thomas A. Edison Quotes

Absorb ideas from every source.

The first requisite of success is the ability to apply your physical and mental energies to one problem without growing weary.

Because I readily absorb ideas from every source - frequently starting where the last person left off - I never pick up an item without thinking of how I might improve it.

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.

Success is based on imagination plus ambition and the will to work.

Genius? Nothing! Sticking to it is the genius! Any other bright-minded fellow can accomplish just as much if he will stick like hell and remember nothing that's any good works by itself. You've got to make the damn thing work!...I failed my way to success.

There is far more danger in public than in private monopoly, for when Government goes into business it can always shift its losses to the taxpayers. Government never makes ends meetand that is the first requisite of business.

Large portions of life's disappointments are individuals who did not understand that they were so near achievement when they surrendered.

I believe in the existence of a Supreme Intelligence pervading the Universe.

The successful person makes a habit of doing what the failing person doesn't like to do.

Friendship is the heaven of life.

Every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward

Genius is not inspired. Inspiration is perspiration.

A man’s best friend is a good wife.

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."

Ideas without execution are hallucinations.

Vision without execution is delusion.

A genius is a talented person who does his homework.

To get a great idea, come up with lots of them.

The thing I lose patience with the most is the clock. Its hands move too fast

Incurably religious, that is the best way to describe the mental condition of so many people.

The only thing I use my body for is to carry my brain around.

Not only will atomic power be released, but someday we will harness the rise and fall of the tides and imprison the rays of the sun.

I have never seen the slightest scientific proof of the religious ideas of heaven and hell, of future life for individuals, or of a personal God.

There is much more opportunity than there are people to see it.

There's a way to do it better - find it.

Fooling around with alternating currents is just a waste of time. Nobody will use it, ever. It's too dangerous . . . it could kill a man as quick as a bolt of lightning. Direct current is safe.

It is very beautiful over there. (last words)

I cannot believe in the immortality of the soul. No, all this talk of an existence for us, as individuals, beyond the grave is wrong. It is born of our tenacity of life - our desire to go on living - our dread of coming to an end.

Nearly every man who develops an idea works it up to the point where it looks impossible, and then he gets discouraged. That's not the place to become discouraged.

Anything that won't sell, I don't want to invent. Its sale is proof of utility, and utility is success.

The world owes nothing to any man, but every man owes something to the world.

I never view mistakes as failures. They are simply opportunities to find out what doesn't work.

Nature made us - nature did it all - not the gods of the religions.

I find out what the world needs. Then I go ahead and try to invent it

They say President Wilson has blundered. Perhaps he has, but I notice he usually blunders forward.

Everything comes to those who hustle while they wait.

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

I have far more respect for the person with a single idea who gets there than for the person with a thousand ideas who does nothing.

In creating technology for ourselves we created it for the world.