Thomas Edison Quotes

"There's a way to do it better — find it."

"Being busy does not always mean real work. The object of all work is production or accomplishment."

"The three great essentials to achieve anything worth while are: Hard work, Stick-to-itiveness, and Common sense."

"I have friends in overalls whose friendship I would not swap for the favor of the kings of the world."

"Your worth consists in what you are and not in what you have."

"To have a great idea, have a lot of them."

"We don't know a millionth of one percent about anything."

"I find my greatest pleasure, and so my reward, in the work that precedes what the world calls success."

"I start where the last man left off."

"The body is a community made up of its innumerable cells or inhabitants."

"Great ideas originate in the muscles."

"Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up."

"Restlessness is discontent and discontent is the first necessity of progress."

"The best thinking has been done in solitude. The worst has been done in turmoil."

"Hell, there are no rules here — we're trying to accomplish something."

"Everything comes to him who hustles while he waits."

"I never did anything by accident, nor did any of my inventions come by accident; they came by work."

"What a man's mind can create, man's character can control."

"It is astonishing what an effort it seems to be for many people to put their brains definitely and systematically to work."

"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."

"I am proud of the fact that I never invented weapons to kill."

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

"Just because something doesn't do what you planned it to do doesn't mean it's useless."

"The chief function of the body is to carry the brain around."

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

"The value of an idea lies in the using of it."

"What you are will show in what you do."

"Show me a thoroughly satisfied man and I will show you a failure."

"I never did a day's work in my life. It was all fun."

"There is far more opportunity than there is ability."

"Waste is worse than loss. The time is coming when every person who lays claim to ability will keep the question of waste before him constantly."

"When I have finally decided that a result is worth getting, I go ahead on it and make trial after trial until it comes."

"I always invented to obtain money to go on inventing."

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

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

"Until man duplicates a blade of grass, nature can laugh at his so-called scientific knowledge."

"Fools call wise men fools. A wise man never calls any man a fool."

"All progress, all success, springs from thinking."

"To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk."

"My mother's ideas and mine differed at times, especially when I got experimenting and mussed up things."

"Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time."

"Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration."

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

"If we did all the things we are capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves."

"Results! Why, man, I have gotten a lot of results. I know several thousand things that won't work."

"Good fortune is what happens when opportunity meets with preparation."

"When you have exhausted all possibilities, remember this — you haven't."

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

"Your idea has to be original only in its adaptation to the problem you're working on."

"A good idea never was lost. Its possessor may die, but the idea will be reborn in the mind of another."

"I am more of a sponge than an inventor. I absorb ideas from every source."

"To make an invention, all you need is a good imagination and a pile of junk."

"We shall have no better conditions in the future if we are satisfied with all those which we have at present."

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

"Discontent is the first necessity of progress."

"Science works slowly, even though it discovers the marvelous, the unlooked-for."

"My desire is to do everything within my power to free people from drudgery and create the largest measure of happiness and prosperity."

"I'd put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power!"

"I never did anything worth doing by accident, nor did any of my inventions come by accident; they came by work."

"There's a better way to do it — find it."

"Many a person who could not comprehend Rousseau, and would be puzzled by Montesquieu, could understand Paine as an open book."

"One might think that the money value of an invention constitutes its reward to the man who loves his work."

"I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward."

"There's no expedient to which a man will not go to avoid the real labor of thinking."

"To my mind, the old masters are not art; their value is in their scarcity."

"I have always kept a notebook and a pencil by my bedside."

"Everything that exists proves that there are infinite laws behind it."

"To be an inventor, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk."

"Nature is what we know. We do not know the gods of religions. And nature is not kind, or merciful, or loving."

"To do much clear thinking a person must arrange for regular periods of solitude."

"There is no substitute for hard work."

"Being busy does not always mean real work."

"The reason a lot of people do not recognize opportunity is because it usually goes around wearing overalls looking like hard work."

"Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work."

"All you need to be an inventor is a good imagination and a pile of junk."