“There is no expedient to which a man will not go to avoid the real labor of thinking.”
―
Thomas A. Edison
“Unfortunately, there seems to be far more opportunity out there than ability.... We should remember that good fortune often happens when opportunity meets with preparation.”
―
Thomas A. Edison
“Negative results are just what I want. They’re just as valuable to me as positive results. I can never find the thing that does the job best until I find the ones that don’t.”
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Thomas A. Edison
“The three great essentials to achieve anything worthwhile are, first, hard work; second, stick-to-itiveness; third, common sense.”
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Thomas A. Edison
“There are no rules here -- we're trying to accomplish something.”
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Thomas A. Edison
“I have friends in overalls whose friendship I would not swap for the favor of the kings of the world.”
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Thomas A. Edison
“I told [John Kruesi] I was going to record talking, and then have the machine talk back. He thought it absurd. However, it was finished, the foil was put on; I then shouted 'Mary had a little lamb', etc. I adjusted the reproducer, and the machine reproduced it perfectly.
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Thomas A. Edison
“To do much clear thinking a person must arrange for regular periods of solitude when they can concentrate and indulge the imagination without distraction.”
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Thomas A. Edison
“Opportunity is often missed because it comes dressed in overalls and looks like work.”
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Thomas A. Edison
“I have never failed, I've only shown the way I did it before doesn't work.”
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Thomas A. Edison
“The doctor of the future will give no medication, but will interest his patients in the care of the human frame, diet and in the cause and prevention of disease.
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Thomas A. Edison
“Restlessness is discontent — and discontent is the first necessity of progress. Show me a thoroughly satisfied man — and I will show you a failure.”
―
Thomas A. Edison
“Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration.”
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Thomas A. Edison
“I have always regarded Paine as one of the greatest of all Americans. Never have we had a sounder intelligence in this republic ... It was my good fortune to encounter Thomas Paine's works in my boyhood ... it was, indeed, a revelation to me to read that great thinker's views on political and theological subjects. Paine educated me, then, about many matters of which I had never before thought. I remember, very vividly, the flash of enlightenment that shone from Paine's writings, and I recall thinking, at that time, 'What a pity these works are not today the schoolbooks for all children!' My interest in Paine was not satisfied by my first reading of his works. I went back to them time and again, just as I have done since my boyhood days.”
―
Thomas A. Edison
“Just because something doesn't do what you planned it to do doesn't mean it's useless.”
―
Thomas A. Edison
