“Five percent of the people think;
ten percent of the people think they think;
and the other eighty-five percent would rather die than think.”
―
Thomas A. Edison
“Being busy does not always mean real work. The object of all work is production or accomplishment and to either of these ends there must be forethought, system, planning, intelligence, and honest purpose, as well as perspiration. Seeming to do is not doing”
―
Thomas A. Edison
“I have never failed, I've only shown the way I did it before doesn't work.”
―
Thomas A. Edison
“When Thomas Edison’s factory burned to the ground in 1914, destroying one-of-a-kind prototypes and causing $23 million in damage, Edison’s response was simple:
"Thank goodness all our mistakes were burned up. Now we can start fresh again.”
―
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
“To do much clear thinking a person must arrange for regular periods of solitude when they can concentrate and indulge the imagination without distraction.”
―
Thomas A. Edison
“The most necessary task of civilization is to teach people how to think. It should be the primary purpose of our public schools. The mind of a child is naturally active, it develops through exercise. Give a child plenty of exercise, for body and brain. The trouble with our way of educating is that it does not give elasticity to the mind. It casts the brain into a mold. It insists that the child must accept. It does not encourage original thought or reasoning, and it lays more stress on memory than observation.”
―
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.
―
Thomas A. Edison
“Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.”
―
Thomas A. Edison
“The three great essentials to achieve anything worthwhile are, first, hard work; second, stick-to-itiveness; third, common sense.”
―
Thomas A. Edison
“I never did anything worth doing by accident, nor did any of my inventions come by accident; they came by work.”
―
Thomas A. Edison
“So far as the religion of the day is concerned, it is a damned fake ... Religion is all bunk.”
―
Thomas A. Edison
“We will make electricity so cheap that only the rich will burn candles.”
―
Thomas A. Edison
“It is astonishing what an effort it seems to be for many people to put their brains definitely and systematically to work.”
―
Thomas A. Edison
