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Thomas Edison
38 quotes
“To Monsieur Eiffel the Engineer, the brave builder of so gigantic and original a specimen of modern Engineering from one who has the greatest respect and admiration for all Engineers including the Great Engineer the Bon Dieu.”
Thomas Edison (1847–1931) first seen 1889 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: When Thomas Edison visited the Eiffel Tower during the 1889 World's Fair, he signed the guestbook with this message, as quoted in The Tallest Tower by Joseph Harris, p. 95
“I never did anything worth doing by accident, nor did any of my inventions come indirectly through accident, except the phonograph. No, when I have, fully decided that a result is worth getting, I go about it, and make trial after trial, until it comes.”
Thomas Edison (1847–1931) first seen 1898 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted by Theodore Dreiser in A Photographic Talk with Edison, Success magazine (February 1898)
“The doctor of the future will give no medicine, but will instruct his patient in the care of the human frame, in diet and in the cause and prevention of disease.”
Thomas Edison (1847–1931) first seen 1903 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: This has been reprinted many times with slight variations on the wording; it is part of a much larger quote directly from Edison published in 1903:
“X-rays ... I am afraid of them. I stopped experimenting with them two years ago, when I came near to losing my eyesight and Dally, my assistant practically lost the use of both of his arms.”
Thomas Edison (1847–1931) first seen 1903 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted in 'Edison Fears Hidden Perils of the X-Rays', New York World (3 Aug 1903), 1
“Hell! There ain't no rules around here! We are tryin' to accomplish somep'n!”
Thomas Edison (1847–1931) first seen 1903 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Response received (after Edison spat on the floor and before he walked off) when M. A. Rosanoff joined the West Orange, New Jersey team in 1903 and humbly asked: “Mr. Edison, please tell me what laboratory rules you wan…
“Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration.”
Thomas Edison (1847–1931) first seen 1927 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Edison claimed authorship of this statement in a 1927 letter: "it is quite true I once made the statement that genius is one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration, and I am still of the same opinion".
Also quoted by: English proverb (english)
“Nature is what we know. We do not know the gods of religions. And nature is not kind, or merciful, or loving. If God made me — the fabled God of the three qualities of which I spoke: mercy, kindness, love — He also made the fish I catch and eat. And where do His mercy, kindness, and love for that fish come in? No; nature made us — nature did it all — not the gods of the religions”
Thomas Edison (1847–1931) first seen 1910 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Thomas Edison ""No Immortality of the Soul" says Thomas A. Edison. In Fact, He Doesn't Believe There Is a Soul — Human Beings Only an Aggregate of Cells and the Brain Only a Wonderful Machine, Says Wizard of Electricity…
“The housewife of the future will be neither a slave to servants nor herself a drudge. She will give less attention to the home, because the home will need less; she will be rather a domestic engineer than a domestic laborer, with the greatest of all handmaidens, electricity, at her service. This and other mechanical forces will so revolutionize the woman’s world that a large portion of the aggregate of woman’s energy will be conserved for use in broader, more constructive fields.”
Thomas Edison (1847–1931) first seen 1912 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Thomas A. Edison Papers: Edison's Speculations on the Future, Good Housekeeping (1912 interview)
“If our nation can issue a dollar bond, it can issue a dollar bill. The element that makes the bond good, makes the bill good, also. The difference between the bond and the bill is the bond lets money brokers collect twice the amount of the bond and an additional 20%, whereas the currency pays nobody but those who contribute directly in some useful way. … It is absurd to say our country can issue $30 million in bonds and not $30 million in currency. Both are promises to pay, but one promise fattens the usurers and the other helps the people.”
Thomas Edison (1847–1931) said by 1931 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“My mind is incapable of conceiving such a thing as a soul. I may be in error, and man may have a soul; but I simply do not believe it. What a soul may be is beyond my understanding.”
Thomas Edison (1847–1931) first seen 1924 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Do We Live Again?" an interview with Edison, as quoted in Mr. Edison's New Argument from Design" in The Illustrated London News (3 May 1924)
“Music on the radio is very poor because it is badly distorted ... I quite approve of radios but they should not be used for musical purposes. They are good for news and for reports of ball games, boxing matches and speeches, where distortion is not noticeable.”
Thomas Edison (1847–1931) first seen 1926 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 22 September 1926, reported in AP bulletin dated 23 September 1926, quoted in "Edison Sniffs at Radio Music", Evening Gazette, Reno, Nevada.
“I consider Paine our greatest political thinker. As we have not advanced, and perhaps never shall advance, beyond the Declaration and Constitution, so Paine has had no successors who extended his principles. Although the present generation knows little of Paine's writings,and although he has almost no influence upon contemporary thought, Americans of the future will justly appraise his work. I am certain of it. Truth is governed by natural laws and cannot be denied. Paine spoke truth with a peculiarly clear and forceful ring. Therefore time must balance the scales.”
Thomas Edison (1847–1931) said by 1931 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Many a person who could not comprehend Rousseau, and would be puzzled by Montesquieu, could understand Paine as an open book. He wrote with a clarity, a sharpness of outline and exactness of speech that even a schoolboy should be able to grasp. There is nothing false, little that is subtle, and an impressive lack of the negative in Paine. He literally cried to his reader for a comprehending hour, and then filled that hour with such sagacious reasoning as we find surpassed nowhere else in American letters — seldom in any school of writing.”
Thomas Edison (1847–1931) said by 1931 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The memory of Tom Paine will outlive all this. No man who helped to lay the foundations of our liberty — who stepped forth as the champion of so difficult a cause — can be permanently obscured by such attacks. Tom Paine should be read by his countrymen. I commend his fame to their hands.”
Thomas Edison (1847–1931) said by 1931 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I believe in the existence of a Supreme Intelligence pervading the Universe.”
Thomas Edison (1847–1931) first seen 1931 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in Thomas A. Edison, Benefactor of Mankind : The Romantic Life Story of the World's Greatest Inventor (1931) by Francis Trevelyan Miller, Ch. 25 : Edison's Views on Life — His Philosophy and Religion, p. 293
“We really haven't got any great amount of data on the subject, and without data how can we reach any definite conclusions? All we have — everything — favors the idea of what religionists call the "Hereafter." Science, if it ever learns the facts, probably will find another more definitely descriptive term.”
Thomas Edison (1847–1931) first seen 1931 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in Thomas A. Edison, Benefactor of Mankind : The Romantic Life Story of the World's Greatest Inventor (1931) by Francis Trevelyan Miller, Ch. 25 : Edison's Views on Life — His Philosophy and Religion, p. 295
“It is very beautiful over there!”
Thomas Edison (1847–1931) first seen 1931 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: These have sometimes been reported as his last words, but were actually spoken several days before his death, as he awoke from a nap, gazing upwards, as reported by his physician Dr. Hubert S. Howe, in Thomas A. Edison,…
“We don't know a millionth of one percent about anything.”
Thomas Edison (1847–1931) first seen 1931 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in Golden Book (April 1931), according to Stevenson's Book of Quotations (Cassell 3rd edition 1938) by Burton Egbert Stevenson.
“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 Edison (1847–1931) said by 1931 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Diary and Sundry Observations of Thomas Alva Edison (1948), p. 110
“So far as the religion of the day is concerned, it is a damned fake … Religion is all bunk.”
Thomas Edison (1847–1931) said by 1931 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in What on Earth is an Atheist! (1972) by Madalyn Murray O'Hair, p. 251
“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.”
Thomas Edison (1847–1931) said by 1931 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in An Enemy Called Average (1990) by John L. Mason, p. 55
“If we did all the things we are capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves.”
Thomas Edison (1847–1931) said by 1931 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in Motivating Humans : Goals, Emotions, and Personal Agency Beliefs (1992) by Martin E. Ford, p. 17
“To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk.”
Thomas Edison (1847–1931) said by 1931 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in Behavior-Based Robotics (1998) by Ronald C. Arkin. p. 8
“Everyone steals in commerce and industry. I've stolen a lot, myself. But I know how to steal! They don't know how to steal!”
Thomas Edison (1847–1931) said by 1931 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in Tesla : The Modern Sorcerer (1999) by Daniel Blair Stewart, p. 411
“I find out what the world needs. Then, I go ahead and invent it.”
Thomas Edison (1847–1931) said by 1931 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in American Greats (1999) Edited by Robert A. Wilson and Stanley Marcus, p. 70
“Just because something doesn't do what you planned it to do doesn't mean it's useless.”
Thomas Edison (1847–1931) said by 1931 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in Artifacts : An Archaeologist's Year in Silicon Valley (2001) by Christine Finn. p. 90
“I never did a day's work in my life, it was all fun.”
Thomas Edison (1847–1931) said by 1931 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in Edison & Ford Quote Book (2003) edited by Edison & Ford Winter Estates
“Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.”
Thomas Edison (1847–1931) said by 1931 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in Edison & Ford Quote Book (2003) edited by Edison & Ford Winter Estates
“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.”
Thomas Edison (1847–1931) said by 1931 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in Jesus : Myth Or Reality? (2006) by Ian Curtis, p. 289
“I do not believe in the God of the theologians; but that there is a Supreme Intelligence I do not doubt”
Thomas Edison (1847–1931) said by 1931 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Freethinker (1970), G.W. Foote & Company, Volume 90, p. 147
“I owe my success to the fact that I never had a clock in my workroom. Seventy-five of us worked twenty hours every day and slept only four hours — and thrived on it.”
Thomas Edison (1847–1931) said by 1931 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Diary entry, as quoted in Defending and Parenting Children Who Learn Differently : Lessons from Edison's Mother (2007) by Scott Teel, p. 12
“During all those years of experimentation and research, I never once made a discovery. All my work was deductive, and the results I achieved were those of invention, pure and simple. I would construct a theory and work on its lines until I found it was untenable. Then it would be discarded at once and another theory evolved. This was the only possible way for me to work out the problem. … I speak without exaggeration when I say that I have constructed 3,000 different theories in connection with the electric light, each one of them reasonable and apparently likely to be true. Yet only in two cases did my experiments prove the truth of my theory. My chief difficulty was in constructing the carbon filament. . . . Every quarter of the globe was ransacked by my agents, and all sorts of the queerest materials used, until finally the shred of bamboo, now utilized by us, was settled upon.”
Thomas Edison (1847–1931) first seen 1890 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On his years of research in developing the electric light bulb, as quoted in "Talks with Edison" by George Parsons Lathrop in Harper's magazine, Vol. 80 (February 1890), p. 425.
“Some day some fellow will invent a way of concentrating and storing up sunshine to use instead of this old, absurd Prometheus scheme of fire. I'll do the trick myself if someone doesn't get at it. . . . Sunshine is spread out thin and so is electricity. Perhaps they are the same, but we will take that up later. . . . This scheme of combustion to get power makes me sick to think of — it is so wasteful. It is just the old, foolish Prometheus idea, and the father of Prometheus was a baboon. When we learn how to store electricity, we will cease being apes ourselves; until then we are tailless orang-outangs. You see, we should utilize natural forces and thus get all of our power. Sunshine is a form of energy, and the winds and the tides are manifestations of energy. Do we use them? Oh, no; we burn up wood and coal, as renters burn up the front fence for fuel. We live like squatters, not as if we owned the property. There must surely come a time when heat and power will be stored in unlimited quantities in every community, all gathered by natural forces. Electricity ought to be as cheap as oxygen, for it can not be destroyed.”
Thomas Edison (1847–1931) first seen 1910 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in The Fra: A Journal of Affirmation vol. 5 no. 1, April 1910, by Elbert Hubbard, pp. 6-7
“People who will not turn a shovel full of dirt on the project nor contribute a pound of material, will collect more money from the United States than will the People who supply all the material and do all the work. This is the terrible thing about interest ...But here is the point: If the Nation can issue a dollar bond it can issue a dollar bill. The element that makes the bond good makes the bill good also. The difference between the bond and the bill is that the bond lets the money broker collect twice the amount of the bond and an additional 20%. Whereas the currency, the honest sort provided by the Constitution pays nobody but those who contribute in some useful way. It is absurd to say our Country can issue bonds and cannot issue currency. Both are promises to pay, but one fattens the usurer and the other helps the People. If the currency issued by the People were no good, then the bonds would be no good, either. It is a terrible situation when the Government, to insure the National Wealth, must go in debt and submit to ruinous interest charges at the hands of men who control the fictitious value of gold.”
Thomas Edison (1847–1931) first seen 1921 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Commenting on Henry Ford's currency plan in ”Ford sees wealth in Muscle Shoals”, New York Times (6 December 1921), p. 6
“Tom Paine has almost no influence on present-day thinking in the United States because he is unknown to the average citizen. Perhaps I might say right here that this is a national loss and a deplorable lack of understanding concerning the man who first proposed and first wrote those impressive words, 'the United States of America.' But it is hardly strange. Paine's teachings have been debarred from schools everywhere and his views of life misrepresented until his memory is hidden in shadows, or he is looked upon as of unsound mind. We never had a sounder intelligence in this Republic. He was the equal of Washington in making American liberty possible. Where Washington performed Paine devised and wrote. The deeds of one in the Weld were matched by the deeds of the other with his pen.”
Thomas Edison (1847–1931) said by 1931 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Looking back to those times we cannot, without much reading, clearly gauge the sentiment of the Colonies. Perhaps the larger number of responsible men still hoped for peace with England. They did not even venture to express the matter that way. Few men, indeed, had thought in terms of war. Then Paine wrote 'Common Sense,' an anonymous tract which immediately stirred the fires of liberty. It flashed from hand to hand throughout the Colonies. One copy reached the New York Assembly, in session at Albany, and a night meeting was voted to answer this unknown writer with his clarion call to liberty. The Assembly met, but could find no suitable answer. Tom Paine had inscribed a document which never has been answered adversely, and never can be, so long as man esteems his priceless possession. In 'Common Sense' Paine flared forth with a document so powerful that the Revolution became inevitable. Washington recognized the difference, and in his calm way said that matters never could be the same again.. It must be remembered that 'Common Sense' preceded the declaration and affirmed the very principles that went into the national doctrine of liberty. But that affirmation was made with more vigor, more of the fire of the patriot and was exactly suited to the hour. It is probable that we should have had the Revolution without Tom Paine. Certainly it could not be forestalled, once he had spoken.”
Thomas Edison (1847–1931) said by 1931 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He has been called an atheist, but atheist he was not. Paine believed in a supreme intelligence, as representing the idea which other men often express by the name of deity. His Bible was the open face of nature, the broad skies, the green hills. He disbelieved the ancient myths and miracles taught by established creeds. But the attacks on those creeds — or on persons devoted to them — have served to darken his memory, casting a shadow across the closing years of his life. When Theodore Roosevelt termed Tom Paine a "dirty little atheist" he surely spoke from lack of understanding. It was a stricture, an inaccurate charge of the sort that has dimmed the greatness of this eminent American. But the true measure of his stature will yet be appreciated. The torch which he handed on will not be extinguished.”
Thomas Edison (1847–1931) said by 1931 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is a great directing head of people and things — a Supreme Being who looks after the destinies of the world. I am convinced that the body is made up of entities that are intelligent and are directed by this Higher Power. When one cuts his finger, I believe it is the intelligence of these entities which heals the wound. When one is sick, it is the intelligence of these entities which brings convalescence. You know that there are living cells in the body so tiny that the microscope cannot find them at all. The entities that give life and soul to the human body are finer still and lie infinitely beyond the reach of our finest scientific instruments. When these entities leave the body, the body is like a ship without a rudder — deserted, motionless and dead.”
Thomas Edison (1847–1931) said by 1931 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in The Romance and Drama of the Rubber Industry (1936) by Harvey Samuel Firestone