Thomas Edison Quotes

58 Sourced Quotes

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.

Thomas Edison
Everything comes to him who hustles while he waits.

Thomas Edison
Oh these mathematicians make me tired! When you ask them to work out a sum they take a piece of paper, cover it with rows of A's, B's, and X's and Y's...scatter a mess of flyspecks over them, and then give you an answer that's all wrong!

Thomas Edison
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
After being asked by M. A. Rosanoff what laboratory rules Edison want him to observe:
Hell, there are no rules here — we're trying to accomplish something.

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

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

Thomas 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 Edison
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
The man who doesn't make up his mind to cultivate the habit of thinking misses the greatest pleasure in life.

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

Thomas Edison
For most of my life I refused to work at any problem unless its solution seemed to be capable of being put to commercial use.

Thomas Edison
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
I believe that the motion picture is destined to revolutionize our educational system and that in a few years it will supplant largely, if not entirely, the use of textbooks.

Thomas Edison
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
The best thinking has been done in solitude. The worst has been done in turmoil.

Thomas Edison
I am much less interested in what is called God's word than in God's deeds. All bibles are man-made.

Thomas Edison
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
There will one day spring from the brain of science a machine or force so fearful in its potentialities, so absolutely terrifying, that even man, the fighter, who will dare torture and death in order to inflict torture and death, will be appalled, and so abandon war forever.

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

Thomas Edison
I do not believe in the God of the theologians; but that there is a Supreme Intelligence I do not doubt

Thomas Edison
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.

Thomas Edison
Through all the years of experimenting and research, I never once made a discovery. I start where the last man left off. … All my work was deductive, and the results I achieved were those of invention pure and simple.

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

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

Thomas Edison