Thomas Alva Edison

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Thomas Alva Edison (1878)

Thomas Alva Edison (11 February 1847 – 18 October 1931) American inventor

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  • 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.
    • "The Philosophy of Paine" (7 June 1925)
  • 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.
    • "The Philosophy of Paine" (7 June 1925)
  • Genius is one per cent inspiration, ninety-nine per cent perspiration.
    • Spoken statement (c. 1903); published in Harper's Monthly (September 1932)
    • "None of my inventions came by accident. I see a worthwhile need to be met and I make trial after trial until it comes. What it boils down to is one per cent inspiration and ninety-nine per cent perspiration." (1929). From a press conference, quoted by James D. Newton in Uncommon Friends.
    • Variant forms without early citation: "Genius is one per cent inspiration and ninety-nine per cent perspiration. Accordingly, a 'genius' is often merely a talented person who has done all of his or her homework."
      "Genius: one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration."
  • 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.
    • "Do We Live Again?"
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Attributed

  • All Bibles are man-made.
  • Everything comes to him who hustles while he waits.
  • I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.
    • Variant: Results! I have gotten a lot of results. I know several thousand things that won't work.
    • Variant: I have not failed 700 times. I have not failed once. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work.
  • I start where the last man left off.
  • If we did all the things we are capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves.
  • Just because something doesn't do what you planned it to do doesn't mean it's useless.
  • Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.
  • Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.
  • Restless is discontent and discontent is the first necessity of progress.
  • So far as religion of the day is concerned,it is untrue and not based upon scientific deduction"
  • There is no expedient to which a man will not go to avoid the labor of thinking.
  • There is time for everything.
  • We don't know a millionth of one percent about anything.
  • I owe my success to the fact that I never had a clock in my workroom.
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On Edison

  • If Edison had a needle to find in a haystack, he would proceed at once with the diligence of the bee to examine straw after straw until he found the object of his search. [...] I was a sorry witness of such doings, knowing that a little theory and calculation would have saved him ninety per cent of his labor. — Nikola Tesla
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