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Inspirational Quotations

by RightAttitudes.com

Inspirational Quotes by Thomas Edison (American Inventor)

Inspirational Quotations by Thomas Edison (American Inventor)

Thomas Alva Edison (1847–1931) was America’s greatest inventor. His innovations contributed to the formation of many new industries.

Born in Milan, Ohio, Edison was homeschooled by his mother after he had been expelled from school as “retarded,” possibly because of his deafness. By age 15, he was employed as a telegraph operator, where he developed an interest in electricity and its applications.

Edison’s chief inventions include the telegraph, phonograph, mimeograph, carbon microphone for telephones, carbon filament lamp, nickel-iron accumulator, and improvements to the electricity distribution system.

Edison’s famous laboratory in Menlo Park, New Jersey, transformed invention into a broader process of innovation and laid the foundation of modern industrial research.

By the time of his death, Edison patented more than 1,093 inventions. Most of his companies merged into Edison General Electric in 1889 and later formed the General Electric Company in 1892.

More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Thomas Edison

Show me a completely contented person and I’ll show you a failure.
—Thomas Edison
Topics: Fail, Failure

Anything that won’t sell, I don’t want to invent. Its sale is proof of utility, and utility is success.
—Thomas Edison
Topics: Invention

I have friends in overalls whose friendship I would not swap for the favor of the kings of the world.
—Thomas Edison
Topics: Friendship

I start where the last man left off.
—Thomas Edison
Topics: Excellence

What you are will show in what you do.
—Thomas Edison
Topics: Action, Humankind

Religion is all bunk.
—Thomas Edison

The first requisite for success is the ability to apply your physical and mental energies to one problem incessantly without growing weary.
—Thomas Edison
Topics: Ability

Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.
—Thomas Edison
Topics: Work, Opportunities, Opportunity, Luck, Hard Work

We don’t know one-millionth of one percent about anything.
—Thomas Edison
Topics: Knowledge

I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.
—Thomas Edison

Results? Why, man, I have gotten a lot of results. I know several thousand things that won’t work.
—Thomas Edison
Topics: Results

One might think that the money value of an invention constitutes its reward to the man who loves his work. But speaking for myself, I can honestly say this is not so… I continue to find my greatest pleasure, and so my reward, in the work that precedes what the world calls success.
—Thomas Edison
Topics: Success & Failure, Pleasure, Success

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
Topics: Discontent, Failure, Satisfaction, Miscellaneous, Difficulties, Progress, Adversity

As a cure for worrying, work is better than whiskey.
—Thomas Edison
Topics: Managing Worries, Worry

It is remarkable to what lengths people will go to avoid thought.
—Thomas Edison
Topics: Thought

The best thinking has been done in solitude. The worst has been done in turmoil.
—Thomas Edison
Topics: Solitude, Thinking

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 Edison
Topics: Action, Accomplishment

Genius is 1% inspiration, and 99% perspiration.
—Thomas Edison
Topics: Creativity, Inspiration

I am proud of the fact that I never invented weapons to kill.
—Thomas Edison
Topics: Invention, Weapon

It is astonishing what an effort it seems to be for many people to put their brains definitely and systematically to work.
—Thomas Edison
Topics: Thought, Thoughts, Thinking

It is very beautiful over there.
—Thomas Edison
Topics: Life

Vision without execution is hallucination.
—Thomas Edison

They say President Wilson has blundered. Perhaps he has, but I notice he usually blunders forward.
—Thomas Edison
Topics: Mistakes, Failure, Failures

What man’s mind can create, man’s character can control.
—Thomas Edison
Topics: Self-Control, Control

I am more of a sponge than an inventor. I absorb ideas from every source. I take half-matured schemes for mechanical development and make them practical. I am a sort of a middleman between the long-haired and impractical inventor and the hard-headed business man who measures all things in terms of dollars and cents. My principal business is giving commercial value to the brilliant but misdirected ideas of others.
—Thomas Edison

Nearly every man who develops an idea works at it up to the point where it looks impossible, and then gets discouraged. That’s not the place to become discouraged.
—Thomas Edison
Topics: Perseverance, Ideas, Virtues, Persistence

I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward.
—Thomas Edison
Topics: Cause, Failure, War, Courage, Age, Determination

I have not failed 700 times. I have not failed once. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work.
—Thomas Edison
Topics: Success

Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.
—Thomas Edison
Topics: Work, Inspiration, Intelligence, Genius

Your worth consists in what you are and not in what you have.
—Thomas Edison
Topics: Worth

If we did the things we are capable of, we would astound ourselves.
—Thomas Edison
Topics: Doing, Possibilities, Potential, Confidence, Ability

To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk.
—Thomas Edison
Topics: Imagination

When I have fully decided that a result is worth getting I go ahead of it and make trial after trial until it comes.
—Thomas Edison
Topics: Persistence, Perseverance, Action, Virtues

The value of an idea lies in the using of it.
—Thomas Edison
Topics: Ideas

Until man duplicates a blade of grass, nature can laugh at his so called scientific knowledge.
—Thomas Edison
Topics: Gardening

Everything comes to him who hustles while he waits.
—Thomas Edison
Topics: Wisdom, Resilience, Patience

Genius is 99 percent perspiration and 1 percent inspiration.
—Thomas Edison

The chief purpose of the body is to carry the brain around.
—Thomas Edison
Topics: The Mind, Mind, The Body, Body, Goal

There is time for everything.
—Thomas Edison
Topics: Effectiveness

There’s a way to do better… find it.
—Thomas Edison
Topics: Miscellaneous, Excellence

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