Thomas Edison
American inventor and businessman
If we all did the things we are really capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves.
- Thomas Edison
There is no substitute for hard work.
- Thomas Edison
I never did a day’s work in my life. It was all fun.
- Thomas Edison
Good fortune is what happens when opportunity meets with planning.
- Thomas Edison
Time is really the only capital that any human being has, and the only thing he can't afford to lose.
- Thomas Edison
Opportunity is missed by most because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.
- Thomas Edison
Most people miss opportunity because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.
- Thomas Edison
I failed my way to success.
- 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
I have not failed. I've just found 10.000 ways that won't work.
- Thomas Edison
Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.
- Thomas Edison
A man, as a general rule, owes very little to what he is born with - a man is what he makes of himself.
- Thomas Edison
A man's own judgment should be the final appeal in all that relates to himself.
- Thomas Edison
The most successful men, in the end, are those whose success is the result of steady accretion.
- Thomas Edison
What this power is I cannot say; all I know is that it exists and it becomes available only when a man is in that state of mind in which he knows exactly what he wants and is fully determined not to quit until he finds it.
- Thomas Edison
Man is an animal which, alone among the animals, refuses to be satisfied by the fulfilment of animal desires.
- Thomas Edison
It is the man who carefully advances step by step...who is bound to succeed in the greatest degree.
- Thomas Edison
Man is the result of slow growth; that is why he occupies the position he does in animal life. What does a pup amount to that has gained its growth in a few days or weeks, beside a man who only attains it in as many years.
- Thomas Edison
There cannot be mental atrophy in any person who continues to observe, to remember what he observes, and to seek answers for his unceasing hows and whys about things.
- Thomas Edison
I have always considered myself as an Agnostic...
- Thomas Edison
Don't keep forever on the public road, going only where others have gone.
- Thomas Edison
Observe, remember, compare.
- Thomas Edison
Wherever you may find the inventor, you may give him wealth or you may take from him all that he has; and he will go on inventing. He can no more help inventing than he can help thinking or breathing.
- Thomas Edison
When one door closes, another one opens.
- Thomas Edison
Leave the beaten track behind occasionally and dive into the woods. Every time you do, you will be certain to find something you have never seen before.
- Thomas Edison
Of course it will be a little thing, but do not ignore it. One discovery will lead to another, and before you know it, you will have something worth thinking about to occupy your mind, and really big discoveries are the result of thought.
- Thomas Edison
Night is a more quiet time to work. It aids thought.
- Thomas Edison
Great discoveries and improvements invariably involve the cooperation of many minds.
- Thomas Edison
The day will come when the man at the telephone will be able to see the distant person to whom he is speaking.
- Thomas Edison
The great advantage it possesses over every other form of electrical apparatus consists in the fact that it requires no skill to operate the instrument.
- Thomas Edison
The telephone will be used to inform people that a telegram has been sent.
- Thomas Edison
Such a chimerical idea as telegraphing vocal sounds would indeed, to most minds, seem scarcely feasible enough to spend time in working over. I believe, however, that it is feasible and that I have got the cue to the solution of the problem.
- Thomas Edison
It is not, of course, complete yet. But, some sentences were understood this afternoon… I feel that I have at last struck the solution of a great problem.
- Thomas Edison
Grand telegraphic discovery today … Transmitted vocal sounds for the first time … With some further modification, I hope we may be enabled to distinguish … the 'timbre' of the sound.
- Thomas Edison