I Have Always Consistently Opposed High-tension And Alternating Systems Of Electric Lighting...not Only On Account Of Danger, But Because Of Their General Unreliability And Unsuitability For Any General System Of Distribution.

-Thomas A. Edison

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I Have Always Consistently

Thomas A. Edison

Topic

Unreliability

Danger

Tension

More From Thomas A. Edison

We Haven't Failed. We Now Know A Thousand Things That Won't Work, So We Are Much Closer To Finding What Will.

Educational

Thousand

Findings

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.

Country

Money

Differences

Of The 200 Light Bulbs That Didn't Work, Every Failure Told Me Something That I Was Able To Incorporate Into The Next Attempt.

Light

Able

Friendship Is The Heaven Of Life.

Heaven

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. The Scope Of Thrift Is Limitless.

Time

Loss

Lost Friendship

They Were Not Failures, They Were New Found Ways Of What Does Not Work "i Can Accept Failure,everyonefails At Something. But I Can't Accept Not Trying

Trying

Doe

Way

A Good Intention, With A Bad Approach, Often Leads To A Poor Result.

Good Intentions

Poor

Results

I Would Rather Have One Man With Enthusiasm Working With Me Than Ten Who Are Complacent.

Men

Enthusiasm

Complacent

Most Of My Ideas Belonged To Other People Who Never Bothered To Develop Them.

Ideas

People

Bothered

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.

Simple

Discovery

Years

An Average American Loves His Family. If He Has Any Love Left Over For Some Other Person, He Generally Selects Mark Twain.

Average

Mark

Persons

I Know Of Over 3,000 Ways [that] A Light Bulb Does Not Work.

Light

Doe

Way

I Have Not Failed. I Have Successfully Discovered 1200 Ideas That Don't Work.

Ideas

Being Positive

From His Neck Down A Man Is Worth A Couple Of Dollars A Day, From His Neck Up He Is Worth Anything That His Brain Can Produce.

Motivational

Couple

Men

I Have Been At Work For Some Time Building An Apparatus To See If It Is Possible For Personalities Which Have Left This Earth To Communicate With Us.

Personality

Earth

Building

Failure Is The Most Effective Technique To Optimize Strategic Planning, Implementation And Processes.

Technique

Planning

Process

I Owe My Success To The Fact That I Never Had A Clock In My Workroom.

Inspirational

Life

Motivational

A Diamond Is A Piece Of Coal That Stuck To The Job

Jobs

Coal

Pieces

I Was Always Afraid Of Things That Worked The First Time. Long Experience Proved That There Were Great Drawbacks Found Generally Before They Could Be Got Commercial; But Here Was Something There Was No Doubt Of.

Success

Science

Long

We Are Like Tenant Farmers Chopping Down The Fence Around Our House For Fuel When We Should Be Using Nature's Inexhaustible Sources Of Energy - Sun, Wind And Tide. ... I'd Put My Money On The Sun And Solar Energy. What A Source Of Power! I Hope We Don't Have To Wait Until Oil And Coal Run Out Before We Tackle That.

Running

Nature

Wind

Invention Is 10% Inspiration And 90% Perspiration.

Inspiration

Design

Invention

Our Greatest Weakness Lies In Giving Up. The Most Certain Way To Succeed Is Always To Try Just One More Time.

Inspirational

Motivational

Positive

An Idea Is Something That Won't Work Unless You Do.

Ideas

The Radio Craze Will Die Out In Time.

Radio

Craze

Dies

Before You Reject An Idea, Find At Least Five Good Things About It.

Ideas

Imagination

Good Things

Fooling Around With Alternating Currents Is Just A Waste Of Time. Nobody Will Use It, Ever. It's Too Dangerous . . . It Could Kill A Man As Quick As A Bolt Of Lightning. Direct Current Is Safe.

Dream

Men

Safe

Baseball Is The Greatest Of American Games. Some Say Football, But It Is My Firm Belief, And It Shall Always Be, That Baseball Has No Superior.

Baseball

Football

Games

To Me, The Idea And Expectation That The Day Is Slowly And Surely Coming When We Will Be Able To Honestly Say We Are Our Brother's Keeper And Not His Oppressor Is Very Beautiful .

Motivational

Beautiful

Brother

I Never Did Anything By Accident, Nor Did Any Of My Inventions Come By Accident; They Came By Work.

Inspirational

Life

Motivational

We Have Merely Scratched The Surface Of The Store Of Knowledge Which Will Come To Us. I Believe That We Are Now, A-tremble On The Verge Of Vast Discoveries - Discoveries So Wondrously Important They Will Upset The Present Trend Of Human Thought And Start It Along Completely New Lines .

Motivational

Believe

Discovery

After We Had Conducted Thousands Of Experiments On A Certain Project Without Solving The Problem, One Of My Associates, After We Had Conducted The Crowning Experiment And It Had Proved A Failure, Expressed Discouragement And Disgust Over Our Having Failed To Find Out Anything. I Cheerily Assured Him That We Had Learned Something. For We Had Learned For A Certainty That The Thing Couldnt Be Done That Way, And That We Would Have To Try Some Other Way.

Trying

Done

Way

I Never Did A Day's Work In My Life, It Was All Fun.

Inspirational

Life

Fun

For Faith, As Well Intentioned As It May Be, Must Be Built On Facts, Not Fiction - Faith In Fiction Is A Damnable False Hope.

Religious

Fiction

May

I Have Far More Respect For The Person With A Single Idea Who Gets There Than For The Person With A Thousand Ideas Who Does Nothing.

Inspirational

Motivational

Single

I Was At The Foot Of My Class.

Class

Feet

The Only Thing I Use My Body For Is To Carry My Brain Around.

Humor

Brain

Use

We Will Make Electricity So Cheap That Only The Rich Will Burn Candles.

Inspirational

Rich

Electricity

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.

Book

Would Be

Speech

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.

Religious

Atheist

If There Is A God

As Danand Ian Over At The Lifestyle Business Podcast Say: Rush To Failure.

Lifestyle

When I Have Eliminated The Ways That Will Not Work, I Will Find The Way That Will Work.

Way

Martial Arts

Keep On The Lookout For Novel Ideas That Others Have Used Successfully. Your Idea Has To Be Original Only In Its Adaptation To The Problem You're Working On.

Ideas

Problem

Adaptation

Education Isn't Play--and It Can't Be Made To Look Like Play. It Is Hard, Hard Work. But It Can Be Made Interesting Work.

Education

Hard Work

Play

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.

Men

Ideas

Long

I Never Once Failed At Making A Light Bulb. I Just Found Out 99 Ways Not To Make One.

Light

Way

Found

My Principal Business Is Giving Commercial Value To The Brilliant - But Misdirected - Ideas Of Others.

Motivational

Ideas

Giving

First, Study The Present Construction. Second, Ask For All Past Experiences ...study And Read Everything You Can On The Subject.

Past

Firsts

Study

Having A Vision For What You Want Is Not Enough...vision Without Execution Is Hallucination

Motivational

Entrepreneur

Vision

Barring Serious Accidents, If You Are Not Preoccupied With Worry And You Work Hard, You Can Look Forward To A Reasonably Lengthy Existence.... Its Not The Hard Work That Kills, Its The Worrying That Kills.

Motivational

Hard Work

Worry

It Is The Best Book Ever Written On The Subject. There Is Nothing Like It!

Book

Religion

Atheism

When There's No Experimenting There's No Progress. Stop Experimenting And You Go Backward. If Anything Goes Wrong, Experiment Until You Get To The Very Bottom Of The Trouble.

Progress

Anything Goes

Trouble

I've Realized That Most Of My Best Ideas Have Followed A Good Night's Sleep.

Good Night

Sleep

Night

I Am Quite Correctly Described As 'more Of A Sponge Than An Inventor....'

Motivational

Sponges

Inventor

I Am Both Pleased But Astonished By The Fact That Mankind Has Not Yet Begun To Use All The Means And Devices That Are Available For Destruction. I Hope That Such Weapons Are Never Manufactured In Quantity.

Motivational

Mean

Use

Five Percent Of The People Think; Ten Percent Of The People Think They Think; And The Other Eighty-five Percent Would Rather Die Than Think.

Thinking

People

Willful Ignorance

Let The Public Throw Bouquets To The Inventors And In Time We Will All Be Happy.

Bouquets

Inventor

I Never Perfected An Invention That I Did Not Think About In Terms Of The Service It Might Give Others... I Find Out What The World Needs, Then I Proceed To Invent.

Inspirational

Motivational

Creativity

Fools Call Wise Men Fools. A Wise Man Never Calls Any Man A Fool.

Inspirational

Wise

Men

I Am Not Overly Impressed By The Great Names And Reputations Of Those Who Might Be Trying To Beat Me To An Invention. It's Their 'ideas' That Appeal To Me. I Am Quite Correctly Described As 'more Of A Sponge Than An Inventor

Perhaps Dandruff Is The Excreta Of The Mind The Quantity Of This Material Being Directly Proportional To The Amount Of Reading One Indulges In. A Book On German Metaphysics Would Thus Easily Ruin A Dress Suit.

Book

Reading

Indulge In

I Never Quit Until I Get What I Want.

Want

Never Quit

Quitting

I Am Much Less Interested In What Is Called God's Word Than In God's Deeds. All Bibles Are Man-made.

Men

Deeds

Made

Genius Is One Percent Inspiration, Ninety-nine Percent Perspiration.

Inspirational

Motivational

Positive

Problems In Human Engineering Will Receive During The Coming Years The Same Genius And Attention Which The Nineteenth Century Gave To The More Material Forms Of Engineering. We Have Laid Good Foundations For Industrial Prosperity, Now We Want To Assure The Happiness And Growth Of The Workers Through Vocational Education, Vocational Guidance, And Wisely Managed Employment Departments. A Great Field For Industrial Experimentation And Statemanship Is Opening Up.

Science

Engineering

Years

When Down In The Mouth, Remember Jonah. He Came Out All Right.

Mouths

Remember

Jonah

The Greatest Discoveries Will Be Along Spiritual Lines. This Is The Field Where Miracles Are Going To Happen. Spiritual Power Is The Greatest Underdeveloped Power And Has The Greatest Future.

Spiritual

Discovery

Miracle

Continued Innovation Is The Best Way To Beat The Competition.

Competition

Innovation

Way

Until Man Duplicates A Blade Of Grass, Nature Can Laugh At His So-called Scientific Knowledge. Remedies From Chemicals Will Never Stand In Favor Compared With The Products Of Nature, The Living Cell Of The Plant, The Final Result Of The Rays Of The Sun, The Mother Of All Life.

Mother

Health

Men

I Make More Mistakes Than Anyone Else I Know, And Sooner Or Later, I Patent Most Of Them.

Funny Inspirational

Mistake

Creativity

I Never Failed. It Just Didn't Work 10,000 Times.

If There Is A Better Solution... Find It.

Pride

Solutions

Ifs

There Is No Substitute For Hard Work.

Motivational

Perseverance

Morning

There Is Far More Danger In Public Than In Private Monopoly, For When Government Goes Into Business It Can Always Shift Its Losses To The Taxpayers. Government Never Makes Ends Meetand That Is The First Requisite Of Business.

Business

Loss

Government

I Start Where The Last Man Left Off.

Inspirational

Positive

Men

Nobody Knows Whether Our Personalities Pass On To Another Existence Or Sphere, But If We Can Evolve An Instrument So Delicate To Be Manipulated By Our Personality As It Survives In The Next Life Such An Instrument Ought To Record Something.

Personality

Records

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.

Kindness

Quality

And Love

It Has Been Just So In All My Inventions. The First Step Is An Intuition-and Comes With A Burst, Then Difficulties Arise. This Thing That Gives Out And Then That-"bugs"as Such Little Faults And Difficulties Are Called Show Themselves And Months Of Anxious Watching, Study And Labor Are Requisite Before Commercial Success-or Failure-is Certainly Reached.

Success

Science

Giving

Of All My Inventions, I Liked The Phonograph Best

Great Inventions

Invention

Phonograph

The Injurious Agent In Cigarettes Comes Principally From The Burning Paper Wrapper. The Substance Thereby Formed Is Called "acrolein." It Has A Violent Action On The Nerve Centers, Producing Degeneration Of The Cells Of The Brain, Which Is Quite Rapid Among Boys. Unlike Most Narcotics, This Degeneration Is Permanent And Uncontrollable. I Employ No Person Who Smokes Cigarettes.

Science

Boys

Cells

I Never Did Anything Worth Doing Entirely By Accident. . . Almost None Of My Inventions Came About Totally By Accident. They Were Achieved By Having Trained Myself To Endure And Tolerate Hard Work.

Motivational

Hard Work

Discipline

We Shall Have No Better Conditions In The Future If We Are Satisfied With All Those Which We Have At Present.

Self Confidence

Design

Complacency

I Never Knew I Had An Inventive Talent Until Phrenology Told Me So. I Was A Stranger To Myself Until Then!

Phrenology

Talent

Stranger

When We Learn How To Store Electricity, We Will Cease Being Apes Ourselves; Until Then We Are Tailless Orangutans. 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.

Sunshine

Wind

Energy

I Am Proud Of The Fact That I Never Invented Weapons To Kill.

Atheism

Proud

Weapons

A Reporter Called On Edison To Interview Him About A Substitute For Lead In The Manufacture Of Storage Batteries That The Scientist Was Seeking. Edison Informed The Man That He Had Made 20,000 Experiments But None Had Worked. "aren't You Discouraged By All This Waste Of Effort?" The Reporter Asked. Edison: "waste! There's Nothing Wasted. I Have Discovered 20,000 Things That Won't Work."

Work

Men

Discovery

The Chief Function Of The Body Is To Carry The Brain Around.

Brain

Mind

Body

The First Requisite Of Success Is The Ability To Apply Your Physical And Mental Energies To One Problem Without Growing Weary.

Success

Focus

Energy

I Didn’t Fail Ten Thousand Times. I Successfully Eliminated, Ten Thousand Times, Materials And Combinations Which Wouldn’t Work.

Failing

Combination

Thousand

Seeming To Do Is Not Doing.

Seeming

If Parents Pass Enthusiasm Along To Their Children, They Will Leave Them An Estate Of Incalculable Value

Motivational

Family

Education

I Never Failed Once. It Just Happened To Be A 2000-step Process.

Inspirational

Patience

Perseverance

Absorb Ideas From Every Source.

Ideas

Source

It Is The People Who Constitute The Basis Of Government Credit. Why Then Cannot The People Have Benefit Of Their Own Gilt-edge Credit By Receiving Non-interest Bearing Currency-instead Of Bankers Receiving The Benefit Of The People's Credit In Interest-bearing Bonds. If The United States Government Will Adopt This Policy Of Increasing Its National Wealth Without Contributing To The Interest Collector-for The Whole National Debt Is Made Up On Interest Charges-then You Will See An Era Of Progress And Prosperity In This Country Such As Could Never Have Come Otherwise.

Country

Government

People

I Remember That I Was Never Able To Get Along At School. I Was At The Foot Of The Class.

Education

School

Class

There Is No Subsitute For Hard Work.

Hard Work

Hard

The Doctor Of The Future Will Give No Medicine, But Will Involve The Patient In The Proper Use Of Food, Fresh Air And Exercise

Exercise

Doctors

Air

I've Never Made A Mistake. I've Only Learned From Experience.

Mistake

Past

Made

People Are Not Remembered By How Few Times They Fail, But By How Often They Succeed. Every Wrong Step Is Another Step Forward

People

Succeed

Steps

The Dove Is My Emblem.

Technology

Dove

Emblems

Focus On How The End-user Customers Perceive The Impact Of Your Innovation - Rather Than On How You, The Innovators, Perceive It.

Impact

Focus

Innovation

Direct Thought Is Not An Attribute Of Feminity. In This, Women Are Now Centuries Behind Man.

Men

Century

Attributes

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.

Trials

Invention

Anything Worth Doing

The Brain Can Be Developed Just The Same As The Muscles Can Be Developed, If On Will Only Take The Pains To Train The Mind To Think.

Pain

Thinking

Brain

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.

Political

Principles

Constitution

I Am Long On Ideas, But Short On Time. I Expect To Live To Be Only About A Hundred.

Inspirational

Life

Birthday

A Lawsuit Is The Suicide Of Time.

Suicide

Lawsuit

Two Per Cent. Is Genius, And Ninety-eight Per Cent. Is Hard Work.

Hard Work

Science

Eight

Never Go To Sleep Without A Request To Your Subconscious.

Sleep

Mind

Subconscious

The United States, And Other Advanced Nations, Will Someday Be Able To Produce Instruments Of Death So Terrible The World Will Be In Abject Terror Of Itself And Its Ability To End Civilization.... Such War-making Weapons Should Be Developed - But Only For Purposes Of Discovery And Experimentation

Motivational

War

Discovery

There Is No Limit To Which A Man Will Not Go To Avoid Thinking.

Men

Thinking

Limits

I Have Not Failed. I've Just Found 10,000 Foundations And Individual Donors Whose Priorities Don't Align With My Organization's.

Organization

Priorities

Foundation

To Do Much Clear Thinking A Person Must Arrange For Regular Periods Of Solitude When They Can Concentrate And Indulge The Imagination Without Distraction.

Thinking

Imagination

Solitude

I Have A Peculiar Theory About Radium, And I Believe It Is The Correct One. I Believe That There Is Some Mysterious Ray Pervading The Universe That Is Fluorescing To It. In Other Words, That All Its Energy Is Not Self-constructed But That There Is A Mysterious Something In The Atmosphere That Scientists Have Not Found That Is Drawing Out Those Infinitesimal Atoms And Distributing Them Forcefully And Indestructibly.

Believe

Science

Self

What A Man's Mind Can Create, Man's Character Can Control.

Character

Angel

Men

I Think Work Is The World's Greatest Fun.

Fun

Thinking

World

Nature Is Truly Wonderful. Only Man Is Truly Foul.

Men

Wonderful

Foul

Sticking To It Is The Genius.

Children

Ignorance

Knowledge

I Am A Vegetarian As Well As A Passionate Anti-alcoholic, Because I Can Thus Make Better Use Of My Brain.

Animal

Brain

Passionate

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!

Stealing

Stolen

Commerce

I Am So Deaf I Am Debarred From Hearing All The Time Articulation And Have To Depend On The Judgment Of Others.

Hearing

Judgment

Deaf

It Is Absurd To Say That Our Country Can Issue $30,000,000 In Bonds And Not $30,000,000 In Currency. Both Are Promises To Pay; But One Promise Fattens The Usurer (banker), And The Other Helps The People. If The Currency Issued By The Government Were No Good, Then The Bonds Issued Would Be No Good Either. It Is A Terrible Situation When The Government, To Increase The National Wealth, Must Go Into Debt And Submit To Ruinous Interest Charges At The Hands Of Men Who Control The Fictitious Values Of Gold.

Country

Men

Issues

Be Courageous. I Have Seen Many Depressions In Business. Always America Has Emerged From These Stronger And More Prosperous. Be Brave As Your Fathers Before You. Have Faith! Go Forward!

Faith

Courage

Father

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.

Powerful

Differences

Common Sense

There Is Always A Better Way.

Motivational

Self Reliance

Way

The Stomach Is The Only Part Of Man Which Can Be Fully Satisfied. The Yearning Of Man's Brain For New Knowledge And Experience And For More Pleasant And Comfortable Surroundings Never Can Be Completely Met. It Is An Appetite Which Cannot Be Appeased.

Men

Brain

Surroundings

Interest Is The Invention Of Satan.

Satan

Invention

Interest

Non-violence Leads To The Highest Ethics, Which Is The Goal Of All Evolution. Until We Stop Harming All Other Living Beings, We Are Still Savages.

Life

Peace

Honesty

There Is Time For Everything.

Motivational

Time

Peace

The Secret Of Success Is Focus Of Purpose.

Focus

Secret

Purpose

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.

Inspirational

Motivational

Real

The Three Things That Are Most Essential To Achievement Are Common Sense, Hard Work And Stick-to-it-iv-ness... Unfortunately, Many Of Life's Failures Are Experienced By People Who Did Not Realize How Close They Were To Success When They Gave Up. I Have Far More Respect For The Person With A Single Idea Who Gets There Than For The Person With A Thousand Ideas Who Does Nothing.

Hard Work

Adventure

Ideas

Sleep Is Like A Drug. Take Too Much At A Time And It Makes You Dopey. You Lose Time And Opportunities.

Sleep

Opportunity

Drug

Vision Without Execution Is Delusion.

Positive

Vision

Execution

Many Of Life's Failures Are People Who Did Not Realize How Close They Were To Success When They Gave Up.

Inspirational

Life

Motivational

Genius Is 99% Perspiration And 1% Inspiration.

Inspiration

Genius

Perspiration

Just Because Something Doesn't Do What You Planned It To Do Doesn't Mean It's Useless.

Positive

Mean Girls

Funny Inspirational

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.

Inspiration

Ninety Nine

Needs

Not Only Will Atomic Power Be Released, But Someday We Will Harness The Rise And Fall Of The Tides And Imprison The Rays Of The Sun.

Fall

Tides

Sun

The Doctor Of The Future Will Give No Medication, But Will Interest His Patients In The Care Of The Human Frame, Diet And In The Cause And Prevention Of Disease. ~

Life

Motivational

Fitness

The Money One Gets For Selling One's Soul Is Always Spent In Deadening One's Conscience, So The Net Gain At The End Of A Lifetime Is No Greater Than If The Diabolic Bargain Had Not Been Struck.

Animal

Soul

Gains

There Is A Better Way To Do It - Find It!

Way

Better Ways

There Is Far More Opportunity Than There Is Ability.

Courage

Opportunity

Ability

There Cannot Be Overproduction Of Anything Which Men And Women Want. And Their Wants Are Unlimited, Except By The Size Of Their Stomachs.

Men

Want

Size

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.

Inspirational

Failure

Way

Success Depends On How Many Experiments You Can Fit Into 24 Hours

Fit

Hours

Experiments

Everything Comes To Those Who Hustle While They Wait.

Sports

Encouragement

Accomplishment

A Failure Teaches You That Something Can't Be Done-that Way.

Failure

Done

Way

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!

Tired

Science

Giving

Whatever The Mind Of Man Creates, Should Be Controlled By Man's Character.

Motivational

Character

Men

If We Did All The Things We Are Capable Of Doing, We Would Literally Astound Ourselves.

Inspirational

Motivational

Positive

A Man’s Best Friend Is A Good Wife.

Inspirational

Men

Wife

The Greatest Invention In The World Is The Mind Of A Child.

Children

Imagination

Innovation

Good Fortune Is What Happens When Opportunity Meets With Planning.

Opportunity

Optimism

Luck

Somewhere Between The Ages Of Eleven And Fifteen, The Average Child Begins To Suffer From An Atrophy, The Paralysis Of Curiosity And The Suspension Of The Power To Observe. The Trouble, I Should Judge, To Lie With The Schools.

Children

Lying

School

The Man Who Doesn’t Make Up His Mind To Cultivate The Habit Of Thinking Misses The Greatest Pleasure In Life.

Inspirational

Men

Thinking

The Very First Thing An Executive Must Have Is A Fine Memory. Of Course It Does Not Follow That A Man With A Fine Memory Is Necessarily A Fine Executive. But If He Has The Memory He Has The First Qualification, And If He Has Not The Memory Nothing Else Matters.

Memories

Men

Doe

I Did Not Fail Two Thousand Times. I Merely Found Two Thousand Ways Not To Make A Lightbulb.

Two

Way

Failing

I Never Once Made A Discovery ... I Speak Without Exaggeration That I Have Constructed Three Thousand Different Theories In Connection With The Electric Light ... Yet In Only Two Cases Did My Experiments Prove The Truth Of My Theory.

Light

Discovery

Two

The Inventor Tries To Meet The Demand Of A Crazy Civilization.

Crazy

Civilization

Trying

So Far As The Religion Of The Day Is Concerned, It Is A Damned Fake ... Religion Is All Bunk.

Atheist

If There Is A God

Fake

I Am Afraid Of Radium And Polonium ... I Don't Want To Monkey With Them.

Science

Want

Monkeys

Discontent Is The First Necessity Of Progress.

Inspirational

Motivational

Happiness

It Is Apparent To Me That The Possibilities Of The Aeroplane, Which Two Or Three Years Ago Were Thought To Hold The Solution To The [flying Machine] Problem, Have Been Exhausted, And That We Must Turn Elsewhere.

Years

Two

Flying

The First 40 Hours Of Work Per Week Are For Survival. Everything After That Is For Success.

Survival

Firsts

Week

No, I Haven't Failed Thousands Of Times. On The Contrary, I Have Successfully Eliminated Thousands Of Ideas That Do Not Work!

Inspirational

Ideas

Contrary

Genius? Nothing! Sticking To It Is The Genius! Any Other Bright-minded Fellow Can Accomplish Just As Much If He Will Stick Like Hell And Remember Nothing That's Any Good Works By Itself. You've Got To Make The Damn Thing Work!...i Failed My Way To Success.

Genius

Way

Sticks

You Can't Realize Your Dreams Unless You Have One To Begin With.

Dream

Goal

Realizing

They Say President Wilson Has Blundered. Perhaps He Has, But I Notice He Usually Blunders Forward.

Failure

President

Wilson

Remember, Life Is All What You Focus On. Learn Lessons And Keep Moving Forward Towards Your Goals And Dreams... "i Have Not Failed. I've Just Found 10,000 Ways That Won't Work."

Dream

Moving

Goal

I Never Pick Up An Item Without Thinking Of How I Might Improve It. I Never Perfected An Invention That I Did Not Think About In Terms Of The Service It Might Give Others. I Want To Save And Advance Human Life, Not Destroy It. I Am Proud Of The Fact That I Never Invented Weapons To Kill. The Dove Is My Emblem.

Technology

Thinking

Giving

This Problem, Once Solved, Will Be Simple.

Simple

Problem

Smoking Too Much Makes Me Nervous. Must Lasso My Natural Tendency To Acquire Such Habits. Holding Heavy Cigar Constantly In My Mouth Has Deformed My Upper Lip, It Has A Sort Of Havana Curl.

Smoking

Curls

Mouths

Work While Others Are Wishing.

Motivational

Work

Stay Positive

What You Are Will Show In What You Do.

Motivation

Action

Human Nature

Nature Made Us - Nature Did It All - Not The Gods Of The Religions.

Made

Results! Why, Man, I Have Gotten A Lot Of Results. I Know Several Thousand Things That Won't Work.

Motivational

Education

Work

I Am 67, But I'm Not Too Old To Make A Fresh Start.

Life

Motivational

Fresh Start

To Get A Great Idea, Come Up With Lots Of Them.

Creativity

Play

Ideas

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.

Science

Two

Years

I Think That Ingersoll Had All The Attributes Of A Perfect Man, And, In My Opinion, No Finer Personality Ever Existed. Judging From The Past, I Cannot Help Thinking That The Intention Of The Supreme Intelligence That Rules The World Is To Ultimately Make Such A Type Of Man Universal.

Past

Men

Thinking

My Mother Was The Making Of Me.

Funny

Mother

Humorous

Genius? Nothing! Sticking To It Is The Genius! ... I've Failed My Way To Success.

Genius

Way

My Way

The First Requisite For Success Is To Develop The Ability To Focus.

Focus

Firsts

Ability

Tomorrow Is My Exam But I Don’t Care Because A Single Sheet Of Paper Can’t Decide My Future

Paper

Care

Tomorrow

Great Ideas Originate In The Muscles.

Life

Motivation

Work

One Might Think That The Money Value Of An Invention Constitutes Its Reward To The Man Who Loves His Work. But... I Continue To Find My Greatest Pleasure, And So My Reward, In The Work That Precedes What The World Calls Success.

Love

Inspirational

Success

The Reason A Lot Of People Do Not Recognize Opportunity Is Because It Usually Goes Around Wearing Overalls Looking Like Hard Work.

Success

Hard Work

Opportunity

The Successful Person Makes A Habit Of Doing What The Failing Person Doesn't Like To Do.

Success

Commitment

Action

The Biggest Failure Of Man Is That He Gives Up Before He Realizes How Close He Was To Success.

Sports

Giving Up

Men

The Trouble With Most People Is That They Quit Before They Start.

Thinking

People

Quitting

I Have Better Use For My Brain Than To Poison It With Alcohol. To Put Alcohol In The Human Brain Is Like Putting Sand In The Bearings Of An Engine.

Alcohol

Brain

Poison

Surprises And Reverses Can Serve As An Incentive For Great Accomplishment. There Are No Rules Here, We're Just Trying To Accomplish Something.

Motivational

Accomplishment

Trying

Show Me A Thoroughly Satisfied Man - And I Will Show You A Failure.

Success

Educational

Failure

Consider Data Without Prejudice.

Data

Prejudice

I Believe That The Science Of Chemistry Alone Almost Proves The Existence Of An Intelligent Creator.

Inspirational

Motivational

Believe

I Do Not Believe In The God Of The Theologians; But That There Is A Supreme Intelligence I Do Not Doubt.

God

Believe

Doubt

I Have Not Failed 10,000 Times. I Have Succeeded In Proving That Those 10,000 Ways Will Not Work.

Inspiring

Success

Business

Until Man Duplicates A Blade Of Grass, Nature Can Laugh At His So Called Scientific Knowledge.

Motivational

Nature

Laughter

Success Is The Product Of The Severest Kind Of Mental And Physical Application.

Kind

Application

Products

Understanding Quotes: Their Essence and Application

Quotes, or quotations, are powerful tools in communication, encapsulating ideas, emotions, and wisdom in concise expressions. They serve various purposes across different contexts, from academic writing to everyday conversation.

1. Defining Quotes

A quote is a repetition of someone else's statement or thoughts. It can be a direct replication of words spoken or written by another individual, often used to support arguments, provide evidence, or convey profound insights.

2. The Importance of Quotes

2.1. Enhancing Credibility

Incorporating quotes from authoritative sources can bolster the credibility of your work. By referencing experts or primary sources, you demonstrate thorough research and a solid foundation for your arguments.

2.2. Providing Evidence

Quotes serve as concrete evidence to support claims. In academic and professional writing, they validate points made, offering readers a basis to trust the information presented.

2.3. Conveying Emotions and Perspectives

Quotes can encapsulate emotions and perspectives succinctly. They allow writers to express complex feelings or viewpoints through the words of others, often more eloquently than paraphrasing.

3. Types of Quotes

3.1. Direct Quotes

Direct quotes involve copying the exact words from a source, enclosed in quotation marks. They are used when the original wording is significant or particularly well-expressed.

3.2. Indirect Quotes (Paraphrasing)

Indirect quotes restate the original message in your own words. While not enclosed in quotation marks, they still require proper attribution to the original source.

3.3. Block Quotes

Block quotes are lengthy direct quotations, formatted as a separate block of text. They are typically used for quotes exceeding a certain length, varying by citation style. For instance, in APA style, quotes longer than 40 words are formatted as block quotes.

4. Proper Usage of Quotes

4.1. Contextual Relevance

Ensure that the quote you choose is relevant to the topic and adds value to your content. Avoid inserting quotes solely for decorative purposes.

4.2. Integration into Your Writing

Seamlessly integrate quotes into your writing. Introduce them appropriately and follow up with analysis or commentary to connect them to your main points.

4.3. Attribution and Citation

Always attribute quotes to their original authors and provide proper citations according to the required style guide (APA, MLA, Chicago, etc.).

5. Common Mistakes to Avoid

5.1. Overusing Quotes

Relying too heavily on quotes can overshadow your voice. Use them sparingly to support your arguments, not replace them.

5.2. Lack of Analysis

Presenting a quote without analysis or explanation can leave readers questioning its relevance. Always follow up with your interpretation or discussion.

5.3. Misquoting or Taking Out of Context

Ensure that quotes are accurate and not taken out of context, as this can mislead readers and undermine your credibility.

6. Quotes in Different Contexts

6.1. Academic Writing

In academic writing, quotes are used to support arguments, provide evidence, and engage with existing literature. Proper citation is crucial to avoid plagiarism.

6.2. Journalism

Journalists use quotes to provide firsthand accounts, add authenticity, and present multiple perspectives within a story.

6.3. Literature and Creative Writing

In literature, quotes can be used to convey character voices, themes, and stylistic elements. They enrich narratives and provide depth to storytelling.

7. Punctuation and Formatting

Understanding the correct punctuation and formatting of quotes is essential:

Quotation Marks: Always enclose direct quotes within quotation marks.

Punctuation Placement: In American English, periods and commas are placed inside quotation marks, while colons and semicolons are placed outside.

Block Quotes: For longer quotes, format them as block quotes without quotation marks, and indent the entire block.

8. Ethical Considerations

Ethical use of quotes involves accurate representation, proper attribution, and respect for intellectual property. Misuse can lead to plagiarism, which carries serious academic and professional consequences.

9. Tools for Managing Quotes

Utilize tools like citation generators and plagiarism checkers to manage quotes effectively. These tools help ensure proper formatting and originality in your writing.

Conclusion

Quotes are invaluable in enriching content, providing evidence, and conveying complex ideas succinctly. When used appropriately, they enhance the quality and credibility of your writing. Always ensure relevance, proper integration, and ethical usage to maximize their impact.

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