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That Is To Say, Under The Old Way Any Time We Wish To Add To The National Wealth We Are Compelled To Add To The National Debt. Now, That Is What Henry Ford Wants To Prevent. He Thinks It Is Stupid, And So Do I, That For The Loan Of $30,000,000 Of Their Own Money The People Of The United States Should Be Compelled To Pay $66,000,000 - That Is What It Amounts To, With Interest.

-Thomas A. Edison

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That Is To Say,

Thomas A. Edison

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That Is To Say, Under The Old Way Any Time We Wish To Add To The National Wealth We Are Compelled To Add To The National Debt. Now, That Is What Henry Ford Wants To Prevent. He Thinks It Is Stupid, And So Do I, That For The Loan Of $30,000,000 Of Their Own Money The People Of The United States Should Be Compelled To Pay $66,000,000 - That Is What It Amounts To, With Interest.

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The Roots Of Tobacco Plants Must Go Clear Through To Hell. Satan's Principal Agent Dyspepsia Must Have Charge Of This Branch Of The Vegetable Kingdom.

The Value Of A Good Idea Is In Using It.

Ideas Without Execution Are Hallucinations.

Maturity Is Often More Absurd Than Youth And Very Frequently Is Most Unjust To Youth.

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

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 .

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.

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

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

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

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.

As A Cure For Worrying, Work Is Far Better Than Whiskey. I Always Found That, If I Began To Worry, The Best Thing I Could Do Was Focus Upon Doing Something Useful And Then Work Very Hard At It. Soon, I Would Forget What Was Troubling Me.

I Do Not Believe Any Type Of Religion Should Ever Be Introduced Into The Public Schools Of The United States.

It Is Remarkable To What Lengths People Will Go To Avoid Thought.

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

That Is To Say, Under The Old Way Any Time We Wish To Add To The National Wealth We Are Compelled To Add To The National Debt. Now, That Is What Henry Ford Wants To Prevent. He Thinks It Is Stupid, And So Do I, That For The Loan Of $30,000,000 Of Their Own Money The People Of The United States Should Be Compelled To Pay $66,000,000 - That Is What It Amounts To, With Interest.

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.

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

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

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

Seeming To Do Is Not Doing.

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.

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

I Would Construct And Work Along Various Lines Until I Found Them Untenable. When One Theory Was Discarded, I Developed Another At Once. I Realized Very Early That This Was The Only Possible Way For Me To Work Out All The Problems.

There's A Way To Do It Better - Find It.

The World Owes Nothing To Any Man, But Every Man Owes Something To The World.

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

Invention Is 10% Inspiration And 90% Perspiration.

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

The Strength Of The Constitution, Lies In The Will Of The People To Defend It.

There Is No Subsitute For Hard Work.

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

Success Is Based On Imagination Plus Ambition And The Will To Work.

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.

Youth Doesn't Take Advice.

Genius Is One Percent Inspiration And Ninety-nine Percent Perspiration. As A Result, A Genius Is Often A Talented Person Who Has Simply Done All Of His Homework.

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

What You Are Will Show In What You Do.

Life's Most Soothing Things Are A Child's Goodnight And Sweet Music.

To Have A Great Idea, Have A Lot Of Them.

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

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.

If There Is A God

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.

To Those Searching For Truth -- Not The Truth Of Dogma And Darkness But The Truth Brought By Reason, Search, Examination, And Inquiry, Discipline Is Required. For Faith, As Well Intentioned As It May Be, Must Be Built On Facts, Not Fiction -- Faith In Fiction Is A Damnable False Hope.

Large Portions Of Life's Disappointments Are Individuals Who Did Not Understand That They Were So Near Achievement When They Surrendered.

Genius Defined: Of Inspiration 1% Percent, Of Perspiration, 99%.

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

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.

The Bible Of Nature Is The Best Damn Bible In The World. Its Laws Are Perfect And Grand, And All The Prayers In The World Can't Change Them. There Is Intelligence And Law In This World, And There May Be Supreme Intelligence And Law, But So Far As The Religion Of The Day Is Concerned, It Is All A Damned Fake.

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.

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.

Absorb Ideas From Every Source.

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.

A Lawsuit Is The Suicide Of Time.

A Teacher Sent The Following Note Home With A Six-year-old Boy 'he Is Too Stupid To Learn.' That Boy Was Thomas A. Edison.

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.

There Is A Better Way For Everything. Find It.

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.

If I Could Solve All The Problems Myself, I Would.

The Three Things That Are Most Essential To Achievement Are Common Sense, Hard Work And Stick-to-it-iv-ness.

We Tried Some Experiments In Mind Reading Which Were Not Very Successful. Think Mind Reading Contrary To Common Sense, Wise Provision Of The Bon Dieu That We Cannot Read Each Others Minds, Twould Stop Civilization And Everybody Would Take To The Woods. In Fifty Or Hundred Thousand Centuries When Mankind Have Become Perfect By Evolution Then Perhaps This Sense Could Be Developed With Safety To The State.

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

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.

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

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

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

It Is A Terrible Situation When The Government, To Insure The National Wealth, Must Go In Debt And Submit To Ruinous Interest Charges, At The Hands Of Men, Who Control The Fictitious Value Of Gold. Interest Is The Invention Of Satan.

A Genius Is A Talented Person Who Does His Homework.

My Main Purpose In Life Is To Make Enough Money To Create Ever More Inventions…. The Dove Is My Emblem…. I Want To Save And Advance Human Life, Not Destroy It…. I Am Proud Of The Fact That I Have Never Invented Weapons To Kill….

What Is A College? An Institute Of Learning. What Is A Business? An Institute Of Learning. Life, Itself, Is An Institute Of Learning.

Never Stop Learning

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

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

Today, I Am Wondering What Would Have Happened To Me By Now, If, Fifty Years Ago, Some Fluent Talker Had Converted Me To The Theory Of The Eight-hour Day And Convinced Me That It Was Not Fair To My Fellow-workers To Put Forth My Best Efforts In My Work? I Am Glad That The Eight-hour Day Had Not Been Invented When I Was A Young Man. If My Life Had Been Made Up Of Eight-hour Days, I Don't Believe I Could Have Accomplished A Great Deal.

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

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

I Cannot Believe In The Immortality Of The Soul. No, All This Talk Of An Existence For Us, As Individuals, Beyond The Grave Is Wrong. It Is Born Of Our Tenacity Of Life - Our Desire To Go On Living - Our Dread Of Coming To An End.

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

Being Busy Does Not Always Mean Real Work.

Infinite Intelligence

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.

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.

Willful Ignorance

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.

The Endeavor To Change Universal Power By Selfish Supplication I Do Not Believe In.

The Beauty Of A Great Idea Lies In The Art Of Using It.

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

My Main Purpose In Life Is To Make Money So I Can Afford To Go On Creating More Inventions.

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

Because Ideas Have To Be Original Only With Regard To Their Adaptation To The Problem At Hand, I Am Always Extremely Interested In How Others Have Used Used Them.

Success Is 90% Perspiration And 10% Inspiration!

Failure Is Really A Matter Of Conceit. People Don't Work Hard Because, In Their Conceit, They Imagine They'll Succeed Without Ever Making An Effort. Most People Believe That They'll Wake Up Some Day And Find Themselves Rich. Actually, They've Got It Half Right, Because Eventually They Do Wake Up.

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

First Be Sure A Thing Is Wanted Or Needed, Then Go Ahead.

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

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.

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

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

My Success Is Due More To My Ability To Work Continuously On One Thing Without Stopping Than To Any Other Single Quality.

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.

Anything That Won't Sell, I Don't Want To Invent. Its Sale Is Proof Of Utility, And Utility Is Success.

When You Have Exhausted All Possibilities, Remember This - You Haven't.

I Never View Mistakes As Failures. They Are Simply Opportunities To Find Out What Doesn't Work.

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.

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

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

Sticking To It Is The Genius.

Do The Thing And The Power Will Come.

Great Ideas Originate In The Muscles.

I Failed My Way To Success.

Vision Without Execution Is Delusion.

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.

I Didn't Fail 1000 Times. The Light Bulb Was An Invention With 1000 Steps.

Self Discipline

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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

I Find Out What The World Needs. Then I Go Ahead And Try To Invent It

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

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

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.

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

There Is Far More Opportunity Than There Is Ability.

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

Inspiration Can Be Found In A Pile Of Junk. Sometimes, You Can Put It Together With A Good Imagination And Invent Something.

The Perils Of Overwork Are Slight Compared With The Dangers Of Inactivity.

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

I Find My Greatest Pleasure, And So My Reward, In The Work That Precedes What The World Calls Success.

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

The Great Trouble Is That The Preachers Get The Children From Six To Seven Years Of Age And Then It Is Almost Impossible To Do Anything With Them.

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.

Nearly Every Man Who Develops An Idea Works It Up To The Point Where It Looks Impossible, And Then He Gets Discouraged. That's Not The Place To Become Discouraged.

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.

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

It Is Very Beautiful Over There. (last Words)

Unfortunately, There Seems To Be Far More Opportunity Out There Than Ability.... We Should Remember That Good Fortune Often Happens When Opportunity Meets With Preparation.

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.

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

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.

Good Fortune Is What Happens When Opportunity Meets With Planning.

Opportunity Is Missed By Most People Because It Is Dressed In Overalls And Looks Like Work.

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

In Creating Technology For Ourselves We Created It For The World.

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

To My Mind The Old Masters Are Not Art; Their Value Is In Their Scarcity.

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.

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

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

The Entity That Gives Life And Motion To The Human Body Is Finer Still And Lies Infinitely Beyond The Reach Of Our Finest Scientific Instruments. When This Entity Deserts The Body, The Body Is Like A Ship Without A Rudder - Deserted, Motionless, Dead.

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.

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

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.

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.

Be Courageous! Have Faith! Go Forward.

To Invent, You Need A Good Imagination And A Pile Of Junk.

Imagination Creativity

The Radio Craze Will Die Out In Time.

Everything Comes To Those Who Hustle While They Wait.

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

I Was At The Foot Of My Class.

Continued Innovation Is The Best Way To Beat The Competition.

There Is Always A Better Way.

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

The Memory Of My Mother Will Always Be A Blessing To Me.

Personally, I Enjoy Working About 18 Hours A Day. Besides The Short Catnaps I Take Each Day, I Average About Four To Five Hours Of Sleep Per Night.

Time Is Really The Only Capital That Any Human Being Has, And The Only Thing He Can't Afford To Lose.

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

I Know This World Is Ruled By Infinite Intelligence. Everything That Surrounds Us- Everything That Exists - Proves That There Are Infinite Laws Behind It. There Can Be No Denying This Fact. It Is Mathematical In Its Precision.

Infinite Intelligence

When You Become Quiet, It Just Dawns On You

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

If There Is A God

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 .

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.

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."

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.

Never Say I Failed 99 Times, Say I Discovered 99 Ways Which Causes Failure!

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.

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.

I Have Friends In Overalls Whose Friendship I Would Not Swap For The Favor Of The Kings Of The World.

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

If I Had Not Had So Much Ambition And Not Tried To Do So Many Things, I Probably Would Have Been Happier, But Less Useful.

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

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.

The Most Necessary Task Of Civilization Is To Teach People How To Think. It Should Be The Primary Purpose Of Our Public Schools. The Mind Of A Child Is Naturally Active, It Develops Through Exercise. Give A Child Plenty Of Exercise, For Body And Brain. The Trouble With Our Way Of Educating Is That It Does Not Give Elasticity To The Mind. It Casts The Brain Into A Mold. It Insists That The Child Must Accept. It Does Not Encourage Original Thought Or Reasoning, And It Lays More Stress On Memory Than Observation.

Never Go To Sleep Without A Request To Your Subconscious.

Restlessness Is Discontent And Discontent Is The First Necessity Of Progress. Show Me A Thoroughly Satisfied Man And I Will Show You A Failure.

We Are Striking It Big In The Electric Light, Better Than My Vivid Imagination First Conceived. Where This Thing Is Going To Stop Lord Only Knows.

Vivid Imagination

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

Self Confidence

The Doctor Of The Future Will No Longer Treat The Human Frame With Drugs, But Rather Will Cure And Prevent Disease With Nutrition.

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.

I'll Try Anything...i'll Even Try Limburger Cheese!

The First Requisite For Success Is To Develop The Ability To Focus And Apply Your Mental And Physical Energies To The Problem At Hand - Without Growing Weary. Because Such Thinking Is Often Difficult, There Seems To Be No Limit To Which Some People Will Go To Avoid The Effort And Labor That Is Associated With It.

It Is Very Different To Make A Practical System And To Introduce It. A Few Experiments In The Laboratory Would Prove The Practicability Of System Long Before It Could Be Brought Into General Use. You Can Take A Pipe And Put A Little Coal In It, Close It Up, Heat It And Light The Gas That Comes Out Of The Stem, But That Is Not Introducing Gas Lighting. I'll Bet That If It Were Discovered To-morrow In New York That Gas Could Be Made Out Of Coal It Would Be At Least Five Years Before The System Would Be In General Use.

A Man’s Best Friend Is A Good Wife.

I Get My Ideas From Listening From Within.

Every Failure Is A Lesson Learned About Your Strategy.

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.

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.

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

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.

Accomplishing Something Provides The Only Real Satisfaction In Life.

Satisfaction In Life

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