Thomas Edison Quotes & Thomas Edison Sayings

Genius is one per cent inspiration, ninety-nine per cent perspiration. Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration. Great ideas originate in the muscles. Hell, there are no rules here - we're trying to accomplish something. I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward. I continue to find my greatest pleasure, and so my reward, in the work that precedes what the world calls success. I find that a great part of the information I have was acquired by looking up something and finding something else on the way. I have friends in overalls whose friendship I would not swap for the favor of the kings of the world. I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work. If we all did 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. 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. 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. Opportunity is missed by most people because it comes dressed in overalls and looks like work. Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work. Result! Why, man, I have gotten a lot of results. I know several thousand things that won't work. Show me a thoroughly satisfied man and I will show you a failure. The best thinking has been done in solitude. The worst has been done in turmoil. The doctor of the future will give no medicine but will interest his patients in the care of the human frame, in diet and in the cause and prevention of disease. The value of an idea lies in the using of it. There is no expedient to which a man will not go to avoid the labor of thinking. There is no strong performance without a little fanaticism in the performer. There is time for everything. There will one day spring from the brain of science a machine or force so fearful in its potentialities, so absolutely terrifying, that even man, the fighter, who will dare torture and death in order to inflict torture and death, will be appalled, and so abandon war forever. There's a way to do it better - find it. They say President Wilson has blundered. Perhaps he has, but I notice he usually blunders forward. To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk. Until man duplicates a blade of grass, nature can laugh at his so-called scientific knowledge. We don't know a millionth of one percent about anything. What a man's mind can create, man's character can control.