Thomas A Edison Motivational quotes
- “I find out what the world needs. Then I go ahead and try to invent it”
- “Everything comes to him who hustles while he waits.”
- “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.
- “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.”
- “To do much clear thinking a person must arrange for regular periods of solitude when they can concentrate and indulge the imagination without distraction.”
- “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.”
- “Restlessness is discontent — and discontent is the first necessity of progress. Show me a thoroughly satisfied man — and I will show you a failure.”
- “I never did a day’s work in my life, it was all fun.”
- “I have friends in overalls whose friendship I would not swap for the favor of the kings of the world.”
- “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.”
- “Just because something doesn’t do what you planned it to do doesn’t mean it’s useless.”
- “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. ~ ”
- “There are no rules here — we’re trying to accomplish something.”
- “Negative results are just what I want. They’re just as valuable to me as positive results. I can never find the thing that does the job best until I find the ones that don’t.”
- “To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk.”
- “Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.”
- “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.”
- “When you have exhausted all possibilities, remember this – you haven’t.”
- “If we all did the things we are really capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves.”
- “Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration.”
- “The three great essentials to achieve anything worthwhile are, first, hard work; second, stick-to-itiveness; third, common sense.”
- “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.” - “We often miss opportunity because it’s dressed in overalls and looks like work”
- “Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.”
- “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”
- “There is no substitute for hard work”
- “As Edison is credited with saying, “Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.” We all want to be successful, but most of us aren’t willing to do what those who are successful did to attain it. We want success without sacrifice, but you can’t have one without the other!”
- “The chief function of the body is to carry the brain around.”
- “I haven’t failed,I have just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”
- “I have never failed, I’ve only shown the way I did it before doesn’t work.”
- “So far as the religion of the day is concerned, it is a damned fake … Religion is all bunk.”
- “It’s very beautiful over there.”
- “It is astonishing what an effort it seems to be for many people to put their brains definitely and systematically to work.”
- “If we did all the things we are capable of, we would literally astound ourselves.”
- “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.”
- “I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward.”
- “A good intention, with a bad approach, often leads to a poor result.”
- “Opportunity is often missed because it comes dressed in overalls and looks like work.”
- Nature is truly wonderful. Only man is truly foul.”
- “People who will not turn a shovel full of dirt on the project nor contribute a pound of material, will collect more money from the United States than will the People who supply all the material and do all the work. This is the terrible thing about interest …But here is the point: 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 the currency issued by the People were no good, then the bonds would be no good, either. 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.”
- “There is no expedient to which a man will not go to avoid the real labor of thinking.”
- “All bibles are man-made.”
- “We will make electricity so cheap that only the rich will burn candles.”
- “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”
- “Nearly every person 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.”
- “I am proud of the fact that I never invented weapons to kill.”
- “The first requisite for success is the ability to apply your physical and mental energies to one problem incessantly without growing weary.”
- “I never did anything worth doing by accident, nor did any of my inventions come by accident; they came by work.”
- “He had all the attributes of a perfect man, and, in my opinion, no finer personality ever existed.
“There’s a way to do it better – find it.”
