50+ Thomas Edison Quotes to Inspire Innovation, Hard Work, and the Spirit of Progress
- February 11, 1847 – October 18, 1931
- European American
- Inventor and businessman
- The “king of inventors” who obtained over 1,000 patents, including the practical application of the incandescent light bulb
- “I have friends in overalls whose friendship I would not swap for the favor of the kings of the world.”
- “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!”
- “If we did all the things we are capable of, we would literally astound ourselves.”
- “To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk.”
- “I start where the last man left off.”
- “His genius he was quite content in one brief sentence to define; Of inspiration one percent, of perspiration, ninety nine.”
- “There is far more opportunity than there is ability.”
- “Show me a thoroughly satisfied man and I will show you a failure.”
- “What you are will show in what you do.”
- “I never did anything by accident, nor did any of my inventions come by accident; they came by work.”
- “Just because something doesn’t do what you planned it to do doesn’t mean it’s useless.”
- “They say President Wilson has blundered. Perhaps he has, but I notice he usually blunders forward.”
- “Hell, there are no rules here – we’re trying to accomplish something.”
- “When I have fully decided that a result is worth getting I go ahead of it and make trial after trial until it comes.”
- “The three great essentials to achieve anything worth while are: Hard work, Stick-to-itiveness, and Common sense.”
- “To have a great idea, have a lot of them.”
- “The chief function of the body is to carry the brain around.”
- “Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.”
- “Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.”
- “Discontent is the first necessity of progress.”
- “Your worth consists in what you are and not in what you have.”
- “We don’t know a millionth of one percent about anything.”
- “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.”
- “Restlessness is discontent and discontent is the first necessity of progress. Show me a thoroughly satisfied man and I will show you a failure.”
- “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.”
- “Everything comes to him who hustles while he waits.”
- “The reason a lot of people do not recognize opportunity is because it usually goes around wearing overalls looking like hard work.”
- “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.”
- “Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.”
- “I find my greatest pleasure, and so my reward, in the work that precedes what the world calls success.”
- “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.”
- “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.”
- “Great ideas originate in the muscles.”
- “What a man’s mind can create, man’s character can control.”
- “The value of an idea lies in the using of it.”
- “It is astonishing what an effort it seems to be for many people to put their brains definitely and systematically to work.”
- “I never did a day’s work in my life. It was all fun.”
- “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.”
- “There’s a way to do it better – find it.”
- “Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.”
- “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.”
- “There is no substitute for hard work.”
- “The doctor of the future will give no medicine but will instruct his patient in the care of the human frame, in diet, and the cause and prevention of disease.”
- “To my mind the old masters are not art; their value is in their scarcity.”
- “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”
- “Anything that won’t sell, I don’t want to invent. Its sale is proof of utility, and utility is success.”
- “I am proud of the fact that I never invented weapons to kill.”
- “The body is a community made up of its innumerable cells or inhabitants.”
- “The best thinking has been done in solitude. The worst has been done in turmoil.”
- “Maturity is often more absurd than youth and very frequently is most unjust to youth.”
- “Results! Why, man, I have gotten a lot of results. I know several thousand things that won’t work.”