Top 200 Thomas A. Edison Quotes (2025 Update)
Page 2 of 5

51. “To do much clear thinking a person must arrange for regular periods of solitude when they can concentrate and indulge the imagination without distraction.”

— Thomas A. Edison

52. “Until man duplicates a blade of grass, nature can laugh at his so called scientific knowledge.”

— Thomas A. Edison

53. “There is far more opportunity than there is ability.”

— Thomas A. Edison

54. “We will make electricity so cheap that only the rich will burn candles.”

— Thomas A. Edison

55. “First be sure a thing is wanted or needed, then go ahead.”

— Thomas A. Edison

56. “There is great value in disaster. All our mistakes are burned up. Thank God we can start anew.”

— Thomas A. Edison

57. “Focus on how the end-user customers perceive the impact of your innovation – rather than on how you, the innovators, perceive it.”

— Thomas A. Edison

58. “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.”

— Thomas A. Edison

59. “I will not say I failed 1000 times, I will say that I discovered there are 1000 ways that can cause failure.”

— Thomas A. Edison

60. “Your worth consists in what you are and not in what you have.”

— Thomas A. Edison

61. “The reason a lot of people do not recognize opportunity is because it usually goes around wearing overalls looking like hard work.”

— Thomas A. Edison

62. “I would rather have one man with enthusiasm working with me than ten who are complacent.”

— Thomas A. Edison

63. “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.”

— Thomas A. Edison

64. “Never be discouraged. Every wrong attempt left behind is another step forward, bringing you closer to your goals.”

— Thomas A. Edison

65. “I make more mistakes than anyone else I know, and sooner or later, I patent most of them.”

— Thomas A. Edison

66. “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.”

— Thomas A. Edison

67. “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.”

— Thomas A. Edison

68. “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.”

— Thomas A. Edison

69. “Continued innovation is the best way to beat the competition.”

— Thomas A. Edison

70. “I believe in the existence of a Supreme Intelligence pervading the Universe.”

— Thomas A. Edison

71. “The only time I really become discouraged is when I think of all the things I would like to do and the little time I have in which to do them.”

— Thomas A. Edison

72. “Consider data without prejudice.”

— Thomas A. Edison

73. “When you become quiet, it just dawns on you.”

— Thomas A. Edison

74. “Accomplishing something provides the only real satisfaction in life.”

— Thomas A. Edison

75. “Large portions of life’s disappointments are individuals who did not understand that they were so near achievement when they surrendered.”

— Thomas A. Edison

76. “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.”

— Thomas A. Edison

77. “The thing I lose patience with the most is the clock. Its hands move too fast.”

— Thomas A. Edison

78. “No, I haven’t failed thousands of times. On the contrary, I have successfully eliminated thousands of ideas that do not work!”

— Thomas A. Edison

79. “Of the 200 light bulbs that didn’t work, every failure told me something that I was able to incorporate into the next attempt.”

— Thomas A. Edison

80. “When down in the mouth, remember Jonah. He came out all right.”

— Thomas A. Edison

81. “Anything that won’t sell, I don’t want to invent. Its sale is proof of utility, and utility is success.”

— Thomas A. Edison

82. “The perils of overwork are slight compared with the dangers of inactivity.”

— Thomas A. Edison

83. “Great ideas originate in the muscles.”

— Thomas A. Edison

84. “I am a vegetarian as well as a passionate anti-alcoholic, because I can thus make better use of my brain.”

— Thomas A. Edison

85. “Every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward.”

— Thomas A. Edison

86. “If I could solve all the problems myself, I would.”

— Thomas A. Edison

87. “The body is a community made up of its innumerable cells or inhabitants.”

— Thomas A. Edison

88. “The radio craze will die out in time.”

— Thomas A. Edison

89. “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.”

— Thomas A. Edison

90. “I believe that the science of chemistry alone almost proves the existence of an intelligent creator.”

— Thomas A. Edison

91. “A lawsuit is the suicide of time.”

— Thomas A. Edison

92. “I do not believe in the God of the theologians; but that there is a Supreme Intelligence I do not doubt.”

— Thomas A. Edison

93. “Life’s most soothing things are a child’s goodnight and sweet music.”

— Thomas A. Edison

94. “My mother was the making of me.”

— Thomas A. Edison

95. “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.”

— Thomas A. Edison

96. “I do not believe any type of religion should ever be introduced into the public schools of the United States.”

— Thomas A. Edison

97. “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.”

— Thomas A. Edison

98. “To my mind the old masters are not art; their value is in their scarcity.”

— Thomas A. Edison

99. “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.”

— Thomas A. Edison

100. “What you are will show in what you do.”

— Thomas A. Edison