Great Throughts Treasury

This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.

Thomas Edison, fully Thomas Alva Edison

American Scientist, Inventor and Businessman

"I am more of a sponge than an inventor. I absorb ideas from every source. My principal business is giving commercial value to the brilliant but misdirected ideas of others."

"I am much less interested in what is called God's word than in God's deeds. All bibles are man-made."

"I am long on ideas, but short on time. I only expect to live about a hundred years."

"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."

"I am proud of the fact that I never invented weapons to kill."

"I am wondering what would have happened to me if 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 do not believe I could have accomplished a great deal. This country would not amount to as much as it does if the young men of fifty years ago had been afraid that they might earn more than they were paid for."

"I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward."

"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. Although the present generation knows little of Paine's writings,and although he has almost no influence upon contemporary thought, Americans of the future will justly appraise his work. I am certain of it."

"I believe that the science of chemistry alone almost proves the existence of an intelligent creator."

"I believe in the existence of a Supreme Intelligence pervading the Universe."

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

"I find my greatest pleasure, and so my reward, in the work that precedes what the world calls success."

"I didn't fail the test, I just found 100 ways to do it wrong."

"I find out what the world needs, then I proceed to invent. My main purpose in life is to make money so that I can afford to go on creating more inventions."

"I have always been interested in this man. My father had a set of Tom Paine's books on the shelf at home. I must have opened the covers about the time I was 13. And I can still remember the flash of enlightenment which shone from his pages. It was a revelation, indeed, to encounter his views on political and religious matters, so different from the views of many people around us. Of course I did not understand him very well, but his sincerity and ardor made an impression upon me that nothing has ever served to lessen. I have heard it said that Paine borrowed from Montesquieu and Rousseau. Maybe he had read them both and learned something from each. I do not know. But I doubt that Paine ever borrowed a line from any man... Many a person who could not comprehend Rousseau, and would be puzzled by Montesquieu, could understand Paine as an open book. He wrote with a clarity, a sharpness of outline and exactness of speech that even a schoolboy should be able to grasp. There is nothing false, little that is subtle, and an impressive lack of the negative in Paine. He literally cried to his reader for a comprehending hour, and then filled that hour with such sagacious reasoning as we find surpassed nowhere else in American letters - seldom in any school of writing. Paine would have been the last to look upon himself as a man of letters. Liberty was the dear companion of his heart; truth in all things his object... we, perhaps, remember him best for his declaration: 'The world is my country; to do good my religion.'"

"I find out what the world needs. Then, I go ahead and invent it."

"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."

"I have far more respect for the person with a single idea who gets there than for the person with a thousand ideas who does nothing."

"I have friends in overalls whose friendship I would not swap for the favor of the kings of the world."

"I have more respect for the fellow with a single idea who gets there than for the fellow with a thousand ideas who does nothing."

"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."

"I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work."

"I never did anything worth doing by accident, nor did any of my inventions come indirectly through accident, except the phonograph. No, when I have, fully decided that a result is worth getting, I go about it, and make trial after trial, until it comes."

"I never did a day?s work in my life, it was all fun."

"I never did anything worth doing entirely by accident and none of my inventions came about totally by accident. They came about by hard work."

"I love great music and art, but I think 'cubist' songs and paintings are hideous."

"I never failed once. It just happened to be a 2000-step process."

"I never did anything by accident, nor did any of my inventions come by accident; they came by work."

"I never did anything worth doing entirely by accident.... Almost none of my inventions were derived in that manner. They were achieved by having trained myself to be analytical and to endure and tolerate hard 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."

"I never once made a discovery... I speak without exaggeration that I have constructed three thousand different theories in connection with the electric light. Yet in only two cases did my experiments prove the truth of my theory."

"I never perfected an invention that I did not think about in terms of the service it might give others... I find out what the world needs, then I proceed to invent."

"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 speak without exaggeration when I say that I have constructed 3,000 different theories in connection with the electric light, each one of them reasonable and apparently likely to be true. Yet only in two cases did my experiments prove the truth of my theory. My chief difficulty was in constructing the carbon filament. . . . Every quarter of the globe was ransacked by my agents, and all sorts of the queerest materials used, until finally the shred of bamboo, now utilized by us, was settled upon."

"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."

"I start where the last man left off."

"I readily absorb ideas from every source, frequently starting where the last person left off."

"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. I wish I had more years left."

"I told [Kruesi] I was going to record talking, and then have the machine talk back. He thought it absurd. However, it was finished, the foil was put on; I then shouted ?Mary had a little lamb,? etc. I adjusted the reproducer, and the machine reproduced it perfectly. [On first words spoken on a phonograph]"

"If I find 10,000 ways something won't work, I haven't failed. I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward."

"If there is a way to do it better... find it."

"If parents pass enthusiasm along to their children, they will leave them an estate of incalculable value...."

"If we all did the things we are capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves."

"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 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."

"If I had not had so much ambition and had not tried to do so many things I probably would have been happier, but less useful."

"If our 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 the bond lets money brokers collect twice the amount of the bond and an additional 20%, whereas the currency pays nobody but those who contribute directly in some useful way... It is absurd to say our country can issue $30 million in bonds and not $30 million in currency. Both are promises to pay, but one promise fattens the usurers and the other helps the people."

"Inspiration can be found in a pile of junk. Sometimes, you can put it together with a good imagination and invent something."

"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. It must be remembered that 'Common Sense' preceded the declaration and affirmed the very principles that went into the national doctrine of liberty. But that affirmation was made with more vigor, more of the fire of the patriot and was exactly suited to the hour... Certainly [the Revolution] could not be forestalled, once he had spoken."

"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."

"It is absurd to say our country can issue $30 million in bonds and not $30 million in currency. Both are promises to pay, but one promise fattens the userers and the other helps the people."