Thomas Edison, dubbed the “Wizard of Menlo Park,” was one of the greatest inventors the world has known. His nearly 1,100 patents exceed that of any other inventor in American history, and his inventions were foundational across a bewildering array of domains, from electronics to medicine to chemical research.
Never a day goes by where we don’t have Edison to thank for the many tools and conveniences of modern life. To him we owe both the incandescent light bulb and fluroescent lamp, the phonograph, the nickel-iron-alkaline storage battery, the universal electric motor, the motion picture, and the basic principles of modern electronics. And that’s barely scratching the surface of his contributions, which resulted from painstaking trial-and-error and an indomitable spirit of perseverance that embraced each failed experiment as a positive step forward on the long road to success.
Yet Thomas Edison had neither an easy nor a predictable path towards greatness. He rose from humble beginnings, the last of seven sons and daughters born to a school teacher and an exiled Canadian activist in Milan, Ohio in 1847. A childhood malady left him with hearing issues in both ears that would make him nearly deaf as an adult. And he was a hyperactive and distraction-prone child, who, deemed “difficult” by his teacher, was pulled out of public school by his mother at age 12, after a mere 12 weeks of attendance.
Edison’s incredible intellect and ingenuity are all the more inspiring for being the product of his own voracious appetite for learning — and all the more instructive for arising from a process of self-education that was tailored to harnessing his own unique potential.
According to the Edison Innovation Foundation, he operated on four simple principles, taught to him by his loving mother:
1. Never get discouraged if you fail. Learn from it. Keep trying.
2. Learn with both your head and hands.
3. Not everything of value in life comes from books- experience the world.
4. Never stop learning. Read the entire panorama of literature.
Thomas Edison’s story has much to teach and inspire us. And with that in mind, here are our
Top 40 Thomas Edison Quotes to Motivate You to Never Quit.
1. "Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time."
2. "I start where the last man left off."
3. "Just because something doesn’t do what you planned it to do doesn’t mean it’s useless."
4. "If we did all the things we are capable of, we would literally astound ourselves."
5. "When you have exhausted all possibilities, remember this: you haven’t."
6. "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work."
7. "The three great essentials to achieve anything worthwhile are: hard work, stick-to-itiveness, and common sense."
8. "Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration."
9. "Results! Why, man, I have gotten a lot of results. I know several thousand things that won’t work."
10. "Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up."
11. "Everything comes to him who hustles while he waits."
12. "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."
13. "Your worth consists in what you are and not in what you have."
14. "I never did anything by accident, nor did any of my inventions come by accident; they came by work."
15. "I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work."
16. "To have a great idea, have a lot of them."
17. "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."
18. "There’s a way to do it better. Find it."
19. "What you are will show in what you do."
20. "I never did a day’s work in my life. It was all fun."
21. "There is no substitute for hard work."
22. "Maturity is often more absurd than youth and very frequently is most unjust to youth."
23. "I have friends in overalls whose friendship I would not swap for the favor of the kings of the world."
24. "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."
25. "To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk."
26. "Hell, there are no rules here - we're trying to accomplish something."
27. "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."
28. "Restlessness is discontent and discontent is the first necessity of progress. Show me a thoroughly satisfied man and I will show you a failure."
29. "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!"
30. "The chief function of the body is to carry the brain around."
31. "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."
32. "The best thinking has been done in solitude. The worst has been done in turmoil."
33. "The value of an idea lies in the using of it."
34. "Show me a thoroughly satisfied man and I will show you a failure."
35. "There is far more opportunity than there is ability."
36. "Anything that won't sell, I don't want to invent. Its sale is proof of utility, and utility is success."
37. "When I have fully decided that a result is worth getting I go ahead of it and make trial after trial until it comes."
38. "Great ideas originate in the muscles."
39. "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."
40. "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."
Comments