Quotes By Thomas Alva Edison

When there's no experimenting there's no progress. Stop experimenting and you go backward. If anything goes wrong, experiment until you get to the very bottom of the trouble.

Youth doesn't take advice.

Genius is not inspired. Inspiration is perspiration.

An idea is something that won't work unless you do.

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

The great trouble is that the preachers get the children from six to seven years of age and then it is almost impossible to do anything with them.

Whatever the mind of man creates, should be controlled by man's character.

Consider data without prejudice.

Barring serious accidents, if you are not preoccupied with worry and you work hard, you can look forward to a reasonably lengthy existence.... Its not the hard work that kills, its the worrying that kills.

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

The very first thing an executive must have is a fine memory. Of course it does not follow that a man with a fine memory is necessarily a fine executive. But if he has the memory he has the first qualification, and if he has not the memory nothing else matters.

To those searching for truth -- not the truth of dogma and darkness but the truth brought by reason, search, examination, and inquiry, discipline is required. For faith, as well intentioned as it may be, must be built on facts, not fiction -- faith in fiction is a damnable false hope.

The money one gets for selling one's soul is always spent in deadening one's conscience, so the net gain at the end of a lifetime is no greater than if the diabolic bargain had not been struck.

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

X-rays ... I am afraid of them. I stopped experimenting with them two years ago, when I came near to losing my eyesight and Dally, my assistant practically lost the use of both of his arms.

I remember that I was never able to get along at school. I was at the foot of the class.

I cannot believe in the immortality of the soul. No, all this talk of an existence for us, as individuals, beyond the grave is wrong. It is born of our tenacity of life - our desire to go on living - our dread of coming to an end.

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.

My main purpose in life is to make money so I can afford to go on creating more inventions.

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