Thomas A. Edison
Thomas A. Edison
Thomas Alva Edisonwas an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices that greatly influenced life around the world, including the phonograph, the motion picture camera, and the long-lasting, practical electric light bulb. Dubbed "The Wizard of Menlo Park", he was one of the first inventors to apply the principles of mass production and large-scale teamwork to the process of invention, and because of that, he is often credited with the creation of the first industrial research laboratory...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionInventor
Date of Birth11 February 1847
CountryUnited States of America
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.
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 did not fail two thousand times. I merely found two thousand ways not to make a lightbulb.
It is apparent to me that the possibilities of the aeroplane, which two or three years ago were thought to hold the solution to the [flying machine] problem, have been exhausted, and that we must turn elsewhere.
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.
The best thinking has been done in solitude.
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 by accident; they came by work
I shall make electricity so cheap that only the rich can afford to burn candles
Opportunity is missed by most people because it comes dressed in overalls and looks like work.
Anything that won't sell, I don't want to invent
A little twist to the usual, "Everything comes to he who waits". Everythingcomes to him who hustles while he waits.
The three great essentials to achieve anything worth while are: Hard work, Stick-to-itiveness, and Common sense.
The three great essentials to achieve anything worth while are, first, hard work; second, stick-to-itiveness; third, common sense.