Thomas A. Edison

Inventor

1847-02-11

Quotes by Thomas A. Edison

• People who will not turn a shovel full of dirt on the project nor contribute a pound of material, will collect more money from the United States than will the People who supply all the material and do all the work. This is the terrible thing about interest ...But here is the point: If the 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 that the bond lets the money broker collect twice the amount of the bond and an additional 20%. Whereas the currency, the honest sort provided by the Constitution pays nobody but those who contribute in some useful way. It is absurd to say our Country can issue bonds and cannot issue currency. Both are promises to pay, but one fattens the usurer and the other helps the People. If the currency issued by the People were no good, then the bonds would be no good, either. 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.

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• Nature is what we know. We do not know the gods of religions. And nature is not kind, or merciful, or loving. If God made me — the fabled God of the three qualities of which I spoke: mercy, kindness, love — He also made the fish I catch and eat. And where do His mercy, kindness, and love for that fish come in? No; nature made us — nature did it all — not the gods of the reli

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

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• We often miss opportunity because it's dressed in overalls and looks like work

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• It is astonishing what an effort it seems to be for many people to put their brains definitely and systematically to work.

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• To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk.

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• The most necessary task of civilization is to teach people how to think. It should be the primary purpose of our public schools. The mind of a child is naturally active, it develops through exercise. Give a child plenty of exercise, for body and brain. The trouble with our way of educating is that it does not give elasticity to the mind. It casts the brain into a mold. It insists that the child must accept. It does not encourage original thought or reasoning, and it lays more stress on memory than observation.

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• Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration.

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

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• The three great essentials to achieve anything worthwhile are, first, hard work; second, stick-to-itiveness; third, common sense.

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• When you have exhausted all possibilities, remember this - you haven't.

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

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• When you have exhausted all possibilities, remember this - you haven't.

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

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

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• To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk.

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• People who will not turn a shovel full of dirt on the project nor contribute a pound of material, will collect more money from the United States than will the People who supply all the material and do all the work. This is the terrible thing about interest ...But here is the point: If the 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 that the bond lets the money broker collect twice the amount of the bond and an additional 20%. Whereas the currency, the honest sort provided by the Constitution pays nobody but those who contribute in some useful way. It is absurd to say our Country can issue bonds and cannot issue currency. Both are promises to pay, but one fattens the usurer and the other helps the People. If the currency issued by the People were no good, then the bonds would be no good, either. 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.

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• Nature is what we know. We do not know the gods of religions. And nature is not kind, or merciful, or loving. If God made me — the fabled God of the three qualities of which I spoke: mercy, kindness, love — He also made the fish I catch and eat. And where do His mercy, kindness, and love for that fish come in? No; nature made us — nature did it all — not the gods of the reli

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

  Read quote

• The three great essentials to achieve anything worthwhile are, first, hard work; second, stick-to-itiveness; third, common sense.

  Read quote