Thomas A. Edison
Before you reject an idea, find at least five good things about it.Collection: Ideas
When you have exhausted all possibilities, remember this - you haven't.Collection: Inspirational
I have better use for my brain than to poison it with alcohol. To put alcohol in the human brain is like putting sand in the bearings of an engine.Collection: Alcohol
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.Collection: Children
The trouble with most people is that they quit before they start.Collection: Thinking
Everything comes to those who hustle while they wait.Collection: Sports
Be brave as your fathers before you. Have faith and go forward.Collection: Father
A diamond is a piece of coal that stuck to the jobCollection: Jobs
A good intention, with a bad approach, often leads to a poor result.Collection: Good Intentions
When we learn how to store electricity, we will cease being apes ourselves; until then we are tailless orangutans. You see, we should utilize natural forces and thus get all of our power. Sunshine is a form of energy, and the winds and the tides are manifestations of energy. Do we use them? Oh, no! We burn up wood and coal, as renters burn up the front fence for fuel. We live like squatters, not as if we owned the property.Collection: Sunshine
Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration.Collection: Inspirational
I get my ideas from listening from within.Collection: Ideas
Good fortune is what happens when opportunity meets with planning.Collection: Opportunity
There is no limit to which a man will not go to avoid thinking.Collection: Men
I can never pick up a thing without wishing to improve it.Collection: Wish
When you become quiet, it just dawns on youCollection: Dawn
I do not believe in the God of the theologians; but that there is a Supreme Intelligence I do not doubt.Collection: God
As a cure for worrying, work is far better than whiskey. I always found that, if I began to worry, the best thing I could do was focus upon doing something useful and then work very hard at it. Soon, I would forget what was troubling me.Collection: Motivational
Show me a thoroughly satisfied man - and I will show you a failure.Collection: Success
There is always a better way.Collection: Motivational
Tomorrow Is My Exam But I Don’t Care Because A Single Sheet Of Paper Can’t Decide My FutureCollection: Paper
The man who doesn’t make up his mind to cultivate the habit of thinking misses the greatest pleasure in life.Collection: Inspirational
Failure is the most effective technique to optimize strategic planning, implementation and processes.Collection: Technique
Continued innovation is the best way to beat the competition.Collection: Competition
Our greatest weakness lies in giving up.Collection: Inspirational
Vision without execution is delusion.Collection: Positive
Work while others are wishing.Collection: Motivational
The world owes nothing to any man, but every man owes something to the world.Collection: Inspirational
I never pick up an item without thinking of how I might improve it.Collection: Technology
My success is due more to my ability to work continuously on one thing without stopping than to any other single quality.Collection: Quality
The perils of overwork are slight compared with the dangers of inactivity.Collection: Danger
The only time I really become discouraged is when I think of all the things I would like to do and the little time I have in which to do them.Collection: Motivational
Be courageous! Have faith! Go forward.Collection: Motivational
A good idea is never lost. Even though its originator or possessor may die, it will someday be reborn in the mind of another.Collection: Motivational
Success is the product of the severest kind of mental and physical application.Collection: Kind
People are not remembered by how few times they fail, but by how often they succeed. Every wrong step is another step forwardCollection: People
Fooling around with alternating currents is just a waste of time. Nobody will use it, ever. It's too dangerous . . . it could kill a man as quick as a bolt of lightning. Direct current is safe.Collection: Dream
Invention is 1% inspiration and 99% perspirationCollection: Inspiration
Books will soon be obsolete in the schools... Our school system will be completely changed in the next ten years.Collection: Book
I love great music and art, but I think 'cubist' songs and paintings are hideous.Collection: Motivational
We are striking it big in the electric light, better than my vivid imagination first conceived. Where this thing is going to stop Lord only knows.Collection: Light
Direct thought is not an attribute of feminity. In this, women are now centuries behind man.Collection: Men
Let the public throw bouquets to the inventors and in time we will all be happy.Collection: Bouquets
We tried some experiments in mind reading which were not very successful. Think mind reading contrary to common sense, wise provision of the Bon Dieu that we cannot read each others minds, twould stop civilization and everybody would take to the woods. In fifty or hundred thousand centuries when mankind have become perfect by evolution then perhaps this sense could be developed with safety to the state.Collection: Wise
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.Collection: Believe
I am both pleased but astonished by the fact that mankind has not yet begun to use all the means and devices that are available for destruction. I hope that such weapons are never manufactured in quantity.Collection: Motivational
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.Collection: Years