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Quotations from
Thomas Alva Edison [1847-1931]
 | American inventor Thomas Alva Edison produced the stock ticker, the mimeograph, the electric light bulb, an improved flouroscope, a storage battery for electric cars, the phonograph, latex rubber, the motion picture camera, and the Kinetoscope motion picture projector. He was a ruthless businessman and protected his patents legally and illegally. He built an industrial research lab in Menlo Park, New Jersey and became known as 'The Wizard of Menlo Park'. He received 1,093 patents in the United States, and 2,332 patents worldwide. France designated Edison as an Officer of the Legion of Honour in 1881; he was promoted to Chevalier in 1879 and to Commander in 1889. Edison received the Congressional Gold Medal in 1928 and in 1983 Congress designated February 11 (Edison's birthday) as National Inventor's Day. |
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Thomas Edison entry at Wikipedia
listing of Edison's patents at Wikipedia
Thomas A. Edison Birthplace Museum [built 1841, open 1947] in Milan, Ohio
Thomas Edison Center & Memorial Tower [est. 1937] in Menlo Park, NJ
Thomas Edison West Orange, NJ Laboratory and Glenmont Estate National Historical Park [est. 1955]
Thomas Edison Museum [est. 2003] in Beaumont, Texas
Thomas Alva Edison Page at Spirit of America Bookstore
“If we did the things [that] we are capable of, we would literally astound ourselves.” {Issue #36 & blog 2/2017}
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“When you have exhausted all possibilities, remember this – you haven't.” {Issue #37}
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“To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk.” {blog 8/2008}
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“Everything comes to him who hustles while he waits.” {blog 9/2008}
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“Genius is one percent inspiration, and ninety-nine percent perspiration.” {blog 9/2009}
| “Getting down to the bottom of things, this is a pretty raw civilization of ours – pretty wasteful, pretty cruel . . . And in a lot of respects we Americans are the rawest and crudest of all. Our production, our factory laws, our charities, our relations between capital and labor, our distribution – all wrong, out of gear. We've stumbled along for a while, trying to run a new civilization in old ways, but we've got to start to make this world over.” (in 1912) {blog 9/2009} |
“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.
Interest is the invention of Satan.” {blog 10/2009}
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“Just because something doesn't do what you planned it to do doesn't mean it's useless.” {blog 6/2010}
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“The value of an idea lies in the using of it.” {blog 8/2011}
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“Many of life's failures are men who did not realize how close they were to success
when they gave up.” {blog 3/2012}
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“To invent you need a good imagination and a pile of junk.” {blog 9/2012 & 11/2014}
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“Time is really the only capital that any human being has and the thing that he can least afford to waste or lose.” {blog 4/2013}
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“I haven’t failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” {blog 4/2014}
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“I always invented to obtain money to go on inventing.” {blog 3/2015}
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“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.” {blog 6/2015}
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“Anything that won't sell, I don't want to invent. Its sale is proof of utility, and utility is success.” {blog 4/2017}
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“My so-called inventions already existed in the environment. I’ve created nothing. Nobody does.” {blog 3/2023}
Thomas Alva Edison Quotations Not Yet Used on Blog
"The chief function of the body is to carry the brain around."
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