461 Quotes by Thomas A. Edison

Genius defined: of inspiration 1% percent, of perspiration, 99%.

I get my ideas from listening from within.

It is very different to make a practical system and to introduce it. A few experiments in the laboratory would prove the practicability of system long before it could be brought into general use. You can take a pipe and put a little coal in it, close it up, heat it and light the gas that comes out of the stem, but that is not introducing gas lighting. I'll bet that if it were discovered to-morrow in New York that gas could be made out of coal it would be at least five years before the system would be in general use.

Because I readily absorb ideas from every source - frequently starting where the last person left off - I never pick up an item without thinking of how I might improve it.

The First 40 hours of work per week are for survival. Everything after that is for 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.

A teacher sent the following note home with a six-year-old boy 'He is too stupid to learn.' That boy was Thomas A. Edison.

Most of my ideas belonged to other people who never bothered to develop them.

Focus on how the end-user customers perceive the impact of your innovation - rather than on how you, the innovators, perceive it.