Nikola Tesla Quotes

It takes 10 million failures to find the right stuff.

If I have a thousand ideas and only one turns out to be good, I am satisfied.

The space shuttle was often used as an example of why you shouldn't even attempt to make something reusable. But one failed experiment does not invalidate the greater goal. If that was the case, we'd never have had the light bulb.

Is the button white or orange or green or yellow? Does it say 'sell', or 'sell now', or 'on sale' or 'for sale'? You test, you test, you test and most of the ideas you try fail and so I would argue I failed my way to success.

Results! Why, man, I have gotten a lot of results. I know several thousand things that won't work.

Edison failed 10,000 times before he made the electric light. Do not be discouraged if you fail a few times.

For me, I'd rather be the inventive one, and if something doesn't work, I'll go back to the workshop, put it on the bench, and pound on it for awhile.

It would seem that the ant works its way tentatively, and, observing where it fails, tries another place and succeeds.

I haven't failed, I've found 10,000 ways that don't work.

An inventor is simply a person who doesn't take his education too seriously. He tries and fails maybe a 1000 times. If he succeeds once, then he's in.

One of the main reasons for success on the show is that we're not a demonstration show. We're an experimentation show.

Part of innovation is, fake it until you make it. Keep trying things, but it's not just the random trying.

Fall forward. Here's what I mean: Reggie Jackson struck out 2,600 times in his career - the most in the history of baseball. But you don't hear about the strikeouts. People remember the home runs. Fall forward. Thomas Edison conducted 1,000 failed experiments. Did you know that? I didn't either - because number 1,001 was the light bulb. Fall forward. Every failed experiment is one step closer to success.

None of my inventions came by accident. I see a worthwhile need to be met and I make trial after trial until it comes. What it boils down to is one per cent inspiration and ninety-nine per cent perspiration.

If the first plan which you adopt does not work successfully, replace it with a new plan; if this new plan fails to work, replace it in turn with still another, and so on, until you find a plan which does work. Right here is the point at which the majority of men meet with failure, because of their lack of persistence in creating new plans to take the place of those which fail.

It is most important in creative science not to give up. If you are an optimist you will be willing to "try" more than if you are a pessimist.

Exactly 5,126 attempts to make the first bagless vacuum cleaner were failures-some catastrophic disappointments, some minor defects. It took 15 years. Prototype 5,127 was the success ... Failure is painful, but it spurs on improvement like nothing else.

Nothing in life is worthwhile unless you take risks. Fall forward. Every failed experiment is one step closer to success.

The more times and the more different things you try, the more likely it is that you will succeed.

If failure is not an option, neither is success. Innovation is just repeated failure till you come up with something that works.

It's a failure only if you don't get anything out of it, Thomas Edison said he knew 999 ways that a light bulb did not work; yet we have lights today.

If you set your bar at 'amazing' it's awfully difficult to start. Your first paragraph, sketch, formula, sample or concept isn't going to be amazing. Your tenth one might not be either. Confronted with the gap between your vision of perfect and the reality of what you've created, the easiest path is no path. Shrug. Admit defeat. Hit delete. One more reason to follow someone else and wait for instructions. Of course, the only path to amazing runs directly through not-yet-amazing. But not-yet-amazing is a great place to start, because that's where you are.

If you are not successful, that means you're not making enough mistakes.

People ask me, "How do I succeed?" Whatever it is they do, I say, "Go and find 20 ways of messing it up. By 21, you'll be getting there." Life is an adventure, go back with cuts, scars and bruises.

(I) try new things and give myself permission to fail and experiment because only that way can you get really successful.