Thomas A. Edison Quotes

I never once made a discovery ... I speak without exaggeration that I have constructed three thousand different theories in connection with the electric light ... Yet in only two cases did my experiments prove the truth of my theory.

Don't be afraid to stumble. Any inventor will tell you that you don't follow a plan far before you strike a snag. If, out of 100 ideas you get one that works, it's enough.

The Wright brothers committed themselves to do what no one else had ever done before. They took time to do their homework. They were humble and smart enough to appreciate and learn about the work of others who went before. And they tackled the problem line upon line, precept upon precept.

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.

I made 5,127 prototypes of my vaccum before I got it right. There were 5,126 failures. But I learned from each one. That’s how I came up with a solution. So I don’t mind failure.

Try out your ideas by visualizing them in action.

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.

Ideas must be put to the test. That's why we make things, otherwise they would be no more than ideas. There is often a huge difference between an idea and its realisation. I've had what I thought were great ideas that just didn't work.

Never bet against science!

When you're sitting in the basement trying to get on, you have no choice - you've gotta figure out how to make a song: 'I've gotta bang on these buttons until it sounds good.'

The only thing that was in my mind when we made that first phone call was, 'Is it going to work?' We had all these parts hand soldered together, engineers standing by with the soldering iron - just in case.

I really love picking up subjects where people say, 'How is this going to work?' and trying to find a way to make it work because every story needs to be told.

Washington is no place in which to carry out inventions

Mr. Edison worked endlessly on a problem, using the method of elimination. If a person asked him if he were discouraged because so many attempts proved unavailing, he would say, "No, I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward.".

Well it took many years. I started with many ideas, threw them away, started all over again. And eventually it evolved into what you see today at Disneyland

If there's something you want to build, but the tech isn't there yet, just find the closest possible way to make it happen.

Prototyping is the conversation you have with your ideas.

Invention, my dear friends, is 93% perspiration, 6% electricity, 4% evaporation, and 2% butterscotch ripple

Just build things and find out if they work.

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.

To be an inventor, you have to be willing to live with a sense of uncertainty, to work in this darkness and grope towards an answer, to put up with anxiety about whether there is an answer.

I'm pretty confident the why works now. When it first began, somebody said to me: "Will this work in big business?" I said, "I don't know. Let's try." Somebody said will this work in entrepreneurs, relationships or government and military. I said, "I don't know. Let's try." I kept applying the scientific method. I had a theory. I kept applying that theory, looking for opportunities to fail and it kept working.

I’ve never been certain whether the moral of the Icarus story should only be, as is generally accepted, ‘don’t try to fly too high,’ or whether it might also be thought of as ‘forget the wax and feathers, and do a better job on the wings.