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I was always afraid of things that worked the first time. Long experience proved that there were great drawbacks found generally before they could be got commercial but here was something there was no doubt of.

Thomas A. Edison

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Thomas A. Edison
Age: 84 †
Born: 1847
Born: February 11
Died: 1931
Died: October 18
Businessperson
Engineer
Entrepreneur
Film Director
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Lighting Designer
Mathematician
Physicist
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Milan
Ohio
Thomas A. Edison
Thomas Edison
Edison Thomas Alva
Something
Success
Always
Experience
Drawbacks
Things
Science
Proved
Time
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Commercial
Firsts
Generally
First
Worked
Great
Afraid
Long
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More quotes by Thomas A. Edison

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Smoking too much makes me nervous. Must lasso my natural tendency to acquire such habits. Holding heavy cigar constantly in my mouth has deformed my upper lip, it has a sort of Havana curl.
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Of all my inventions, I liked the phonograph best
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Show me a thoroughly satisfied man - and I will show you a failure.
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The reason a lot of people do not recognize opportunity is because it usually goes around wearing overalls looking like hard work.
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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.
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Absorb ideas from every source.
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Radio is just a fashion contrivance that will soon die out. It is obvious that there never will be invented a proper receiver!
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We are like tenant farmers chopping down the fence around our house for fuel when we should be using Nature's inexhaustible sources of energy - sun, wind and tide. ... I'd put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don't have to wait until oil and coal run out before we tackle that.
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A diamond is a piece of coal that stuck to the job
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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.
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I have not failed 700 times. I have not failed once. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work.
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I consider Paine our greatest political thinker. As we have not advanced, and perhaps never shall advance, beyond the Declaration and Constitution, so Paine has had no successors who extended his principles.
Thomas A. Edison
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I find out what the world needs. Then I go ahead and try to invent it
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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.
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Work while others are wishing.
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Success is the product of the severest kind of mental and physical application.
Thomas A. Edison
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I know this world is ruled by Infinite Intelligence. It required Infinite Intelligence to create it and it requires Infinite Intelligence to keep it on its course ... It is mathematical in its precision.
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I will not say I failed 1000 times, I will say that I discovered there are 1000 ways that can cause failure
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Focus on how the end-user customers perceive the impact of your innovation - rather than on how you, the innovators, perceive it.
Thomas A. Edison
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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.
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