• Science
    Quotes
  • What's
    New
  • Science
    Stories
  • Chemistry
    Stories
  • Perpetual
    Motion
  • Newsletter
    Sign-up
  • Search
    search icon
  • Feedback
    email icon
  • Home
  • Text Menu
  • Science Store
  • News
  • Wall Calendar
  • Survey
  • Privacy
  • Terms of Use
TODAYINSCI ®

Find science on your birthday
TODAY IN SCIENCE HISTORY
Follow @todayinsci
Home > Dictionary of Science Quotations > Scientist Names Index E > Thomas Edison Quotes

Thumbnail of Thomas Edison (source)
Thomas Edison
(11 Feb 1847 - 18 Oct 1931)

American inventor who was known internationally as “the Wizard of Menlo Park,” for the huge number of innovations coming from there, the world's first industrial research laboratory.

Short biography of Thomas Edison >>

Science Quotes by Thomas Edison (14 quotes)

Thomas Edison - head and shoulders - colorization © todayinsci.com
Thomas Edison
colorization © todayinsci.com (source)
Genius is two percent inspiration, ninety-eight percent perspiration.
— Thomas Edison
Francis Arthur Jones, The Life of Thomas Alva Edison: Sixty Years of an Inventor's Life (1932), 371.
Science quotes on:  |  Genius (79)  |  Motto (11)

I am afraid of radium and polonium ... I don't want to monkey with them.
— Thomas Edison
Quoted in 'Edison Fears Hidden Perils of the X-Rays', New York World (3 Aug 1903), 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Experiment (348)  |  Fear (47)  |  Monkey (24)  |  Polonium (5)  |  Radium (13)

I have a peculiar theory about radium, and I believe it is the correct one. I believe that there is some mysterious ray pervading the universe that is fluorescing to it. In other words, that all its energy is not self-constructed but that there is a mysterious something in the atmosphere that scientists have not found that is drawing out those infinitesimal atoms and distributing them forcefully and indestructibly.
— Thomas Edison
Quoted in 'Edison Fears Hidden Perils of the X-Rays', New York World (3 Aug 1903), 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Atmosphere (36)  |  Atom (157)  |  Distribution (14)  |  Energy (89)  |  Mystery (65)  |  Radium (13)  |  Ray (16)  |  Theory (319)  |  Universe (249)

I told [Kruesi] I was going to record talking, and then have the machine talk back. He thought it absurd. However, it was finished, the foil was put on; I then shouted 'Mary had a little lamb', etc. I adjusted the reproducer, and the machine reproduced it perfectly.
On first wards spoken on a phonograph.
— Thomas Edison
Byron M. Vanderbilt, Thomas Edison, Chemist (1971), 99.
Science quotes on:  |  Invention (146)  |  Phonograph (4)

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.
[Recalling astonishment when his tin-foil cylinder phonograph first played back his voice recording of “Mary had a little lamb.”]
— Thomas Edison
Quoted in Frank Lewis Dyer, Thomas Commerford Martin, Edison: His Life and Inventions (1910), 208.
Science quotes on:  |  Afraid (6)  |  Commercial (8)  |  Doubt (57)  |  Experience (115)  |  Invention (146)  |  Phonograph (4)  |  Success (94)

It has been just so in all my inventions. The first step is an intuition—and comes with a burst, then difficulties arise. This thing that gives out and then that—“Bugs”as such little faults and difficulties are called show themselves and months of anxious watching, study and labor are requisite before commercial success—or failure—is certainly reached.
[Describing his invention of a storage battery that involved 10,296 experiments. Note Edison's use of the term “Bug” in the engineering research field for a mechanical defect greatly predates the use of the term as applied by Admiral Grace Murray Hopper to a computing defect upon finding a moth in the electronic mainframe.]
— Thomas Edison
Letter to Theodore Puskas (18 Nov 1878). In The Yale Book of Quotations (2006), 226.
Science quotes on:  |  Anxiety (5)  |  Bug (2)  |  Burst (11)  |  Commercial (8)  |  Difficulty (59)  |  Failure (52)  |  Fault (13)  |  Invention (146)  |  Labour (21)  |  Reach (22)  |  Study (119)  |  Success (94)  |  Watch (15)

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.
— Thomas Edison
From the New York Herald (30 Jan 1879), as cited in Leslie Tomory, 'Building the First Gas Network, 1812-1820', Technology and Culture (Jan 2011), 52, No. 1, 75-102.
Science quotes on:  |  Bet (4)  |  Coal (18)  |  Different (9)  |  Discovered (2)  |  Experiment (348)  |  Gas (29)  |  Heat (47)  |  Introduce (3)  |  Laboratory (67)  |  Light (102)  |  Lighting (3)  |  New York (3)  |  Pipe (3)  |  Practical (18)  |  Prove (3)  |  Stem (6)  |  System (58)  |  Tomorrow (11)  |  Year (38)

Oh these mathematicians make me tired! When you ask them to work out a sum they take a piece of paper, cover it with rows of A's, B's, and X's and Y's ... scatter a mess of flyspecks over them, and then give you an answer that's all wrong!
— Thomas Edison
Matthew Josephson, Edison (1959), 283.
Science quotes on:  |  Algebra (20)  |  Mathematician (95)

Problems in human engineering will receive during the coming years the same genius and attention which the nineteenth century gave to the more material forms of engineering.
We have laid good foundations for industrial prosperity, now we want to assure the happiness and growth of the workers through vocational education, vocational guidance, and wisely managed employment departments. A great field for industrial experimentation and statemanship is opening up.
— Thomas Edison
Letter printed in Engineering Magazine (Jan 1917), cover. Quoted in an article by Meyer Bloomfield, 'Relation of Foremen to the Working Force', reproduced in Daniel Bloomfield, Selected Articles on Employment Management (1919), 301.
Science quotes on:  |  Attention (30)  |  Engineering (53)  |  Genius (79)  |  Human (131)

The injurious agent in cigarettes comes principally from the burning paper wrapper. The substance thereby formed is called “acrolein.” It has a violent action on the nerve centers, producing degeneration of the cells of the brain, which is quite rapid among boys. Unlike most narcotics, this degeneration is permanent and uncontrollable. I employ no person who smokes cigarettes.
[From the Laboratory of Thomas A. Edison, Orange, N.J., April 26, 1914.]
— Thomas Edison
Quoted in Henry Ford, The Case Against the Little White Slaver (1914), Vol. 1, 5.
Science quotes on:  |  Action (50)  |  Agent (11)  |  Boy (13)  |  Brain (100)  |  Burning (12)  |  Cell (74)  |  Cigarette (16)  |  Employment (13)  |  Formation (29)  |  Injury (8)  |  Nerve (50)  |  Paper (20)  |  Permanent (3)  |  Person (21)  |  Rapidity (13)  |  Smoker (2)  |  Substance (33)  |  Violence (3)

Until man duplicates a blade of grass, nature can laugh at his so-called scientific knowledge.
— Thomas Edison
Seen in several books, attributed without citation, for example, in Ann Wimore, The Wheatgrass Book (1985). If you know a primary source, please contact Webmaster.
Science quotes on:  |  Blade (3)  |  Grass (5)  |  Knowledge (595)  |  Laughter (10)  |  Nature (477)  |  Science (756)  |  So-Called (5)

We are like tenant farmers chopping down the fence around our house for fuel when we should be using Natures 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.
— Thomas Edison
Edison in conversation Henry Ford and Harvey Firestone (1931), quoted as a recollection of the author, in James Newton, Uncommon Friends: Life with Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Harvey Firestone, Alexis Carrel & Charles Lindbergh (1987), 31. The quote is not cited from a print source. However, in the introduction the author said he “kept a diary in which I noted times and places, key phrases, and vivid impressions.” He also “relied on publications by and about my friends, which jogged my memory.” Webmaster has found no earlier record of this quote, and thus suggests the author may have the gist of what Edison said, but is not quoting the exact words uttered by Edison, although quote marks are used to state what Edison said.
Science quotes on:  |  Bet (4)  |  Coal (18)  |  Energy (89)  |  Farmer (9)  |  Fence (6)  |  Fuel (14)  |  House (18)  |  Inexhaustible (4)  |  Money (82)  |  Oil (16)  |  Power (73)  |  Solar Energy (12)  |  Source (26)  |  Sun (99)  |  Tide (7)  |  Wait (13)  |  Wind (24)

What we call man is a mechanism made up of … uncrystallized matter … all the colloid matter of his mechanism is concentrated in a countless number of small cells. … [T]hese cells [are] dwelling places, communes, a walled town within which are many citizens. ... [T]hese are the units of life and when they pass out into space man as we think we know him is dead, a mere machine from which the crew have left,so to speak. ... [T]hese units are endowed with great intelligence. They have memories, they must be divided into countless thousands of groups, most are workers, there are directing groups. Some are chemists, they manufacture the most complicated chemicals that are secreted by the glands.
— Thomas Edison
Diary and Sundry Observations of Thomas Alva Edison (1948), 203-44. In Mark Seltzer, Serial Killers (1998), 215-6.
Science quotes on:  |  Cell (74)  |  Chemical (25)  |  Colloid (5)  |  Gland (6)  |  Intelligence (65)  |  Life (381)  |  Machine (48)  |  Man (239)  |  Manufacture (3)  |  Memory (35)  |  Secretion (3)

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.
— Thomas Edison
Quoted in 'Edison Fears Hidden Perils of the X-Rays', New York World (3 Aug 1903), 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Arm (3)  |  Experiment (348)  |  Fear (47)  |  Injury (8)  |  Loss (37)  |  Stop (17)  |  X-ray (13)



Quotes by others about Thomas Edison (6)

The attitude which the man in the street unconsciously adopts towards science is capricious and varied. At one moment he scorns the scientist for a highbrow, at another anathematizes him for blasphemously undermining his religion; but at the mention of a name like Edison he falls into a coma of veneration. When he stops to think, he does recognize, however, that the whole atmosphere of the world in which he lives is tinged by science, as is shown most immediately and strikingly by our modern conveniences and material resources. A little deeper thinking shows him that the influence of science goes much farther and colors the entire mental outlook of modern civilised man on the world about him.
— Percy W. Bridgman
Reflections of a Physicist (1950), 81.
Science quotes on:  |  Civilization (77)  |  Men Of Science (88)  |  Religion (101)

When I examine the conclusion [on experiments with the electric light bulb experiments published in the Herald] which everyone acquainted with the subject will recognize as a conspicuous failure, trumpeted as a wonderful success, I [conclude]... that the writer ... must either be very ignorant, and the victim of deceit, or a conscious accomplice in what is nothing less than a fraud upon the public.
— Henry Morton
Letter to the Sanitary Engineer (22 Dec 1880). Quoted in Charles Bazermanl, The Languages of Edison's Light (2002), 186.
Science quotes on:  |  Failure (52)  |  Sucess (2)

Mr. Thomas A. Edison recently came into this office, placed a little machine on our desk, turned a crank, and the machine enquired as to our health, asked how we liked the phonograph, informed us that it was well, and bid us a cordial good night. These remarks were not only perfectly audible to ourselves, but to a dozen or more persons gathered around.
— Alfred Beach
Scientific American (22 Dec 1877). Quoted in By John Henry Pepper, The Boy's Playbook of Science, Revised (1881), 251.
Science quotes on:  |  Invention (146)  |  Phonograph (4)

If Thomas Edison had gone to business school, we would all be reading by larger candles.
— Mark McCormack
What They Don't Teach You at Harvard Business School (1984).
Science quotes on:  |  Candle (9)  |  Reading (22)

Mr Edison gave America just what was needed at that moment in history. They say that when people think of me, they think of my assembly line. Mr. Edison, you built an assembly line which brought together the genius of invention, science and industry.
— Henry Ford
Henry Ford in conversation Thomas Edison and Harvey Firestone (1931), quoted as a recollection of the author, in James Newton, Uncommon Friends: Life with Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Harvey Firestone, Alexis Carrel & Charles Lindbergh (1987), 31. The quote is not cited from a print source. However, in the introduction the author said he “kept a diary in which I noted times and places, key phrases, and vivid impressions.” He also “relied on publications by and about my friends, which jogged my memory.&rdquo. Webmaster has found no earlier record of this quote, and thus suggests the author may have the gist of what Ford said, but is not quoting the exact words uttered by Ford, although quote marks are used to state Ford's remark.
Science quotes on:  |  Assembly Line (2)  |  Genius (79)  |  Industry (42)  |  Invention (146)  |  Science (756)

Is science visionary? Is it not the hardest-headed intellectual discipline we know? How, then, does science look at this universe? Always as a bundle of possibilities. Habitually the scientist looks at this universe and every area in it as a bundle of possibilities, with no telling what might come if we fulfilled the conditions. Thomas Edison was no dreamer. He was a seer. The possibilities that he brought out were factually there. They were there before he saw them. They would have been there if he never had seen them. Always the possibilities are part of the actualities in any given situation.
— Harry Emerson Fosdick
In 'Don't Lose Faith in Human Possibilities', collected in Living Under Tension: Sermons On Christianity Today (1941), 15.
Science quotes on:  |  Actuality (3)  |  Bundle (4)  |  Condition (53)  |  Discipline (13)  |  Dreamer (3)  |  Fulfill (2)  |  Intellectual (9)  |  Look (25)  |  Possibility (59)  |  Science (756)  |  Scientist (187)  |  Situation (19)  |  Universe (249)


See also:
  • todayinsci icon 11 Feb - short biography, births, deaths and events on date of Edison's birth.
  • todayinsci icon First Edison Lamp Factory - Edisonia (1904)
  • todayinsci icon 1 Oct - short biography, births, deaths and events on date of opening of Edison's Menlo Park lamp factory.
  • book icon Edison: A Biography, by Matthew Josephson. - book suggestion.
  • booklist icon Booklist for Thomas Edison.


Carl Sagan Thumbnail At the heart of science is an essential balance between two seemingly contradictory attitudes--an openness to new ideas, no matter how bizarre or counterintuitive they may be, and the most ruthless skeptical scrutiny of all ideas, old and new. This is how deep truths are winnowed from deep nonsense. -- Carl Sagan

More quotes:     Name Index    Isaac Newton    Lord Kelvin    Charles Darwin    Albert Einstein    Aristotle    Michio Kaku    Srinivasa Ramanujan    Carl Sagan    Florence Nightingale    Atomic  Bomb    Biology    Chemistry    Deforestation    Engineering

Sitewide search within all Today In Science History pages:
Custom Quotations Search - custom search within only our quotations pages:


Visit our Science and Scientist Quotations index for more Science Quotes from archaeologists, biologists, chemists, geologists, inventors and inventions, mathematicians, physicists, pioneers in medicine, science events and technology.

Names index: | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z |

Categories index: | 1 | 2 | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z |



Please add a link from your own site or blog if you find this site useful.
Author Icon by Ian Ellis
who invites your feedback
Thank you for sharing the site with Tweets, Facebook and Stumble Upon.






Explore 100 Famous Scientist Quotes Pages

Click above to expand
- 100 -
Sophie Germain
Gertrude Elion
Ernest Rutherford
James Chadwick
Marcel Proust
William Harvey
Johann Goethe
John Keynes
Carl Gauss
Paul Feyerabend
- 90 -
Antoine Lavoisier
Lise Meitner
Charles Babbage
Ibn Khaldun
Euclid
Ralph Emerson
Robert Bunsen
Frederick Banting
Andre Ampere
Winston Churchill
- 80 -
John Locke
Bronislaw Malinowski
Bible
Thomas Huxley
Alessandro Volta
Erwin Schrodinger
Wilhelm Roentgen
Louis Pasteur
Bertrand Russell
Jean Lamarck
- 70 -
Samuel Morse
John Wheeler
Nicolaus Copernicus
Robert Fulton
Pierre Laplace
Humphry Davy
Thomas Edison
Lord Kelvin
Theodore Roosevelt
Carolus Linnaeus
- 60 -
Francis Galton
Linus Pauling
Immanuel Kant
Martin Fischer
Robert Boyle
Karl Popper
Paul Dirac
Avicenna
James Watson
William Shakespeare
- 50 -
Stephen Hawking
Niels Bohr
Nikola Tesla
Rachel Carson
Max Planck
Henry Adams
Richard Dawkins
Werner Heisenberg
Alfred Wegener
John Dalton
- 40 -
Pierre Fermat
Edward Wilson
Johannes Kepler
Gustave Eiffel
Giordano Bruno
JJ Thomson
Thomas Kuhn
Leonardo DaVinci
Archimedes
David Hume
- 30 -
Andreas Vesalius
Rudolf Virchow
Richard Feynman
James Hutton
Alexander Fleming
Emile Durkheim
Benjamin Franklin
Robert Oppenheimer
Robert Hooke
Charles Kettering
- 20 -
Carl Sagan
James Maxwell
Marie Curie
Rene Descartes
Francis Crick
Hippocrates
Michael Faraday
Srinivasa Ramanujan
Francis Bacon
Galileo Galilei
- 10 -
Aristotle
John Watson
Rosalind Franklin
Michio Kaku
Isaac Asimov
Charles Darwin
Sigmund Freud
Albert Einstein
Florence Nightingale
Isaac Newton

Scroll above for more
Scientist Quotes Index
Today in Science History ©  1999 - 2013 by Todayinsci ®