Thomas A. Edison

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.".

It is remarkable to what lengths people will go to avoid thought.

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.

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.

As Danand Ian over at the Lifestyle Business Podcast say: Rush to failure.

Every failure is a lesson learned about your strategy.

I never did anything worth doing entirely by accident. . . Almost none of my inventions came about totally by accident. They were achieved by having trained myself to endure and tolerate hard work.

I never perfected an invention that I did not think about in terms of the service it might give others... I find out what the world needs, then I proceed to invent.

The successful person makes a habit of doing what the failing person doesn't like to do.

An idea is something that won't work unless you do.

The first requisite for success is to develop the ability to focus and apply your mental and physical energies to the problem at hand - without growing weary. Because such thinking is often difficult, there seems to be no limit to which some people will go to avoid the effort and labor that is associated with it.

Before you reject an idea, find at least five good things about it.

I have far more respect for the person with a single idea who gets there than for the person with a thousand ideas who does nothing.

For faith, as well intentioned as it may be, must be built on facts, not fiction - faith in fiction is a damnable false hope.

I make more mistakes than anyone else I know, and sooner or later, I patent most of them.

I am 67, but I'm not too old to make a fresh start.

I never failed once. It just happened to be a 2000-step process.

There is far more opportunity than there is ability.

Genius is 1 percent inspiration, 99 percent perspiration.

We haven't failed. We now know a thousand things that won't work, so we are much closer to finding what will.

Somewhere between the ages of eleven and fifteen, the average child begins to suffer from an atrophy, the paralysis of curiosity and the suspension of the power to observe. The trouble, I should judge, to lie with the schools.