Thomas Edison

1847–1931 · American inventor & businessman

Thomas Alva Edison was an American inventor and businessman, born 11 February 1847 and dead on 18 October 1931 — the man behind the phonograph, the commercial incandescent lamp and the Menlo Park and West Orange research laboratories. Nothing in the documented record shows him writing or speaking about non-violence toward animals, and the best-known animal episode of his career runs the other way: during the war of the currents, Harold Brown electrocuted four calves and a lame horse with 750 volts of alternating current at Edison’s West Orange laboratory on 5 December 1888, with Edison looking on. The line quoted here is a modern arrival that borrows his name, not a sentiment he is known to have expressed.

Traced to source

13 quotes we’ve traced to Thomas Edison

“Books will soon be obsolete in the schools”

Verified

“Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration”

Verified

“Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration”

Verified

“Hell, there are no rules here. We're trying to accomplish something”

Attributed

“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”

Attributed

“Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up”

Attributed

“You don't understand our American humor”

Attributed

“Everything comes to him who hustles while he waits”

Disputed

“I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work”

Disputed

“Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution”

Disputed

“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work”

Disputed

“There is no substitute for hard work”

Disputed

“We will make electricity so cheap that only the rich will burn candles”

Disputed

Not actually Thomas Edison

Often misattributed to Thomas Edison

Famous lines widely pinned on Thomas Edison that we’ve traced to someone else.

“Everything comes to him who hustles while he waits”

actually Unknown

“I am much less interested in what is called God's word than in God's deeds”

actually John Burroughs

“Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution”

actually No verified author

“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work”

actually Unknown — an anonymous American adage

“There is no expedient to which a man will not go to avoid the labor of thinking”

actually Sir Joshua Reynolds

“There is no substitute for hard work”

actually Unknown

“When you've exhausted all possibilities, remember this: you haven't”

actually Robert H. Schuller

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Thought Thomas Edison said something else?

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