Credibly credited to Edison, but there is no primary source in his own hand and the smooth sentence people quote is not the documented wording. The whole story rests on one witness: the chemist M. A. Rosanoff, who published it in Harper’s Magazine in September 1932 — after Edison’s death — recalling an exchange at the West Orange laboratory around 1903, where he prints the reply in dialect as “Hell! there ain’t no rules around here! We are tryin’ to accomplish somep’n!”
“Hell, there are no rules here. We're trying to accomplish something” Attributed to Thomas Edison (1847–1931). Earliest documented account: M. A. Rosanoff, "Edison in His Laboratory," Harper's Magazine 165 (September 1932): 402–403, recalling an exchange at Edison's West Orange, New Jersey laboratory around 1903, where the reply is printed as "Hell! there ain't no rules around here! We are tryin' to accomplish somep'n!" The familiar polished wording is a later regularization, traced by Quote Investigator to Executive Speeches, October–November 1996. Via Quotle.info.
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In context
Evoking the world of Thomas Edison — American inventor & businessman. Theme: "Hell, there are no rules here. We're trying to accomplish something". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.
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Provenance
The one account everything traces back to
Reported in
Edison in His Laboratory
Published
Harper’s Magazine, September 1932 (vol. 165, pp. 402–403, per Quote Investigator)
Witness
M. A. Rosanoff (1874–1951), a chemist who joined Edison’s staff
Incident dated
around 1903, at the West Orange, New Jersey laboratory
“Mr. Edison, please tell me what laboratory rules you want me to observe.” “Hell! there ain’t no rules around here! We are tryin’ to accomplish somep’n!”
as reported in 1932
The question is how Rosanoff recalled putting it on joining the West Orange staff, as summarised on Wikiquote ↗; the reply is the wording Quote Investigator ↗ gives from the September 1932 Harper’s text. The sentence people quote today — “Hell, there are no rules here. We’re trying to accomplish something” — is a later regularization of it.
The earliest source located by Quote Investigator ↗ is M. A. Rosanoff’s article “Edison in His Laboratory” in Harper’s Magazine, September 1932 (vol. 165, pp. 402–403), describing an incident from around 1903. QI prints the words as “Hell! there ain’t no rules around here! We are tryin’ to accomplish somep’n!”
Wikiquote ↗ carries the same dialect wording in its 1900s section, citing Harper’s Monthly, September 1932, and supplies the scene: Rosanoff joined the West Orange, New Jersey team in 1903 and asked which laboratory rules he should observe.
Quote Investigator’s chronology ↗ then follows the line through a 1947 New York Times piece by Waldemar Kaempffert, a December 1959 Popular Science retelling that keeps the dialect, and an Executive Speeches item of October–November 1996 in which the phrasing is regularized to the familiar modern sentence.
The witness was real: Martin André Rosanoff ↗ (1874–1951) was a Russian-American chemist known for the Fischer–Rosanoff convention — though his Wikipedia biography makes no mention of Edison, and no Edison-side record of the exchange has surfaced.
The only documented text of this remark sits inside a magazine article first published in September 1932, which falls on the in-copyright side of the pre-1931 line this site uses; its precise US status would turn on whether the 1932 issue’s copyright was renewed, which we have not verified, so we treat it conservatively as protected. The familiar modern wording is later still — Quote Investigator traces it to a 1996 publication. Edison’s spoken words are not themselves a published work, but every version in circulation descends from copyrighted print, so we quote only the short passage needed to document the attribution.
Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.
Fact-check
What actually gets misquoted here
Nobody is stealing this line from another author — every version Quote Investigator found credits Edison. What goes wrong is the wording, the place, and the confidence with which it is presented as documented fact.
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WordingThe polished modern sentence later cleanup
“Hell, there are no rules here. We’re trying to accomplish something” is not what the 1932 article prints. Quote Investigator ↗ gives the Harper’s text as “Hell! there ain’t no rules around here! We are tryin’ to accomplish somep’n!” and traces the regularized phrasing to an Executive Speeches item of October–November 1996.
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SettingMenlo Park wrong laboratory
The line is routinely staged at Menlo Park — that is how the reader who wrote in to Quote Investigator ↗ had encountered it, and QI’s investigation does not support that setting. Wikiquote ↗ places the exchange at West Orange, New Jersey in 1903, and Rutgers dates the founding of the West Orange laboratory ↗ to 1887 — so a 1903 conversation was not a Menlo Park one.
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Evidence“Edison famously said” single witness
It is presented as settled, but it is one man’s recollection. Quote Investigator ↗ states that the correctness of the quotation rests on the accuracy of M. A. Rosanoff’s memory, and adds only that if the incident occurred it was probably quite memorable for him.
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TimingQuoted as if Edison confirmed it published posthumously
Edison died on 18 October 1931 (Wikipedia ↗) and the account appeared in Harper’s Magazine in September 1932 (Quote Investigator ↗). He was never in a position to confirm or deny it.
✓The remark is genuinely Edison’s so far as anyone can show — but it survives only through the chemist M. A. Rosanoff, in Harper’s Magazine, September 1932, in dialect, about an exchange around 1903. The tidy sentence quoted today is a twentieth-century paraphrase of that one account, traced by Quote Investigator ↗ to 1996.
Context
Why the line stuck
Edison’s West Orange complex, begun in 1887, was one of the first places where invention was organised as an industry rather than practised as a craft — machine shops, a chemical lab, a library and manufacturing on a single site. A newly hired chemist asking which rules applied was asking a perfectly sensible question of a workplace that looked, from the outside, like a factory.
The reply became famous because it inverts the expectation: the most systematic inventor in America is made to say that system is beside the point. That is why the line has had a long second life in management writing and startup culture — and also why it kept getting tidied up. A boss barking in dialect and spitting on the floor is an anecdote; a crisp epigram is a slide.
The most systematic inventor in America, quoted as saying that systems are beside the point.
How the wording drifted
Quote Investigator’s chronology runs: the 1932 Harper’s account in dialect; a partial version in a 1947 New York Times piece by Waldemar Kaempffert; a 1959 Popular Science retelling that keeps the dialect spellings; and a 1996 Executive Speeches item in which the phrasing is regularized to the version circulating today.
Each step removes texture and adds polish. Nothing in that chain is a new piece of evidence about what Edison said — it is the same single 1932 recollection being restated, so the modern wording is best read as a paraphrase of Rosanoff, not as a second source.
Explore
Filed under
More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.
Thomas Edison (1847–1931) was an American inventor and businessman whose phonograph, motion-picture and electric-light work made him the most famous technologist of his age. In 1887 he began a far larger laboratory complex at West Orange, New Jersey — a facility the Rutgers Edison Papers project describes as unsurpassed until the twentieth century, combining workshops, library and manufacturing on one site. It is that lab, not the earlier Menlo Park one, that the “no rules” story is set in.
For writers & researchers
Cite this
Earliest documented account
M. A. Rosanoff, “Edison in His Laboratory,” Harper’s Magazine 165 (September 1932): 402–403 — the earliest source located by Quote Investigator, where the reply is printed as “Hell! there ain’t no rules around here! We are tryin’ to accomplish somep’n!” The familiar regularized wording is traced by Quote Investigator to Executive Speeches 11, no. 2 (October–November 1996).
This verification page
Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Hell, there are no rules here. We're trying to accomplish something’?” Last verified 4 Aug 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/hell-there-are-no-rules-here-were-trying-to-accomplish/