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Who really said it

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

Not Thomas Edison — an unsourced attribution No verified author Credited to Thomas Edison (1847–1931) · earliest located printing: January 1981
Disputed — endlessly reprinted, but no printing has been found in Edison’s lifetime. Rights unconfirmed

Wikiquote files this two-sentence line under Disputed: the earliest appearance anyone has located is The A-V Magazine Vol. 89, No. 1 (January 1981), p. 18 — almost half a century after Edison died in 1931 — with a second printing in Jon Wynne-Tyson’s The Extended Circle (1985). The citation that usually travels with it, “Harper’s Magazine (1890),” has never been substantiated: Wikiquote records that no occurrence prior to the 1981 appearance has been located ↗.

Last verified 4 Aug 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

For presentations

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Disputed credit — copy with the correction

“Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution” Unverified. "Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages." — no printing has been located before The A-V Magazine, January 1981, almost fifty years after Thomas Edison died in 1931. Wikiquote files it under Disputed; the usual "Harper's Magazine, 1890" citation is unsubstantiated. — Quotle.info

The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to Thomas Edison. Use the credit shown above instead.

Can you use it?

We couldn’t verify where this wording comes from, so there’s no rights status to give. Safe to present as an unverified or anonymous line — just don’t assert a specific author or source.

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In context

Evoking the themes of character, growth and kindness. Theme: "Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution". 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.

Minimalist

Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Provenance

Where the quote actually comes from

Earliest located printing
The A-V Magazine, Vol. 89, No. 1 (January 1981), p. 18
Reprinted in
The Extended Circle: A Dictionary of Humane Thought (Fontwell: Centaur Press, 1985), p. 75
Commonly cited to
Harper’s Magazine (1890) — unverified; no occurrence located
Status
Disputed attribution to Thomas Edison (1847–1931)

Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages. No primary source located

There is no fuller original context to show, because no original has been found. This is the complete two-sentence form as Wikiquote records it under Disputed ↗; the first sentence often circulates alone.

Wikiquote: Thomas Edison — Disputed

How we verified this

No status is asserted here. The wording cannot be tied to any identified author or to a specific first publication — the earliest located printing is a January 1981 magazine, and whoever composed the sentence is unknown. Because the origin is unknown, this page makes no public-domain claim; anyone reproducing the line should treat its status as unresolved.

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

How this became an Edison quote

This is a textbook name-magnet quote: a clean, quotable moral claim with a famous name bolted on and a plausible-sounding citation that dissolves the moment you check it.

Thomas Edison Disputed

Wikiquote lists it under Disputed ↗ and states that no occurrence has been located prior to a January 1981 printing — long after Edison’s death on 18 October 1931. No letter, notebook, interview or published article of his has been produced.

“Harper’s Magazine, 1890” Unverified

The quote is frequently reprinted with this source. Wikiquote records the citation and flags that no occurrence prior to 1981 has been located ↗ — so the 1890 reference is repeated, not demonstrated.

The Extended Circle (1985) Repeater, not origin

Jon Wynne-Tyson’s dictionary of humane thought ↗ printed the line on p. 75 and gave it the authority of a reference book, but it post-dates the 1981 magazine appearance and is not an independent witness to Edison.

Edison the friend of animals In tension with the record

During the war of the currents, Harold Brown electrocuted four calves and a lame horse with alternating current at Edison’s West Orange laboratory on 5 December 1888, with Edison looking on ↗.

The honest answer: nobody knows who wrote it. The oldest copy anyone has found is a January 1981 anti-vivisection magazine ↗, and until an earlier source surfaces the line should not be quoted as Edison’s.

Context

Why this one spread

The sentence is built to travel. It opens with an abstraction almost nobody argues with (“non-violence leads to the highest ethics”), ties it to evolution — which sounds scientific — and closes with a one-word verdict on anyone who disagrees: savages. Bolt on the name of America’s most famous inventor and you have a line that reads as though a hard-headed man of science arrived at compassion by reasoning rather than sentiment.

Its documented life begins in the animal-advocacy press. The earliest printing anyone has located is the January 1981 issue of The A-V Magazine, the quarterly of the American Anti-Vivisection Society ↗; the second located printing is Jon Wynne-Tyson’s 1985 anthology The Extended Circle ↗, which gave the line reference-book standing. Search the Internet Archive’s book corpus today and the sentence surfaces only in modern books — vegan, animal-welfare and quotation titles predominate — with nothing predating 1981, let alone an Edison-era text.

The oldest copy anyone can find is younger than the Walkman.

The awkward part: Edison and the animals

The quote asks readers to stop harming other living beings. Edison’s best-documented dealings with animals were the opposite. In the late-1880s war of the currents, electrical engineer Harold Brown set out to prove alternating current was lethal; he approached Edison, who offered assistance, and Brown was given space, equipment and a laboratory assistant at Edison’s West Orange laboratory.

On 5 December 1888, in that laboratory and with Edison looking on ↗, Brown killed four calves and a lame horse with 750 volts of AC. That does not by itself prove Edison could never have written the quoted sentence decades later — people change — but it is a reason to want a real source before putting these words in his mouth, and no real source exists.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Character Growth Kindness

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Wikiquote: Thomas Edison (Disputed)en.wikiquote.org

The anchor source. Lists this exact two-sentence line under Disputed, cites the January 1981 A-V Magazine and the 1985 Extended Circle, and notes that no occurrence prior to 1981 has been located.
The Extended Circle: A Dictionary of Humane Thought (1985)archive.org

Jon Wynne-Tyson’s anthology (Fontwell: Centaur, 1985), the second located printing, and the one that gave the line reference-book standing. Borrowable scan at the Internet Archive.
Full-text search: “Until we stop harming all other living beings”openlibrary.org

Searches inside the Internet Archive’s scanned books. Every hit is a modern book — vegan, animal-welfare and quotation titles predominate — and nothing predates 1981, let alone Edison’s era.
Wikipedia: War of the currentsen.wikipedia.org

Documents Harold Brown’s animal electrocutions at Edison’s West Orange laboratory on 5 December 1888, with Edison present — context that sits awkwardly against the quoted sentiment.
AV Magazine, American Anti-Vivisection Societyaavs.org

The quarterly whose January 1981 issue is the earliest located printing of the quote. Confirms the publication and its publisher.
Wikipedia: Jon Wynne-Tysonen.wikipedia.org

Background on the compiler of The Extended Circle (1924–2020; founder of Centaur Press, 1954), who received the 1985 Animal Rights Writing Award from the International Society for Animal Rights.

The author

About Thomas Edison

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.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Earliest located printing

Earliest located printing: The A-V Magazine 89, no. 1 (January 1981): 18, as recorded in Wikiquote, “Thomas Edison — Disputed”; reprinted in Jon Wynne-Tyson, The Extended Circle: A Dictionary of Humane Thought (Fontwell: Centaur Press, 1985), 75. The commonly repeated citation to Harper’s Magazine (1890) is unverified; no occurrence prior to the 1981 appearance has been located. Attribution to Thomas Edison disputed.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution’?” Last verified 4 Aug 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/non-violence-leads-to-the-highest-ethics-which-is-the-goal/

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