Thomas A. Edison Ideas Quotations

Because ideas have to be original only with regard to their adaptation to the problem at hand, I am always extremely interested in how others have used used them....

Ideas without execution are hallucinations.

I have not failed. I have successfully discovered 1200 ideas that don't work.

The beauty of a great idea lies in the art of using it.

Because I readily absorb ideas from every source - frequently starting where the last person left off - I never pick up an item without thinking of how I might improve it.

To get a great idea, come up with lots of them.

Keep on the lookout for novel ideas that others have used successfully. Your idea has to be original only in its adaptation to the problem you're working on.

Absorb ideas from every source.

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....

I am more of a sponge than an inventor. I absorb ideas from every source. I take half-matured schemes for mechanical development and make them practical. I am a sort of a middleman between the long-haired and impractical inventor and the hard-headed business man who measures all things in terms of dollars and cents. My principal business is giving commercial value to the brilliant but misdirected ideas of others.

I am not overly impressed by the great names and reputations of those who might be trying to beat me to an invention. It's their 'ideas' that appeal to me. I am quite correctly described as 'more of a sponge than an inventor

My principal business is giving commercial value to the brilliant - but misdirected - ideas of others....

The value of a good idea is in using it.

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

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

I get my ideas from listening from within.

Most of my ideas belonged to other people who never bothered to develop them.

No, I haven't failed thousands of times. On the contrary, I have successfully eliminated thousands of ideas that do not work!

A good idea is never lost. Even though its originator or possessor may die, it will someday be reborn in the mind of another....

The three things that are most essential to achievement are common sense, hard work and stick-to-it-iv-ness... Unfortunately, many of life's failures are experienced by people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up. 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.