Thomas Edison

"Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration."

Thomas Alva Edison, Harper's Monthly (September 1932 edition)

Thomas Alva Edison

Born

February 11, 1847

Milan, Ohio , U.S.

Died

October 18, 1931 (aged 84)

West Orange, New Jersey, U.S.

Nationality

American

Education

self educated

Occupation

Inventor, businessman

Parent(s)

Samuel Ogden Edison, Jr. (18041896)

Nancy Matthews Elliott (18101871)

Signature
Relatives

Lewis Miller (father-in-law)

Edison as a boy.

Photograph of Edison with his phonograph (2nd model), taken in

Mathew Brady's Washington, DC studio in April 1878.

Thomas Edison's first successful light bulb model, used in public

demonstration at Menlo Park, December 1879

My main purpose in life is to make enough money to create ever

more inventions.... The dove is my emblem.... I want to save and
advance human life, not destroy it.... I am proud of the fact that I
have never invented weapons to kill....

Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, and Harvey Firestone, respectively. Ft.

Myers, Florida, February 11, 1929

The three things that are most essential to achievement are

common sense, hard work and stick-to-it-iv-ness.....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.... Many of life's failures are experienced by people who
did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up

Thomas A. Edison, 1925, holding a replica of the first electric lightbulb.

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....

Thomas Alva Edison on his 75th birthday.

I readily absorb ideas from every source, frequently starting

where the last person left off. 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 them....A
good idea is never lost. Even though its originator or possessor
may die without publicizing it, it will someday be reborn in the
mind of another....

Thomas Alva Edison is one of the greatest American inventors

who held countless patents, majority of them related to
electricity and power. While two of his most famous inventions
are the incandescent lamp and the phonograph, arguably the

most significant invention of Edison is considered to be organized

research.