The most necessary task of civilization is to teach people how to think. It should be the primary purpose of our public schools. The mind of a child is naturally active, it develops through exercise. Give a child plenty of exercise, for body and brain. The trouble with our way of educating is that it does not give elasticity to the mind. It casts the brain into a mold. It insists that the child must accept. Furthermore, it does not encourage original thought or reasoning, and it lays more stress on memory than observation.

— Thomas A. Edison

The reason a lot of people do not recognize opportunity is because it usually goes around wearing overalls looking like hard work.

— Thomas A. Edison

There is time for everything.

— Thomas A. Edison

There's a way to do it better - find it.

— Thomas A. Edison

There will one day spring from the brain of science a machine or force so fearful in its potentialities, so absolutely terrifying, that even man, the fighter, who will dare torture and death in order to inflict torture and death, will be appalled, and so abandon war forever.

— Thomas A. Edison

The three great essentials to achieve anything worthwhile are, first, hard work; second, stick-to-aliveness; third, common sense.

— Thomas A. Edison

The three great essentials to achieve anything worthwhile are: Hard work, Stick-to-aliveness, and Common sense.

— Thomas A. Edison

They say President Wilson has blundered. Perhaps he has but I notice he usually blunders forward.

— Thomas A. Edison

To have a great idea, have a lot of them.

— Thomas A. Edison

To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk.

— Thomas A. Edison