4 Thomas Alva Edison Quotes on Invention

Thomas Alva Edison quotes on invention

2. During all those years of experimentation and research, I never once made a discovery. All my work was deductive, and the results I achieved were those of invention, pure and simple. I would construct a theory and work on its lines until I found it was untenable. Then it would be discarded at once and another theory evolved. This was the only possible way for me to work out the problem. ... I speak without exaggeration when I say that I have constructed 3,000 different theories in connection with the electric light, each one of them reasonable and apparently likely to be true. Yet only in two cases did my experiments prove the truth of my theory. My chief difficulty was in constructing the carbon filament. . . . Every quarter of the globe was ransacked by my agents, and all sorts of the queerest materials used, until finally the shred of bamboo, now utilized by us, was settled upon.

16. Through all the years of experimenting and research, I never once made a discovery. I start where the last man left off. ... All my work was deductive, and the results I achieved were those of invention pure and simple.

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

24. I find out what the world needs. Then, I go ahead and invent it.