Complete the Thomas Edison quote, "Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent..." what?

Thomas Edison dubbed the “Wizard of Menlo Park,” was one of the greatest inventors the world has known. His nearly 1,100 patents exceed that of any other inventor in American history, and his inventions were foundational across a bewildering array of domains, from electronics to medicine to chemical research.

Never a day goes by where we don’t have Edison to thank for the many tools and conveniences of modern life. To him, we owe both the incandescent light bulb and fluorescent lamp, the phonograph, the nickel-iron-alkaline storage battery, the universal electric motor, the motion picture, and the basic principles of modern electronics. And that’s barely scratching the surface of his contributions, which resulted from painstaking trial-and-error and an indomitable spirit of perseverance that embraced each failed experiment as a positive step forward on the long road to success.

One of Edison's many quotes was: "Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration".

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17 Comments

Keith Richard Mears

Edison greatest skill was owning the patents to other people's inventions, the myth of Edison as the great inventor persists to this day.

Clarence Quismundo

Tesla, whose time coincided with Edison, was a better inventor and scientist. Whereas Edison worked on Direct Current, Tesla developed the Alternating Current which is a more efficient power system. Edison just happened to be a much better PR and Marketing person.

Robert Snow

Edison didn’t invent the light bulb , what he did was to improve on other ones that had been developed twenty years earlier by Joseph Swan !!

Pat Salloum

Edison did get the patents so it's hard now to prove what he did, what his staff did, and what was accomplished by other teams working at the same time.

Albeck1994

Clarence Quismundo, exactly ac is a safer method, but Edison used lies and cheats to discredit Tesla

michael d engels

For him it was more appropriately... "Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent... thievery"

Char

Odd since he only did patents on other peoples ideas..gets a real perspiration work up waiting inline at the patents office

Albeck1994

Pat Salloum, but it is, and is well known, just because to get to the patent office first, d8esnt mean you invented it. And what he did to his work force and Tesla (who was a genius inventor) was borderline criminal, we'd have had all those inventions without Edison. And Tesla was right about ac/dc Edison created a lie to discredit him. Dishonourable man in my opinion doesn't deserve respect or praise

dmarkc

Tesla was looking to provide electricity to everyone free!

Jim Mascair

I always heard that they upper class perspire and the working class sweat.

Corey Taylor

To put it in modern terms, 'If you don't sweat it, you don't get it.'

Joe Mangan

About 20% of the responders appear to be speculators, which is probably an accurate reflection of the world at large.

Char

Keith Richard Mears, I was taught that at school in the 60's really disappointing to find he was a sham..

Albeck1994

Brad Schwebler, no his employees tried thousands of methods,

Albeck1994

Robert Snow, wasn't even Edison that improved it it was his work force, he was merely a businessman who employed people or stole from people, that did the real work