Edison and his lovely wife Mina

In his time, Thomas Edison was the most famous man of his period when the major means of mass communication worldwide were newspapers and magazines. This was a far cry from today’s virtually instantaneous social media platform options.

As an entrepreneur extraordinaire, Edison was always sought out for interviews and comments. Reporters and journalists just loved his quotes about life, invention and work. Here are some inspirational quotes below, selected in honor of the new school season.

“My desire is to do everything within my power to free people from drudgery and create the largest measure of happiness and prosperity.”

“I find out what the world needs. Then I go ahead and try to invent it.”

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

“If we all did the things we are really capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves.”

Edison and his Edison Effect device-the forerunner of the vacuum tube, and the taproot of modern electronics

Here, Edison is telling us not to be afraid of failure……

“If I find 10,000 ways something won’t work, I haven’t failed. I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is often a step forward.”

“The world owes nothing to any man, but every man owes something to the world.”

Here is a surprise quote, stated by Edison in 1910:

“I’d put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don’t have to wait until oil and coal run out before we tackle that. I wish I had more years left.”

Talk about anticipating the energy future of the country!

Left: Intel-Edison module now available world-wide for developers. Right: The “Tommy” award given by the Edison Innovation Foundation.