Results, Strangers, Adventure

Results! Why, man, I have gotten a lot of results. I know several thousand things that won't work.
~ Thomas A. Edison

If you came and you found a strange man ... teaching your kids to punch each other, or trying to sell them all kinds of products, you'd kick him right out of the house, but here you are; you come in and the TV is on, and you don't think twice about it.
~ Professor Jerome Singer, Yale University

An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered.
~ G.K. Chesterton

Success, Exploration, Choice

The successful person makes a habit of doing what the failing person doesn't like to do.
~ Thomas Edison

Close observation of children at play suggests that they find out about the world in the same way as scientists find out about new phenomena and test new ideas. Young children may not be able to verbalize new ideas forming in their heads, but they may still apply similar processes to scientists.  During this exploration, all the senses are used to observe and draw conclusions about objects and events through simple, if crude, scientific investigations.
~ Judith Roden, Lecturer, Canterbury Christ Church University College

You have freedom of choice, but not freedom from choice.
~ Wendell Jones

Discontent, Riches, Attention

Restlessness and discontent are the first necessities of progress.
~ Thomas Alva Edison

The quest for riches darkens the sense of right and wrong.
~ Antiphanes, ancient Greek dramatist

If you're not confused, you're not paying attention.
~ Tom Peters

accomplishment, hurry, leadership

I never did anything worth doing by accident, nor did any of my inventions come by accident; they came by work.
~ Thomas Edison (1847-1931) U.S. inventor

Hurry! I never hurry. I have no time to hurry.
~ Igor Stravinsky

One measure of leadership is the caliber of people who choose to follow you.
~ Dennis Peer

Problems and opportunity

Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.
~ Thomas Edison

The problem is not that there are problems. The problem is expecting otherwise and thinking that having problems is a problem.
~ Theodore Rubin

If there are no stupid questions, then what kind of questions do stupid people ask? Do they get smart just in time to ask questions?
~ Scott Adams

Risk vs Fear

If one took no chances, one would not fly at all. Safety lies in the judgment of the chances one takes. That judgment, in turn, must rest upon one's outlook on life. Any coward can sit in his home and criticize a pilot for flying into a mountain in fog. But I would rather, by far, die on a mountainside than in bed.
~ Charles Lindbergh

I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.
~ Thomas Edison

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.
~ Franklin D. Roosevelt

Making Changes

Man is a creature of hope and invention, both of which belie the idea that things cannot be changed.
~ Tom Clancy

Just because something doesn't do what you planned it to do doesn't mean it's useless.
~ Thomas Edison

How to Measure What is Worthwhile

Anything that won't sell, I don't want to invent. Its sale is proof of utility, and utility is success.
~ Thomas Edison

Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.
~ Vincent Van Gogh

Attitudes

If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.
~ Marcus Aurelius

Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.
~ Thomas Alva Edison

What are *rules* for?

Hell, there are no rules here-- we're trying to accomplish something.
~ Thomas A. Edison