{"author":"Thomas A. Edison","author_id":"Thomas+A.+Edison","total_quotes":64,"quotes":[{"text":"Study, along the lines which the theologies have mapped, will never lead us to discovery of the fundamental facts of our existence. That goal must be attained by means of exact science and can only be achieved by such means. The fact that man, for ages, has superstitiously believed in what he calls a God does not prove at all that his theory has been right. There have been many gods – all makeshifts, born of inability to fathom the deep fundamental truth. There must be something at the bottom of existence, and man, in ignorance, being unable to discover what it is through reason, because his reason has been so imperfect, undeveloped, has used, instead, imagination, and created figments, of one kind or another, which, according to the country he was born in, the suggestions of his environment, satisfied him for the time being. Not one of all the gods of all the various theologies has ever really been proved. We accept no ordinary scientific fact without the final proof; why should we, then, be satisfied in this most mighty of all matters, with a mere theory?Destruction of false theories will not decrease the sum of human happiness in future, any more than it has in the past... The days of miracles have passed. I do not believe, of course, that there was ever any day of actual miracles. I cannot understand that there were ever any miracles at all. My guide must be my reason, and at thought of miracles my reason is rebellious. Personally, I do not believe that Christ laid claim to doing miracles, or asserted that he had miraculous power...Our intelligence is the aggregate intelligence of the cells which make us up. There is no soul, distinct from mind, and what we speak of as the mind is just the aggregate intelligence of cells. It is fallacious to declare that we have souls apart from animal intelligence, apart from brains. It is the brain that keeps us going. There is nothing beyond that.Life goes on endlessly, but no more in human beings than in other animals, or, for that matter, than in vegetables. Life, collectively, must be immortal, human beings, individually, cannot be, as I see it, for they are not the individuals – they are mere aggregates of cells.There is no supernatural. We are continually learning new things. There are powers within us which have not yet been developed and they will develop. We shall learn things of ourselves, which will be full of wonders, but none of them will be beyond the na.","author":"Thomas A. Edison","tags":["destruction","falsehood","gods","immortality","inspirational","makeshift","miracles","naturalism","reason","satisfaction","science","soul","study","superstitious","theology","theory","truth","wonder"],"id":15173,"author_id":"Thomas+A.+Edison"},{"text":"Results? Why  man  I have gotten a lot of results. I know several thousand things that won't work.","author":"Thomas A. Edison","tags":["events"],"id":15532,"author_id":"Thomas+A.+Edison"},{"text":"Religion is all bunk.","author":"Thomas A. Edison","tags":["bunk "],"id":34527,"author_id":"Thomas+A.+Edison"},{"text":"There's a way to do it better - find it.","author":"Thomas A. Edison","tags":["better","way","find "],"id":49302,"author_id":"Thomas+A.+Edison"},{"text":"Many of life's failures are men who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.","author":"Thomas A. Edison","tags":["pressure","diamonds"],"id":52349,"author_id":"Thomas+A.+Edison"},{"text":"I am long on ideas  but short on time. I expect to live only about a hundred years.","author":"Thomas A. Edison","tags":["aging","old","age"],"id":76645,"author_id":"Thomas+A.+Edison"},{"text":"I told [John Kruesi] I was going to record talking, and then have the machine talk back. He thought it absurd. However, it was finished, the foil was put on; I then shouted 'Mary had a little lamb', etc. I adjusted the reproducer, and the machine reproduced it perfectly.[On first words spoken on a phonograph.].","author":"Thomas A. Edison","tags":["invention","john-kruesi","kruesi","phonograph","record","science","technology"],"id":83423,"author_id":"Thomas+A.+Edison"},{"text":"I have friends in overalls whose friendship I would not swap for the favor of the kings of the world.","author":"Thomas A. Edison","tags":["work"],"id":84022,"author_id":"Thomas+A.+Edison"},{"text":"Restlessness is discontent  and discontent is the first necessity of progress.","author":"Thomas A. Edison","tags":["adversity"],"id":90239,"author_id":"Thomas+A.+Edison"},{"text":"Nature is what we know. We do not know the gods of religions. And nature is not kind, or merciful, or loving. If God made me — the fabled God of the three qualities of which I spoke: mercy, kindness, love — He also made the fish I catch and eat. And where do His mercy, kindness, and love for that fish come in? No; nature made us — nature did it all — not the gods of the reli.","author":"Thomas A. Edison","tags":["atheism","contradiction","fable","gods","loving","merciful","nature","superstition"],"id":116123,"author_id":"Thomas+A.+Edison"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":64,"pages":7,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}