I’ve written in this blog (see What Does Learning From Mistakes Do To Your Brain?) and in my most recent book about helping students realize that making mistakes, and learning from them, are important for all of us to do — they’re critical for our success.
Most of us have heard one version or another of Thomas Edison’s famous quote about failure and inventing the light bulb. I’ve just read a version I hadn’t heard before, though I like:
“I have not failed 10,000 times. I have not failed once. I have succeeded in proving that those 10,000 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work.”
However, I’ve never found the original source so I could find out for sure what he actually said.
Do any of you have the original citation?
June 11, 2011 at 8:43 am
Better memories than mine will help you here, Larry. But I always loved this aphorism about Edison:
“When he set out to invent the light bulb, Edison was not tinkering with candles.”
Ironically, though, the filament that worked after thousands of failures was carbonized cotton, close kin to the candle’s wick.
I think there may be a lesson in this for all of us….Tom
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