In Reference to: Thomas A. Edison
But the idea of 'forgiveness' shouldn't be used as an excuse to condone
wrong behaviors.
IMHO, the complaint is fair. There are other issues, of course, and this
IS a VEG-Christian list where the focus is not in the name about compassion
or animal rights or even ethics, but two values: Christian AND vegetarian.
Now while lots of folks who profess to be both are, IMHO, not worthy of
being held UP (e.g. in NYC, a famous furrier was both a vegetarian AND an
SDA), the search for some principles upon which a list and its website
backup are rightfully to be guided seems long overdue.
Making one word - 'compassion' - the guiding 'EYE' through which
everything should pass seems 'at first glance' very good, l right, just, and
reasonable, it is not UNIQUELY Christian, nor do very many on this list seem
to think that Christian 'uniqueness' should in any way characterize this Veg-Christian
list.
I'm somewhat baffled by that characteristic until I recall that the
Internet attracts whatever it will, in whatever ways folks manage to find a
digital resource.
Edison: vegetarian? Maybe. Christian? Well, let's see his quotations
about religion and what is sometimes CALLED 'religion' and those used by
vegetarians to support vegetarianism or the belief that Edison was
vegetarian:
The doctor of the future will give no medicine, but will instruct his patient in the care of the human frame, in diet and in the cause and prevention of disease.
This has been reprinted many times with slight variations on the wording; it is part of a much larger quote directly from Edison published in 1903:
Nineteen hundred and three will bring great advances in surgery, in the study of bacteria, in the knowledge of the cause and prevention of disease. Medicine is played out. Every new discovery of bacteria shows us all the more convincingly that we have been wrong and that the million tons of stuff we have taken was all useless.
The doctor of the future will give no medicine, but will instruct his patient in the care of the human frame, in diet and in the cause and prevention of disease.
They may even discover the germ of old age. I don't predict it, but it might be by the sacrifice of animal life human life could be prolonged.
Surgery, diet, antiseptics — these three are the vital things of the future in preserving the health of humanity. There were never so many able, active minds at work on the problems of diseases as now, and all their discoveries are tending to the simple truth — that you can't improve on nature.
As quoted in "Wizard Edison" in The Newark Advocate (2 January 1903), p. 1 according to research by Barbara and David P. Mikkelson at snopes.com
There is no expedient to which a man will not go to avoid the labor of thinking.
Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration.
Spoken statement (c. 1903); published in Harper's Monthly (September 1932)
Variants:
None of my inventions came by accident. I see a worthwhile need to be met
and I make trial after trial until it comes. What it boils down to is one
per cent inspiration and ninety-nine per cent perspiration.
Statement in a press conference (1929), as quoted in Uncommon Friends: Life
with Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Harvey Firestone, Alexis Carrel & Charles
Lindbergh (1987) by James D. Newton, p. 24.
Variant forms without early citation: "Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine per cent perspiration. Accordingly, a 'genius' is often merely a talented person who has done all of his or her homework."
"Genius: one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration."
I am much less interested in what is called God's word than in God's deeds. All bibles are man-made.
Everything comes to him who hustles while he waits.
As quoted in Thomas Alva Edison : Sixty Years of an Inventor's Life (1908) by Francis Arthur Jones, p. 14
I'd put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power!
I am much less interested in what is called God's word than in God's deeds. All bibles are man-made.
The Atlantic Monthly Vol. 128, No. 4 (October 1921), p. 520
My mind is incapable of conceiving such a thing as a soul. I may be in error, and man may have a soul; but I simply do not believe it. What a soul may be is beyond my understanding.
"Do We Live Again?" an interview with Edison, as quoted in Mr. Edison's New Argument from Design" in The Illustrated London News (3 May 1924)
We are like tenant farmers chopping down the fence around our house for fuel when we should be using Natures inexhaustible sources of energy — sun, wind and tide. ... 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.
In conversation with Henry Ford and w: Harvey Firestone (1931); as quoted in Uncommon Friends : Life with Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Harvey Firestone, Alexis Carrel & Charles Lindbergh (1987) by James Newton, p. 31
There is no expedient to which a man will not go to avoid the labor of thinking.
As quoted in New Outlook (1935) by Alfred Emanuel Smith, p. 617
Discontent is the first necessity of progress. Show me a thoroughly satisfied man and I'll show you a failure.
I believe in the existence of a Supreme Intelligence pervading the Universe.
As quoted in Thomas A. Edison, Benefactor of Mankind : The Romantic Life Story of the World's Greatest Inventor (1931) by Francis Trevelyan Miller, Ch. 25 : Edison's Views on Life — His Philosophy and Religion, p. 293
We really haven't got any great amount of data on the subject, and without data how can we reach any definite conclusions? All we have — everything — favors the idea of what religionists call the "Hereafter." Science, if it ever learns the facts, probably will find another more definitely descriptive term.
As quoted in Thomas A. Edison, Benefactor of Mankind : The Romantic Life Story of the World's Greatest Inventor (1931) by Francis Trevelyan Miller, Ch. 25 : Edison's Views on Life — His Philosophy and Religion, p. 295
It is very beautiful over there!
These have sometimes been reported as his last words, but were actually spoken several days before his death, as he awoke from a nap, gazing upwards, as reported by his physician Dr. Hubert S. Howe, in Thomas A. Edison, Benefactor of Mankind : The Romantic Life Story of the World's Greatest Inventor(1931) by Francis Trevelyan Miller, Ch. 25 : Edison's Views on Life — His Philosophy and Religion, p. 295
Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.
There is a great directing head of people and things — a Supreme Being who looks after the destinies of the world.
I am convinced that the body is made up of entities that are intelligent and are directed by this Higher Power. When one cuts his finger, I believe it is the intelligence of these entities which heals the wound. When one is sick, it is the intelligence of these entities which brings convalescence. You know that there are living cells in the body so tiny that the microscope cannot find them at all. The entities that give life and soul to the human body are finer still and lie infinitely beyond the reach of our finest scientific instruments. When these entities leave the body, the body is like a ship without a rudder — deserted, motionless and dead.
As quoted in The Romance and Drama of the Rubber Industry (1936) by Harvey Samuel Firestone
So far as the religion of the day is concerned, it is a damned fake ... Religion is all bunk.
As quoted in What on Earth is an Atheist! (1972) by Madalyn Murray O'Hair, p. 251
I find out what the world needs. Then, I go ahead and invent it.
We don't know a millionth of one percent about anything.
If we did all the things we are capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves.
As quoted in Motivating Humans : Goals, Emotions, and Personal Agency Beliefs (1992) by Martin E. Ford, p. 17
Just because something doesn't do what you planned it to do doesn't mean it's useless.
Everyone steals in commerce and industry. I've stolen a lot, myself. But I know how to steal! They don't know how to steal!
As quoted in Tesla : The Modern Sorcerer (1999) by Daniel Blair Stewart, p. 411
Variant: Everyone steals in commerce and industry. I have stolen a lot myself. But at least I know how to steal.
Nonviolence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages.
As quoted in Everything You Need to Know about Being a Vegan (1999) by Stefanie Iris Weiss, p. 6
We don't know a millionth of one percent about anything.
As quoted in "The Limits of Knowledge and the Hope for Progress" by Francisco J. Ayala in God, Science, and Humility : Ten Scientists Consider Humility Theology (2000) by Robert L. Herrmann, p. 132
Hell, there are no rules here — we're trying to accomplish something.
As quoted in How to Think Like Einstein : Simple Ways to Break the Rules and Discover Your Hidden Genius (2000) by Scott Thorpe, p. 124
Just because something doesn't do what you planned it to do doesn't mean it's useless.
As quoted in Artifacts : An Archaeologist's Year in Silicon Valley (2001) by Christine Finn. p. 90
I have never seen the slightest scientific proof of the religious ideas of heaven and hell, of future life for individuals, or of a personal God.
As quoted in Jesus : Myth Or Reality? (2006) by Ian Curtis, p. 289
[edit]
The Philosophy of Paine (1925)
Essay in The Diary and Sundry Observations (1948) edited by Dagobert D. Runes - Full essay online
I consider Paine our greatest political thinker. As we have not advanced, and perhaps never shall advance, beyond the Declaration and Constitution, so Paine has had no successors who extended his principles. Tom Paine has almost no influence on present-day thinking in the United States because he is unknown to the average citizen. Perhaps I might say right here that this is a national loss and a deplorable lack of understanding concerning the man who first proposed and first wrote those impressive words, 'the United States of America.' But it is hardly strange. Paine's teachings have been debarred from schools everywhere and his views of life misrepresented until his memory is hidden in shadows, or he is looked upon as of unsound mind.
We never had a sounder intelligence in this Republic. He was the equal of Washington in making American liberty possible. Where Washington performed Paine devised and wrote. The deeds of one in the Weld were matched by the deeds of the other with his pen.
In Common Sense Paine flared forth with a document so powerful that the Revolution became inevitable. Washington recognized the difference, and in his calm way said that matters never could be the same again. I consider Paine our greatest political thinker. As we have not advanced, and perhaps never shall advance, beyond the Declaration and Constitution, so Paine has had no successors who extended his principles. Although the present generation knows little of Paine's writings, and although he has almost no influence upon contemporary thought, Americans of the future will justly appraise his work. I am certain of it.
Truth is governed by natural laws and cannot be denied. Paine spoke truth with a peculiarly clear and forceful ring. Therefore time must balance the scales.
Looking back to those times we cannot, without much reading, clearly gauge the sentiment of the Colonies. Perhaps the larger number of responsible men still hoped for peace with England. They did not even venture to express the matter that way. Few men, indeed, had thought in terms of war.
Then Paine wrote 'Common Sense,' an anonymous tract which immediately
stirred the fires of liberty. It flashed from hand to hand throughout the
Colonies. One copy reached the New York Assembly, in session at Albany, and
a night meeting was voted to answer this unknown writer with his clarion
call to liberty. The Assembly met, but could find no suitable answer. Tom
Paine had inscribed a document which never has been answered adversely, and
never can be, so long as man esteems his priceless possession.
In 'Common Sense' Paine flared forth with a document so powerful that the
Revolution became inevitable. Washington recognized the difference, and in
his calm way said that matters never could be the same again.. It must be
remembered that 'Common Sense' preceded the declaration and affirmed the
very principles that went into the national doctrine of liberty. But that
affirmation was made with more vigor, more of the fire of the patriot and
was exactly suited to the hour. It is probable that we should have had the
Revolution without Tom Paine. Certainly it could not be forestalled, once he
had spoken.
Many a person who could not comprehend Rousseau, and would be puzzled by Montesquieu, could understand Paine as an open book. He wrote with a clarity, a sharpness of outline and exactness of speech that even a schoolboy should be able to grasp. There is nothing false, little that is subtle, and an impressive lack of the negative in Paine. He literally cried to his reader for a comprehending hour, and then filled that hour with such sagacious reasoning as we find surpassed nowhere else in American letters — seldom in any school of writing.
He has been called an atheist, but atheist he was not. Paine believed in a supreme intelligence, as representing the idea which other men often express by the name of deity.
His Bible was the open face of nature, the broad skies, the green hills. He disbelieved the ancient myths and miracles taught by established creeds. But the attacks on those creeds — or on persons devoted to them — have served to darken his memory, casting a shadow across the closing years of his life.
When Theodore Roosevelt termed Tom Paine a "dirty little atheist" he
surely spoke from lack of understanding. It was a stricture, an inaccurate
charge of the sort that has dimmed the greatness of this eminent American.
But the true measure of his stature will yet be appreciated. The torch which
he handed on will not be extinguished.
The memory of Tom Paine will outlive all this. No man who helped to lay the
foundations of our liberty — who stepped forth as the champion of so
difficult a cause — can be permanently obscured by such attacks. Tom Paine
should be read by his countrymen. I commend his fame to their hands. (Thomas
Paine was a deist.)
If Edison had a needle to find in a haystack, he would proceed at once with the diligence of the bee to examine straw after straw until he found the object of his search. ~ Nikola TeslaQuotes about Edison
To my simple mind it is not obvious that a successful electrician is an authority on the immortal soul, any more than that a successful military strategist has an ear for music, or an admirable French cook a grasp of the higher mathematics.
G. K. Chesterton, on the interview with Edison "Do We Live Again?" in which he stated "My mind is incapable of conceiving such a thing as a soul."
He felt there was a central processing core of life that went on and on.
That was his conclusion. We talked of it many times together . . . Call it
religion or what you like, Mr. Edison believed that the universe was alive
and that it was responsive to man's deep necessity. It was an intelligent
and hopeful religion if there ever was one. Mr. Edison went away expecting
light, not darkness.
Henry Ford as quoted in Thomas A. Edison, Benefactor of Mankind : The
Romantic Life Story of the World's Greatest Inventor (1931) by Francis
Trevelyan Miller, p. 294
If Edison had a needle to find in a haystack, he would proceed at once with the diligence of the bee to examine straw after straw until he found the object of his search. ... I was a sorry witness of such doings, knowing that a little theory and calculation would have saved him ninety percent of his labor.
Nikola Tesla (himself a 'devout' vegetarian)
It is VERY difficult to date (ascribe dates to) these statements without lots of additional work.
Maynard
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