99% Perspiration, 1% Inspiration: A Collection of Motivational Quotes

"Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration."

- Thomas Edison

"Genius is 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration."

- Thomas Edison

"Bringing incredible creative projects to life demands much hard work down in the trenches of day-to-day idea execution. Genius truly is '1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration.'"

- Jocelyn K. Glei

"Sometimes you’re ahead; sometimes you’re behind. The race is long and, in the end, it’s only with yourself."

- Mary Schmich

"For too long, the creative world has focused on idea generation at the expense of idea execution. As the legendary inventor Thomas Edison famously said, 'Genius is 1 percent inspiration, and 99 percent perspiration.' To make great ideas a reality, we must act, experiment, fail, adapt, and learn on a daily basis."

- Jocelyn K. Glei

"Genius is 2 percent inspiration and 98 percent perspiration."

- Thomas Edison

"It’s hard to find Bliss Brain when surrounded by Caveman Brain, and pulling yourself out of that environment and into a sacred space is usually a prerequisite for enlightenment."

- Dawson Church

"To laugh often and much; To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; To appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded."

- Bessie Anderson Stanley

"Genius is not inspired. Inspiration is perspiration."

- Thomas Edison

"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

"infinitely more valuable: happiness. Specifically, the happiness found in Bliss Brain."

- Dawson Church

"The lives of the great spiritual masters of history inspired others to follow their example."

- Dawson Church

"The practical success of an idea, irrespective of its inherent merit, is dependent on the attitude of the contemporaries. If timely it is quickly adopted; if not, it is apt to fare like a sprout lured out of the ground by warm sunshine, only to be injured and retarded in its growth by the succeeding frost."

- Nikola Tesla

"Don’t bend; don’t water it down, don’t try to make it logical; don’t edit your own soul according to the fashion. Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly."

- Anne Rice

"They couldn’t achieve Bliss Brain amid the hubbub of society, so they turned their backs on it."

- Dawson Church

"Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"People who take pains never to do any more than they get paid for, never get paid for anything more than they do."

- Thomas Edison

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."

- Evelyn Beatrice Hall

"What percentage of the population undertook the journey? No census of enlightenment seekers is possible, but one proxy is the number entering religious seclusion."

- Dawson Church

"The secret to getting ahead is getting started."

"By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest, and third by experience, which is the bitterest."

"Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass … it’s about learning to dance in the rain."