A Quote by Thomas A. Edison

The world owes nothing to any man, but every man owes something to the world.

Thomas A. Edison

Quote Topics

Any Every Every Man Man Nothing Owes Something World

Quote Author

Thomas A. Edison
American - Inventor
February 11, 1847 - October 18, 1931

I believe in the dignity of labor, whether with head or hand; that the world owes no man a living but that it owes every man an opportunity to make a living.

John D. Rockefeller

Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.

Mark Twain

Poetry which owes no man anything, owes nevertheless one debt - an image of the world in which men can again believe.

Archibald MacLeish

An employer has no business with a man's personality. Employment is a specific contract calling for a specific performance... Any attempt to go beyond that is usurpation. It is immoral as well as an illegal intrusion of privacy. It is abuse of power. An employee owes no "loyalty," he owes no "love" and no "attitudes" - he owes performance and nothing else. .... The task is not to change personality, but to enable a person to achieve and to perform.

Peter Drucker

He looks the whole world in the face for he owes not any man.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

A man who owes a little can clear it off in a very little time, and, if he is a prudent man, will; whereas a man, who by long negligence, owes a great deal, despairs of ever being able to pay, and therefore never looks into his accounts at all.

Lord Chesterfield

There are only two kinds of men in this world: Honest men and dishonest men. ...Any man who says the world owes him a living is dishonest. The same God that made you and me made this earth. And He planned it so that it would yield every single thing that the people on it need. But He was careful to plan it so that it would only yield up its wealth in exchange for the labor of man. Any man who tries to share in that wealth without contributing the work of his brain or his hands is dishonest.

Ralph Moody

However patriarchal the world, at home the child knows that his mother is the source of all power. The hand that rocks the cradlerules his world. . . . The son never forgets that he owes his life to his mother, not just the creation of it but the maintenance of it, and that he owes her a debt he cannot conceivably repay, but which she may call in at any time.

Frank Pittman

Subtract from the great man all that he owes to opportunity, all that he owes to chance, and all that he gained by the wisdom of his friends and the folly of his enemies, and the giant will often be seen to be a pygmy.

Charles Caleb Colton

All scientific knowledge to which man owes his role as master of the world arose from playful activities.

Konrad Lorenz

Under the spreading chestnut tree The village smithy stands; The smith, a mighty man is he, With large and sinewy hands; And the muscles of his brawny arms Are strong as iron bands. . . . He earns whate'er he can, And looks the whole world in the face, For he owes not any man. . . . Toiling,-rejoicing,-sorrowing, Onward through life he goes; Each morning sees some task begin, Each evening sees it close; Something attempted, something done, Has earned a night's repose.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The world owes us nothing; we owe each other the world.

Ani DiFranco

There is nothing that puts a man more in your debt than that he owes you nothing.

Mark Caine

Don't be misled into believing that somehow the world owes you a living. The boy who believes that his parents, or the government, or any one else owes him his livelihood and that he can collect it without labor will wake up one day and find himself working for another boy who did not have that belief and, therefore, earned the right to have others work for him.