“I am Proud of the Fact That I Never Invented Weapons to Kill.” Thomas Edison
“Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages.”
On first reading my reaction was; but wasn’t Edison the guy who electrocute Topsy the Elephant as a publicity stunt during the War of Currents? I was very much relieved to learn that it wasn’t Edison at all who electrocuted the much maligned Topsy. The inventor wasn’t even in the area at the time. It was however Edison Studios that filmed the unfortunate pachyderm’s execution and apparently that was the genesis of the false narrative. As for the War of Currents, poor Topsy’s demise took place in 1903, ten years after the war’s end. Here’s another great Edison quote that speaks to his humanity.
“There will one day spring from the brain of science a machine or force so fearful in its potentialities, so absolutely terrifying, that even man, the fighter, who will dare torture and death in order to inflict torture and death, will be appalled, and so abandon war forever.”
And one last one to leave you with.
“Show me a thoroughly satisfied man and I will show you a failure.”
I’ll have to remember that the next time a Jehovah’s Witness knocks at my door and asks me if I’m completely satisfied with my life.
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