'I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.'

'Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.'

- Inventor Thomas Edison (1847 - 1931)

'In my experience, each failure contains the seeds of your next success—if you are willing to learn from it.'

- Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen (1953–2018)

'No big challenge has ever been solved, and no lasting improvement has ever been achieved, unless people dare to try something different.'

- Apple CEO Tim Cook (1960 - present)

'I honestly think it is better to be a failure at something you love than to be a success at something you hate.'

-Comedian George Burns (1896-1996)

'If you want to succeed, you should strike out on new paths, rather than travel the worn paths of accepted success.'

- Billionaire John D. Rockefeller (1839-1937)

A quote by scientist Nikola Tesla

"The scientific man does not aim at an immediate result ... His duty is to lay the foundation for those who are to come, and point the way."

A quote by Howard Hughes

"Do the impossible, because almost everyone has told me my ideas are merely fantasies."

The Failure Museum is a curated collection of over 1,000 items representing failed products and companies

Sean Jacobsohn, a tech investor and founder of the Failure Museum, uses items from failed businesses to explain the six primary forces behind their flops, from a Theranos mug to a Blockbuster membership card.

'I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.'

- Author Douglas Adams (1952-2001)

'Keep working on a plan. Make no little plans. Make the biggest one you can think of, and spend the rest of your life carrying it out.'

- President Harry Truman (1884-1972)

A collective effort from multiple scientists and inventors led to the light bulb

While Thomas Edison's thin carbon filament design made light bulbs commercially viable, prior contributions, such as Joseph Swan's development of the first successful incandescent filament electric lamp, made its eventual invention possible.

A failed resolution still defines directional exploration

The new year practice of making resolutions is so popular it can often inspire ironic dismissal from those all-too-aware of how many fail. This piece argues failure doesn't matter: Making the resolution itself helps define one's focus in life, arguably more important than racking up achievements.

Elon Musk follows a five-step decision-making process when simplifying technology

He begins by determining whether how something has been previously done is—in his words—"dumb," or if a certain feature should even exist, let alone be optimized. This first principles method has helped him develop some of the most valuable companies in the world.

One of Henry Ford's early failed business ventures later became Cadillac

Before founding the Ford Motor Company, Henry Ford started two businesses that ultimately failed because he didn't get a product to market quickly enough. The Henry Ford Company pushed Henry Ford out in 1902, only to later reform and be renamed after the founder of Detroit, Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac.

'I'm always thinking about creating. My future starts when I wake up every morning ... Every day I find something creative to do with my life.'

- Miles Davis (1926-1991)

Thomas Edison, eager to communicate with ghosts, tinkered with an apparatus called the 'spirit phone'

The inventor was interested in developing a scientific method for communicating with the dead. He was not interested, though, in the occult figures who believed the dead could be reached through Spiritualism, which he found childish. He believed those kinds of people "permit themselves to become, in a sense, hypnotized into thinking that their imaginings are actualities."

'Life is like a ten speed bicycle. Most of us have gears we never use.'

- "Peanuts" cartoonist Charles M. Schulz (1922-2000)

Tesla's first successful AC prototype used a metal shoe polish tin for a rotor

After leaving his position working with Thomas Edison, Tesla partnered with George Westinghouse to promote alternating current systems as a more viable, scalable solution to electricity transmission.

'Mutual ignorance breeds mutual distrust.'

- Businessman Andrew Carnegie (1835–1919)

Bill Nye holds patents for three inventions and designs for a digital abacus

His pointe shoes feature a support structure to protect ballet dancers' toes during performance. The throwing technique trainer guides athletes in achieving the optimal form for throwing a ball, while the educational magnifying glass made from a plastic bag and water featured on his show.

Twain was a notoriously bad investor

After becoming a famous writer, Twain invested in railroad stocks, a magnetic telegraph, and a printing press that weighed four tons. Eventually, he founded his own publishing company, which ultimately led to his bankruptcy. “He is, in business,” one lawyer said, “just a big overgrown boy.”

Benjamin Franklin once wrote a satirical essay about passing gas

The Founding Father was asked to judge a contest for the Royal Academy of Brussels, but was incensed by one of the contest's questions, which he believed was highly impractical. In response, he wrote a piece suggesting that the most essential problem for scientists to solve was the "fetid Smell" that came with passing gas.

Thousands of constitutional amendments have failed

Of nearly 12,000 proposed constitutional amendments, only 27 were ratified. This article highlights radical failed proposals that would have renamed the country, abolished the presidency, capped personal wealth, or fundamentally rewritten how American democracy works.

The top 10 movie franchises that tried and failed with a new lead actor

Movie franchises are seen as a safe bet for film studios, but sometimes those studios switch up the lead actor in hopes of refreshing the franchise. While it can work, there are many examples of such films bombing, like with the "Terminator" and "Home Alone" franchises. This video breaks down the 10 worst cases of a failed switch in franchise lead.

The terms 'bug' and 'debugging' were popularized by Grace Hopper's team

Engineers working on the Mark II computer at Harvard University identified a moth in one of its components in 1947, which caused it to malfunction. Describing the incident as the "first actual case of bug being found," the term first used by Thomas Edison in 1878 to describe faults in an apparatus caught on.

The history of many kitchen appliances involves unexpected discoveries and applications, including wartime radar turned hamster defroster and replacing an 'ice king' with heat-stealing boxes.

Learn more about the history of fireworks, which dates back to an accidental invention during an alchemist's quest for information about immortality.

Before writing 'Walden,' transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau nearly burned down his hometown with a campfire that grew out of control.

Discover the catastrophic consequences of a failure of the US electrical grid—something that is more likely than many Americans think.

Watch this video that uses Lego bricks to explain how venture capital works.

English mathematician Ada Lovelace wrote the first computer algorithm a century before computers existed and hypothesized that computing devices would one day be able to compose music—foreseeing the generative AI systems of today.

In its famous catalog, Sears sold $600 DIY house kits from 1908 through the 1940s, resulting in an estimated 100,000 'Sears and Roebuck homes.'

The name 'Silicon Valley' arose from the founding of Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory in Fairchild Semiconductor in 1956-57, founded near Stanford University in Palo Alto

Mark Twain spent decades feuding with the US Postal Service, convinced its costs and regulations were bureaucratic overreach.

How Amazon operates a 'flywheel' business model, a self-reinforcing cycle that drives continuous growth

Many legends about George Washington, including his supposed wooden teeth and the story of cutting down the cherry tree, lack evidence.

Walt Disney's early film 'Alice's Wonderland' was a groundbreaking innovation in the silent film era

Indefinite cloning of some endangered species may not sustain their longevity because cloning success rates decrease as genetic mutations accumulate.

In 1939, baseball star Lou Gehrig delivered his inspirational 'Luckiest Man' speech after retiring due to the health condition that now bears his name.

Warren Buffett's former professor Benjamin Graham is known as the 'father of value investing,' a strategy in which investors seek to buy stocks trading below their intrinsic worth.

Legendary architect Frank Lloyd Wright designed the SC Johnson headquarters in Wisconsin, aiming to make a cathedral-like workplace

US intelligence allegedly pursued more than 600 schemes to assassinate Cuban revolutionary Fidel Castro.

SpongeBob exemplifies Aristotle's philosophy for living well because he understands that happiness doesn't come from external factors like money, recognition, or power.

Despite being favored by 87% of Americans, Congress does not have term limits.

When a Paris department store hesitated to sell Estée Lauder's perfume, she 'accidentally' broke a bottle, causing the smell to spread throughout the store and shoppers to start asking to buy the scent.

Search a massive database of over 4 decades of clues from the TV quiz show 'Jeopardy!'

Salvador Dalí believed he was his own dead brother, who had died nine months before he was born

For centuries, Niagara Falls has been a magnet for daredevils seeking to conquer one of nature's most powerful wonders, with its 200-foot drop and water rushing at 32 feet per second with 280 tons of force.

Explore a list of the 100 best novels of all time, compiled by some of the world's best living writers, including Salman Rushdie, Stephen King, and Jennifer Egan.

The Beatles' US label rejected the band's first two singles, 'Please Please Me' and 'From Me to You,' with one executive calling the band 'dead in the water.'