A famous quotation is attributed to Thomas Edison. “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”
Edison never said it. The documented remark came in 1910 from his associate Walter Mallory. Edison had run thousands of battery experiments. Mallory asked about results. “Results! Why, man, I have gotten a lot of results! I know several thousand things that won’t work.”
The polished “10,000 ways” version first appears in 1967. The rough original is the better evidence.