Generations of China people have learned Edison's famous saying about "genius" through textbooks or books of famous sayings and aphorisms: "Genius is 65,438+0% inspiration and 99% sweat" (some books, such as Life Story, mean "genius is 2% inspiration and 98% sweat." )。 Of course, this sentence was really said by Edison, so it inspired and inspired several generations of China people, but it was really taken out of context. The original editor put Edison's key sentence at the back: "But 1% inspiration is the most important, even more important than 99% sweat." It was broken on purpose. In this way, without the last key sentence, Edison's view of genius was completely changed.

As we all know, Edison is the king of scientific inventions, and his views are very convincing and authoritative. So his famous saying about "genius" became a classic saying, which influenced several generations of China people. However, Edison believed in genius, although he attached importance to diligence and studiousness. He holds a scientific attitude of "conditional recognition" to genius, that is, "sweat" is important, but "inspiration" is more important. However, because the editor may deliberately take it out of context for a certain need, this is tantamount to completely denying the meaning of inspiration, that is, denying the genius and denying the objective existence of genius, which is really misleading to young people in China.

In order to respect and commemorate Edison, let us fully understand his original famous saying about genius: "Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% sweat. But 1% inspiration is the most important, even more important than 99% sweat. " Don't continue to be cheated.