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Do you realize if it weren't for Edison we'd be watching TV by candlelight?

If it weren't for electricity, we'd all be watching television by candlelight.

And it was at that point that I realized, in fact, our whole administration realized, that we could not rely on Metropolitan Edison for the kind of information we needed to make decisions.

When Thomas Edison worked late into the night on the electric light, he had to do it by gas lamp or candle. I'm sure it made the work seem that much more urgent.

I wanted to be an inventor, whatever I thought that meant then. I guess I was thinking of Edison or maybe James Watt. Or maybe even Newton.

Gene Roddenbury felt that television was being wasted. That it had the potential for enlightenment and even inspiration.

Just think how much poorer we would be today if the world would have had half as many people in the 19th century as it actually did. You can get rid of Thomas Edison or Louis Pasteur; take your pick.

And we owe science to the combined energies of individual men of genius, rather than to any tendency to progress inherent in civilization.

I don't think we use television the way we should or the way the inventors intended.