The Value Of An Idea Lies

This saying is attributed to George Westinghouse but cannot be confirmed in a specific primary source and may be apocryphal. The sentiment is commonly associated with inventors and is often also attributed to Thomas Edison and others. Westinghouse held nearly 400 patents at his death in 1914, and his approach to invention was practical rather than purely theoretical — he pursued technologies with immediate commercial applications in rail safety, electrical power distribution, and natural gas infrastructure, areas where the gap between idea and deployed system was central to his work.