Alexander Graham Bell Quotes

When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one that has opened for us.

Grand telegraphic discovery today ... Transmitted vocal sounds for the first time ... With some further modification I hope we may be enabled to distinguish ... the "timbre" of the sound. Should this be so, conversation viva voce by telegraph will be a fait accompli.

What this power is, I cannot say ... All I know is that it exists.

The most successful men in the end are those whose success is the result of steady accretion.

Watson, ... if I can get a mechanism which will make a current of electricity vary in its intensity, as the air varies in density when a sound is passing through it, I can telegraph any sound, even the sound of speech.

Man is the result of slow growth; that is why he occupies the position he does in animal life. What does a pup amount to that has gained its growth in a few days or weeks, beside a man who only attains it in as many years.

The telephone will be used to inform people that a telegram has been sent.

The only difference between success and failure is the ability to take action.

Wherever you may find the inventor, you may give him wealth or you may take from him all that he has; and he will go on inventing. He can no more help inventing that he can help thinking or breathing.

Leave the beaten track behind occasionally and dive into the woods. Every time you do, you will be certain to find something you have never seen before.

There are two critical points in every aerial flight-its beginning and its end.

I have heard articulate speech produced by sunlight I have heard a ray of the sun laugh and cough and sing! ... I have been able to hear a shadow, and I have even perceived by ear the passage of a cloud across the sun's disk.

The inventor ... looks upon the world and is not contented with things as they are. He wants to improve whatever he sees, he wants to benefit the world; he is haunted by an idea.

I had made up my mind to find that for which I was searching even if it required the remainder of my life. After innumerable failures I finally uncovered the principle for which I was searching, and I was astounded at its simplicity. I was still more astounded to discover the principle I had revealed not only beneficial in the construction of a mechanical hearing aid but it served as well as means of sending the sound of the voice over a wire. Another discovery which came out of my investigation was the fact that when a man gives his order to produce a definite result and stands by that order it seems to have the effect of giving him what might be termed a second sight which enables him to see right through ordinary problems. What this power is I cannot say; all I know is that it exists and it becomes available only when a man is in that state of mind in which he knows exactly what he wants and is fully determined not to quit until he finds it.

Man is an animal which, alone among the animals, refuses to be satisfied by the fulfillment of animal desires.

One day there will be a telephone in every major city in the USA

Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work in hand. The Sun's rays do not burn until brought to a focus

I have travelled around the globe. I have seen the Canadian and American Rockies, the Andes, the Alps and the Highlands of Scotland, but for simple beauty, Cape Breton outrivals them all!

You cannot force ideas. Successful ideas are the result of slow growth. Ideas do not reach perfection in a day, no matter how much study is put upon them.

Great discoveries and improvements invariably involve the cooperation of many minds. I may be given credit for having blazed the trail, but when I look at the subsequent developments I feel the credit is due to others rather than to myself.

We are all too much inclined, I think, to walk through life with our eyes shut. There are things all round us and right at our very feet that we have never seen, because we have never really looked.

Before anything else, preparation is the key to success.

When one door closes another door opens; but we so often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us.

The achievement of one goal should be the starting point of another.

Neither the Army nor the Navy is of any protection, or very little protection, against aerial raids.

Ordinary people who know nothing of phonetics or elocution have difficulties in understanding slow speech composed of perfect sounds, while they have no difficulty in comprehending an imperfect gabble if only the accent and rhythm are natural.

America is a country of inventors, and the greatest of inventors are the newspaper men.

It is the man who carefully advances step by step ... who is bound to succeed in the greatest degree.

Don't keep forever on the public road,going only where others have gone, and following one after the other like a flock of sheep. Leave the beaten track occasionally and dive into the woods. 'Every time you do so you will be certain to find something that you have never seen before. Of course it will be a little thing, but do not ignore it. Follow it up, explore all around it; one discovery will lead to another, and before you know it you will have something worth thinking about to occupy your mind. All really big discoveries are the results of thought.

The final result of our researches has widened the class of substances sensitive to light vibrations, until we can propound the fact of such sensitiveness being a general property of all matter.

The inventor is a man who looks around upon the world and is not contented with things as they are. He wants to improve whatever he sees, he wants to benefit the world; he is haunted by an idea. The spirit of invention possesses him, seeking materialization.

There cannot be mental atrophy in any person who continues to observe, to remember what he observes, and to seek answers for his unceasing hows and whys about things.

Washington is no place in which to carry out inventions