Top 64 Quotes & Sayings by Alexander Graham Bell

It is a neck-and-neck race between Mr. Gray and myself who shall complete our apparatus first. He has the advantage over me in being a practical electrician - but I have reason to believe that I am better acquainted with the phenomena of sound than he is - so that I have an advantage there.

My knowledge of electrical subjects was not acquired in a methodical manner but was picked up from such books as I could get hold of and from such experiments as I could make with my own hands.

Such a chimerical idea as telegraphing vocal sounds would indeed, to most minds, seem scarcely feasible enough to spend time in working over. I believe, however, that it is feasible and that I have got the cue to the solution of the problem.

From my earliest childhood, my attention was specially directed to the subject of acoustics, and specially to the subject of speech, and I was urged by my father to study everything relating to these subjects, as they would have an important bearing upon what was to be my professional work.

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

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 which has opened for us.

In this experiment, made on the 9th of October, 1876, actual conversation, backwards and forwards, upon the same line, and by the same instruments reciprocally used, was successfully carried on for the first time upon a real line of miles in length.

Educate the masses, elevate their standard of intelligence, and you will certainly have a successful nation.

It is hardly an exaggeration to say that oral teachers and sign teachers found it difficult to sit down in the same room without quarreling, and there was intolerance upon both sides. To say 'oral method' to a sign teacher was like waving a red flag in the face of a bull, and to say 'sign language' to an oralist aroused the deepest resentment.

A man's own judgment should be the final appeal in all that relates to himself.

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

Dumbness comes from the fact that a child is born deaf and that it consequently never learns how to articulate, for it is by the medium of hearing that such instruction is acquired.

A man, as a general rule, owes very little to what he is born with - a man is what he makes of himself.

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

I have discovered that my interest in my dear pupil, Mabel, has ripened into a far deeper feeling than that of mere friendship. In fact, I know that I have learned to love her very sincerely.

Morse conquered his electrical difficulties although he was only a painter, and I don't intend to give in either till all is completed.

It is not, of course, complete yet - but some sentences were understood this afternoon... I feel that I have at last struck the solution of a great problem - and the day is coming when telegraph wires will be laid onto houses just like water or gas - and friends converse with each other without leaving home.

I do not recognize the right of the public to break in the front door of a man's private life in order to satisfy the gaze of the curious... I do not think it right to dissect living men even for the advancement of science. So far as I am concerned, I prefer a post mortem examination to vivisection without anaesthetics.

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.

Before anything else, preparation is the key to success.

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

Sometimes we stare so long at a door that is closing that we see too late the one that is open.

I would impress upon your minds the fact that if you want to do a man justice, you should believe what a man says himself rather than what people say he says.

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.

The nation that secures control of the air will ultimately control the world.

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

First words on the first telephone - "Mr. Watson - come here - I want to see you."

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

Don't keep forever on the public road, going only where others have gone. Leave the beaten track occasionally and dive into the woods. You will be certain to find something you have never seen before. Of course it will be a little thing, but do not ignore it. One discovery will lead to another, and before you know it, you will have something worth thinking about to occupy your mind, and really big discoveries are the result of thought.

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.

One day every major city in America will have a telephone.

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.

I have always considered myself as an Agnostic.

When one door closes, another one opens.

God has strewn our paths with wonders and we certainly should not go through life with our eyes shut

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

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

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.

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.

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

Great discoveries and improvements invariably involve the cooperation of many minds.

With every door that closes a new one opens.

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.

Leave the beaten track behind occasionally and dive into the woods.

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.

Observe, Remember, Compare.

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!

Another discovery which came out of my investigation was the fact that when one gives his or her order to produce a definite result and stands by that order, it seems to have the effect of giving one what might be termed a second sight which enables him or her 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 one is in that state of mind in which he or she knows exactly what one wants and is fully determined not to quit until he or she finds it.

The most successful men in the end are those whose success is the result of steady accretion. It is the man who carefully advances step by step, with his mind becoming wider and wider - and progressively better able to grasp any theme or situation - persevering in what he knows to be practical, and concentrating his thought upon it, who is bound to succeed in the greatest degree.

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

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

The great advantage [the telephone] possesses over every other form of electrical apparatus consists in the fact that it requires no skill to operate the instrument.

Washington is no place in which to carry out inventions

Night is a more quiet time to work. It aids thought.

The day will come when the man at the telephone will be able to see the distant person to whom he is speaking.

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.

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.

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.

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