Alexander Graham Bell Quotes - Page 2

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

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

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.

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

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.

I have always considered myself as an Agnostic.

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.

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.

With every door that closes a new one opens.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

Washington is no place in which to carry out inventions

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I have had the feeling that a properly constructed flying-machine should be capable of being flown as a kite; and conversely, that a properly constructed kite should be capable of use as a flying-machine when driven by its own propellers.