Alexander Graham Bell
Telephone inventor
Sayings by Alexander Graham Bell
The best way to predict the future is to invent it.
The greatest achievement is to rise above yourself.
I have always been a firm believer in the power of hard work and perseverance.
It is a bad plan that admits of no modification.
Before you can achieve anything, you must know what you want. And you must be prepared to sacrifice your comfort to get it.
The most important thing is to keep on trying, to never give up.
I am a firm believer in the future of aviation.
The telephone will revolutionize communication.
We should not permit the deaf to intermarry, nor should we permit the marriage of a deaf-mute with a hearing person, nor the marriage of persons with deaf relatives.
A man, as a general rule, owes very little to what he is born with — a man is what he makes of himself.
I have always considered myself as an Agnostic...
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 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. The spirit of invention possesses him, seeking materialization.
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. It is perseverance in the pursuit of studies that is really wanted.
The most successful men in the end are those whose success is the result of steady accretion. That intellectuality is more vigorous that has attained its strength gradually. 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 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.
Any one, if he will only observe, can find some little thing he does not understand as a starter for an investigation.
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.
Observe, Remember, Compare.
Perseverance is the chief; but perseverance must have some practical end, or it does not avail the man possessing it. A person without a practical end in view becomes a crank or an idiot. Such persons fill our insane asylums.