"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."

"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."

"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'll be certain to find something you have never seen before."

"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."

"Mr. Watson — Come here — I want to see you. [First intelligible words spoken over the telephone]"

"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."

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

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

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

"I have always considered myself as an Agnostic..."

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

"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."

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

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

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

"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!"

"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."

"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."

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

"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."

"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."

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

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