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

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

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

First words on the first telephone – “Mr. Watson – come here – I want to see you.”

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

When one door closes, another one opens.

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.

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.

Such is the nature of crowds: either they are humble and servile or arrogant and dominating. They are incapable of making moderate use of freedom, which is the middle course, or of keeping it.

There are no limits to what you can create for you, because your ability to think is unlimited! But you cannot create other people’s lives for them. You cannot think for them, and if you try to force your opinions on others you will only attract like forces to you. So let all others create the life they want.

The main thing is the YOU beneath the clothes and skin–the ability to do, the will to conquer, the determination to understand and know this great, wonderful, curious world.

Singing kind of came out of nowhere.

Greatness is always built on this foundation: the ability to appear, speak and act, as the most common man.

My parents make sure we have everything we need so that we compete to the best of our abilities.

The camera cannot, but the photographer can.

The greatness of America lies not in being more enlightened than any other nation, but rather in her ability to repair her faults.