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

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.

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.

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

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

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

The problem with leaderless uprisings taking over is that you don’t always know what you get at the other end. If you are not careful you could replace a bad government with one much worse!

There is no harm in being sometimes wrong – especially if one is promptly found out.

Government machinery has been described as a marvelous labor saving device which enables ten men to do the work of one.

Belief in oneself and knowing who you are, I mean, that’s the foundation for everything great.

The drive for power is not uncommonly motivated by this dynamic. One’s own fear and sense of limitation is avoided by enlarging oneself and one’s sphere of control.

There is nothing to fear from someone who shouts.

One of the most surprising things in life is the sudden realization that one has become old.

Sincerity is never having an idea of oneself.