Alexander Graham Bell quotes

" Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work at hand. The sun's rays do not burn until brought to a focus. " # Concentration

" Before anything else, preparation is the key to success. " # Success

" A man, as a general rule, owes very little to what he is born with -- a man is what he makes of himself. " # Responsibility # Death and Dying # Friends and Friendship

" 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. " # Success # Progress # Concentration

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

" 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. " # Success

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

" 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. " # Opportunity

" 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. " # Determination # Power # Mind

" 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. " # Invention and Inventor # Cooperation # Beauty