12 Inspiring Quotes from Thomas Edison

Here at are a few of Datavo's favorite quotes by Thomas Edison, one of the fathers of the telephone.

• I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.

• Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.

• Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.

• Hell, there are no rules here - we're trying to accomplish something.

• Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.

• Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages.

• Maturity is often more absurd than youth and very frequently is most unjust to youth.

• Anything that won't sell, I don't want to invent. Its sale is proof of utility, and utility is success.

• Nearly every man who develops an idea works it up to the point where it looks impossible, and then he gets discouraged. That's not the place to become discouraged.

• The reason a lot of people do not recognize opportunity is because it usually goes around wearing overalls looking like hard work.

• Being busy does not always mean real work. The object of all work is production or accomplishment and to either of these ends there must be forethought, system, planning, intelligence, and honest purpose, as well as perspiration. Seeming to do is not doing.

• If we did all the things we are capable of, we would literally astound ourselves.

9 Quotes About the Telephone

Take a look at Datavo's favorite quotes on the telephone.

• "Grand telegraphic discovery today ... Transmitted vocal sounds for the first time ... With some further modification I hope we may be enabled to distinguish ... the 'timbre' of the sound. Should this be so, conversation viva voce by telegraph will be a fait accompli." ~ Alexander Graham Bell

• '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.' ~ Alexander Graham Bell

• I have read somewhere that the resistance offered by a wire ... is affected by the tension of the wire. If this is so, a continuous current of electricity passed through a vibrating wire should meet with a varying resistance, and hence a pulsatory action should be induced in the current ... [corresponding] in amplitude, as well as in rate of movement, to the vibrations of the string ... [Thus] the timbre of a sound [a quality essential to intelligible speech] could be transmitted ... [and] the strength of the current can be increased ad libitum without destroying the relative intensities of the vibrations. ~ Alexander Graham Bell

• I then shouted into M [the mouthpiece] the following sentence: 'Mr. Watson-—Come here—I want to see you.' To my delight he came and declared that he had heard and understood what I said. I asked him to repeat the words. He answered 'You said—'Mr. Watson—-come here—I want to see you.' We then changed places and I listened at S [the reed receiver] while Mr. Watson read a few passages from a book into the mouth piece M. It was certainly the case that articulate sounds proceeded from S. The effect was loud but indistinct and muffled. If I had read beforehand the passage given by Mr. Watson I should have recognized every word. As it was I could not make out the sense—but an occasional word here and there was quite distinct. I made out 'to' and 'out' and 'further'; and finally the sentence 'Mr. Bell do you understand what I say? Do—you—un—der—stand—what—I—say' came quite clearly and intelligibly. No sound was audible when the armature S was removed. ~ Alexander Graham Bell

• As to Bell's talking telegraph, it only creates interest in scientific circles, and, as a toy it is beautiful; but ... its commercial value will be limited. ~ Elisha Gray

• TELESCOPE, n. A device having a relation to the eye similar to that of the telephone to the ear, enabling distant objects to plague us with a multitude of needless details. Luckily it is unprovided with a bell summoning us to the sacrifice. ~ Ambrose Bierce

• TELEPHONE, n. An invention of the devil which abrogates some of the advantages of making a disagreeable person keep his distance. ~ Ambrose Bierce

• Every improvement that is put upon the real estate is the result of an idea in somebody's head. The skyscraper is another idea; the railroad is another; the telephone and all those things are merely symbols which represent ideas. An andiron, a wash-tub, is the result of an idea that did not exist before. ~ Mark Twain

• If you had come to me a hundred years ago, do you think I should have dreamed of the telephone? Why, even now I cannot understand it! I use it every day, I transact half my correspondence by means of it, but I don’t understand it. Thnk of that little stretched disk of iron at the end of a wire repeating in your ear not only sounds, but words—not only words, but all the most delicate and elusive inflections and nuances of tone which separate one human voice from another! Is not that something of a miracle? ~  Sir William Crookes

6 Quotes from Alexander Graham Bell

If you don't know who Alexander Graham Bell is you must live under a rock! Most likely you use his invention everyday - the TELEPHONE of course!

Alexander Graham Bell c. 1914-1919

Not only was he credited for inventing the telephone he also invented many other things in the fields of  optical telecommunications, aeronautics, and hydrofoils. He went into the field of researching hearing and speech technologies due to this mother and wife being deaf.

Here are 6 of his most profound quotes:

"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."

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

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

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

"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."

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

In 1888, he helped found the National Geographic Society and is looked at as one of the most influential people in human history. Datavo salutes him!