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

I have heard articulate speech produced by sunlight I have heard a ray of the sun laugh and cough and sing! … I have been able to hear a shadow, and I have even perceived by ear the passage of a cloud across the sun's disk.

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.

The final result of our researches has widened the class of substances sensitive to light vibrations, until we can propound the fact of such sensitiveness being a general property of all matter.

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

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

Leave the beaten track behind occasionally and dive into the woods.

Mr. Watson -- Come here -- I want to see you.
First intelligible words spoken over the telephone.

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.

Morse conquered his electrical difficulties although he was only a painter, and I don't intend to give in either till all is completed.

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.

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

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

It is not, of course, complete yet -- but some sentences were understood this afternoon... I feel that I have at last struck the solution of a great problem -- and the day is coming when telegraph wires will be laid onto houses just like water or gas -- and friends converse with each other without leaving home.

It is hardly an exaggeration to say that oral teachers and sign teachers found it difficult to sit down in the same room without quarreling, and there was intolerance upon both sides. To say 'oral method' to a sign teacher was like waving a red flag in the face of a bull, and to say 'sign language' to an oralist aroused the deepest resentment.

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

The inventor...looks 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.

Such a chimerical idea as telegraphing vocal sounds would indeed, to most minds, seem scarcely feasible enough to spend time in working over. I believe, however, that it is feasible and that I have got the cue to the solution of the problem.

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.

Before anything else, preparation is the key to success.