Zitate von Alexander Graham Bell

Bell Telephone Talk (1901)
Kontext: The most successful men in the end are those whose success is the result of steady accretion. That intellectuality is more vigorous that has attained its strength gradually. 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.

Bell Telephone Talk (1901)
Kontext: 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.

Bell Telephone Talk (1901)
Kontext: I begin my work at about nine or ten o'clock in the evening and continue until four or five in the morning. Night is a more quiet time to work. It aids thought.

As quoted in Making a Habit of Success: How to Make a Habit of Succeeding, How to Win With High Self-Esteem (1999) by MacK R. Douglas, p. 45. Unsourced variant: What this power is, I cannot say. All I know is that it exists... and it becomes available only when you are in that state of mind in which you know exactly what you want...and are fully determined not to quit until you get it.
Kontext: I had made up my mind to find that for which I was searching even if it required the remainder of my life. After innumerable failures I finally uncovered the principle for which I was searching, and I was astounded at its simplicity. I was still more astounded to discover the principle I had revealed not only beneficial in the construction of a mechanical hearing aid but it served as well as means of sending the sound of the voice over a wire. Another discovery which came out of my investigation was the fact that when a man gives his order to produce a definite result and stands by that order it seems to have the effect of giving him what might be termed a second sight which enables him to see right through ordinary problems. 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.

As appears on plaque in the entrance to the Alexander Graham Bell Museum http://www.pc.gc.ca/lhn-nhs/ns/grahambell/index_e.asp in Baddeck, Nova Scotia, Canada.

As quoted in "The Chemistry of Life" by Ralph Whiteside Kerr in Rosicrucian Digest (1947), p. 131.
Disputed
Kontext: Don't keep forever on the public road. Leave the beaten track behind occasionally and dive into the woods. You will be certain to find something you have never seen before, and something worth thinking about to occupy your mind. All really big discoveries are the result of thought.

Statement to a reporter a few months before he died, as quoted at Alexander Graham Bell Family Papers at the Library of Congress http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/bellhtml/bellinvent.html

As quoted in Sophia's Fire (2005) by Sango Mbella, p. 133.

Bell Telephone Talk (1901)

Statement to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, in Boston, Massachusetts (27 August 1880): published as "On the Production and Reproduction of Sound by Light" in American Journal of Sciences, Third Series, vol. XX, n°118 (October 1880), pp. 305-324.