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 telephone will be used to inform people that a telegram has been sent.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote highlights the evolution of communication technology and the interconnectedness of different messaging mediums.
Alexander Graham Bell's quote reflects the innovative spirit of technological advancement, demonstrating how one form of communication can serve to announce another. The telephone was a groundbreaking invention that not only changed personal interactions but also facilitated the swift transmission of information, which was essential in a world where telegrams were prevalent. This intertwining of communication methods showcases the ongoing progress in how humans connect and share messages over time.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a presentation about the history of communication technologies.
More from Alexander Graham Bell
All quotes →Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work at hand. The sun's rays do not burn until brought to a focus.
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.
A man, as a general rule, owes very little to what he is born with - a man is what he makes of himself.
America is a country of inventors, and the greatest of inventors are the newspaper men.
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.
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Computers bootstrap their own offspring, grow so wise and incomprehensible that their communiqués assume the hallmarks of dementia: unfocused and irrelevant to the barely-intelligent creatures left behind. And when your surpassing creations find the answers you asked for, you can't understand their analysis and you can't verify their answers. You have to take their word on faith.
People who are more than casually interested in computers should have at least some idea of what the underlying hardware is like. Otherwise the programs they write will be pretty weird.
The minimum we should hope for with any display technology is that it should do no harm.