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

— Alexander Graham Bell

Bell Telephone Talk (1901)

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Alexander Graham Bell 20

scientist and inventor known for his work on the telephone 1847–1922

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“The great man, then, knows when and in what he is a little man.”

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“We spoil countless precious things by intellectual greed. He who will be a man, and will not be a child, must — he cannot help himself — become a little man, that is, a dwarf. He will, however, need no consolation, for he is sure to think himself a very large creature indeed.”

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The best way with music, I imagine, is not to bring the forces of our intellect to bear upon it, but to be still and let it work on that part of us for whose it exists. We spoil countless precious things by intellectual greed. He who will be a man, and will not be a child, must — he cannot help himself — become a little man, that is, a dwarf. He will, however, need no consolation, for he is sure to think himself a very large creature indeed.
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“No man is born unto himself alone;
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Francis Quarles (1592–1644) English poet

Esther (1621), Sec. 1, Meditation 1.

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

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