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Elisha Gray
(2 Aug 1835 - 21 Jan 1901)
American inventor whose designs for the telephone were overtaken by Alexander Graham Bell. However, Gray was instead successful with many other innovations.
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Science Quotes by Elisha Gray (6 quotes)
“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth…” Whatever our speculations may be in regard to a “beginning,” and when it was, it is written in the rocks that, like the animals and plants upon its surface, the earth itself grew.
— Elisha Gray
In Nature's Miracles: Familiar Talks on Science (1899), Vol. 1, 1.
A man who is all theory is like “a rudderless ship on a shoreless sea.” … Theories and speculations may be indulged in with safety only as long as they are based on facts that we can go back to at all times and know that we are on solid ground.
— Elisha Gray
In Nature's Miracles: Familiar Talks on Science (1899), Vol. 1, Introduction, vii.
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
Letter to William D. Baldwin, his attorney (1 Nov 1876). Telephone Investigating Committee, House of Representatives, United States 49th Congress, 1st Session, Miscellaneous Documents (1886), No. 355, 1186.
Some may claim that is it unscientific to speak of the operations of nature as “miracles.” But the point of the title lies in the paradox of finding so many wonderful things … subservient to the rule of law.
— Elisha Gray
In Nature’s Miracles: Familiar Talks on Science (1899), Vol. 1, Introduction, v.
When the uncultured man sees a stone in the road it tells him no story other than the fact that he sees a stone … The scientist looking at the same stone perhaps will stop, and with a hammer break it open, when the newly exposed faces of the rock will have written upon them a history that is as real to him as the printed page.
— Elisha Gray
In Nature’s Miracles: Familiar Talks on Science (1899), Vol. 1, 2.
When, however, you see the specification, you will see that the fundamental principles are contained therein. I do not, however, claim even the credit of inventing it, as I do not believe a mere description of an idea that has never been reduced to practice—in the strict sense of that phrase—should be dignified with the name invention.
— Elisha Gray
Letter (5 Mar 1877) to Alexander Graham Bell. Quoted in The Bell Telephone (1908), 168.
See also:
- 2 Aug - short biography, births, deaths and events on date of Gray's birth.
In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
(1987) -- 
