Painterly brass telephone earpiece and small gears beside an unrolled technical drawing.

Original artwork, not a still

Alexander Graham Bell

Perseverance must have some practical end, or it does not avail the man possessing it. A person without a practical end in view becomes a crank or an idiot. Such persons fill our asylums.

Behind the line

What it means

Our interpretation.

The statement makes a practical goal the dividing line between useful persistence and fixation. Its harsh labels and reference to asylums intensify that judgment, reflecting the speaker's rhetoric rather than establishing a clinical explanation. The central claim is that effort needs a purpose to be valuable.

Context reviewed

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