I can undertake and persevere even without hope of success.
I have always made a point in my romances of basing my so-called inventions upon a groundwork of actual fact, and of using in their construction methods and materials which are not entirely without the pale of contemporary engineering skill and knowledge.
A scholar has to know a little of everything.
If there were no thunder, men would have little fear of lightning.
It was obvious that the matter had to be settled, and evasions were distasteful to me.
Nothing is more dreadful than private duels in America. The two adversaries attack each other like wild beasts. Then it is that they might well covet those wonderful properties of the Indians of the prairies - their quick intelligence, their ingenious cunning, their scent of the enemy.