As for difficulties," replied Ferguson, in a serious tone, "they were made to be overcome.

My house is small, but may heaven grant that it is never full of friends.

It is a great misfortune to be alone, my friends; and it must be believed that solitude can quickly destroy reason.

The wisest man may be a blind father.

There are no impossible obstacles; there are just stronger and weaker wills, that’s all!

External objects produce decided effects upon the brain. A man shut up between four walls soon loses the power to associate words and ideas together. How many prisoners in solitary confinement become idiots, if not mad, for want of exercise for the thinking faculty!

I have always fancied that the end of the world will be when some enormous boiler, heated to three thousand millions of atmospheric pressure, shall explode and blow up the globe. ... They [the Americans] are great boilermakers.