Man is never perfect nor contented.

Civilization never recedes; the law of necessity ever forces it onwards.

It was obvious that the matter had to be settled, and evasions were distasteful to me.

He who is mistaken in an action which he sincerely believes to be right may be an enemy, but retains our esteem.

The colonists had no library at their disposal; but the engineer was a book which was always at hand, always open at the page which one wanted, a book which answered all their questions, and which they often consulted.

An energetic man will succeed where an indolent one would vegetate and inevitably perish.

On the morrow the horizon was covered with clouds- a thick and impenetrable curtain between earth and sky, which unhappily extended as far as the Rocky Mountains. It was a fatality!