The motors I build there were exactly as I imagined them. I made no attempt to improve the design, but merely reproduced the pictures as they appeared to my vision and the operation was always as I expected.

We should begin at the very root from which we spring, we should effect a radical reform in the character of the food.

How extraordinary was my life an incident may illustrate... [As a youth] I was fascinated by a description of Niagara Falls. I had perused, and pictured in my imagination a big wheel run by the Falls. I told my uncle that I would go to America and carry out this scheme. Thirty years later I saw my ideas carried out at Niagara and marveled at the unfathomable mystery of the mind.

My mother understood human nature better and never chided. She knew that a man cannot be saved from his own foolishness or vice by someone else's efforts or protests, but only by the use of his own will.

What we now want is closer contact and better understanding between individuals and communities all over the earth, and the elimination of egoism and pride which is always prone to plunge the world into primeval barbarism and strife... Peace can only come as a natural consequence of universal enlightenment.

I come from a very wiry and long-lived race. Some of my ancestors have been centenarians, and one of them lived 129 years. I am determined to keep up the record and please myself with prospects of great promise. Then again, nature has given me a vivid imagination.

Of all things I liked books best. My father had a large library and whenever I could manage I tried to satisfy my passion for reading.