Neither had Watt of the Steam engine a heroic origin, any kindred with the princes of this world. The princes of this world were shooting their partridges... While this man with blackened fingers, with grim brow, was searching out, in his workshop, the Fire-secret.

There are but two ways of paying debt: Increase of industry in raising income, increase of thrift in laying out.

Custom doth make dotards of us all.

In a different time, in a different place, it is always some other side of our common human nature that has been developing itself. The actual truth is the sum of all these.

He that can work is born to be king of something.

One seems to believe almost all that they believe; and when they stop short and call it a Religion, and you pass on, and call it only a reminiscence of one, should you not part with the kiss of peace?

It is no very good symptom, either of nations or individuals, that they deal much in vaticination. Happy men are full of the present, for its bounty suffices them; and wise men also, for its duties engage them. Our grand business undoubtedly is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what clearly lies at hand.