Quite likely the twentieth century is destined to see the natural forces which will enable us to fly from continent to continent with a speed far exceeding that of a bird.

Whenever a total eclipse of the sun was visible in an accessible region parties were sent out to observe it.

In 1860 a total eclipse of the sun was visible in British America.

My father was the most rational and the most dispassionate of men.

The beginning of 1856 found me teaching in the family of a planter named Bryan, residing in Prince George County, Md., some fifteen or twenty miles from Washington.

As the existence of a corps of professors of mathematics is peculiar to our navy, as well as an apparent, perhaps a real, anomaly, some account of it may be of interest.

Flight by machines heavier than air is unpractical and insignificant, if not utterly impossible.

We are probably nearing the limit of all we can know about astronomy.

What we now call school training, the pursuit of fixed studies at stated hours under the constant guidance of a teacher, I could scarcely be said to have enjoyed.

So far as the economic condition of society and the general mode of living and thinking were concerned, I might claim to have lived in the time of the American Revolution.

If my impressions are correct, our educational planing mill cuts down all the knots of genius, and reduces the best of the men who go through it to much the same standard.

The measure of a society is not only what it does but the quality of its aspirations.

It’s true: Medium has the best web-based editor I’ve ever seen. And I’ve seen them all.

Canada, as you know, is a major important nation boasting a sophisticated, cosmopolitan culture that was tragically destroyed last week by beavers.

Governments can be useful to the governed only so long as inherent tendencies toward tyranny are restrained.

We cannot heal the throbbing heart till we discern the wounds within.

Yet a real artist, I've noticed, will survive anything. (Even praise, I happily suspect.)

Always turn to God in the midst of your struggle and view people who offended you as an instruments of divine sovereignty.

Some things get better with age. Like me.

I suppose comedy is my first love, in a way.

There's no suggestion of why people might have voted for [Donald] Trump.