“We are striking it big in the electric light, better than my vivid imagination first conceived. Where this thing is going to stop Lord only knows.”

“It is apparent to me that the possibilities of the aeroplane, which two or three years ago were thought to hold the solution to the [flying machine] problem, have been exhausted, and that we must turn elsewhere.”

“Oh these mathematicians make me tired! When you ask them to work out a sum they take a piece of paper, cover it with rows of A's, B's, and X's and Y's ... scatter a mess of flyspecks over them, and then give you an answer that's all wrong!”

“I get my ideas from listening from within.”

“In creating technology for ourselves we created it for the world.”

“My grief lies onward, and my joy behind.”

“O! that a man might know The end of this day's business, ere it come; But it sufficeth that the day will end, And then the end is known.”

“The bitter past, more welcome is the sweet.”