“Over the years, I had nurtured the hope to be able to fly; to handle a machine as it rose higher and higher in the stratosphere was my dearest dream.”

“I'm not an expert on the arms race.”

“Convergence of our views on global trade issues under the WTO and our common resolve to combat terrorism provide a valuable base for mutual understanding.”

“There is not enough funding for basic sciences in India. We have to invest in a big way, and I am pushing that idea.”

“If you want to shine like the sun, first burn like the sun.”

“Whenever a true theory appears, it will be its own evidence. Its test is, that it will explain all phenomena.”

“The Good Spirit never cared for the colleges, and though all men and boys were now drilled in Greek, Latin, and Mathematics, it had quite left these shells high on the beach, and was creating and feeding other matters [science] at other ends of the world.”

“Every known fact in natural science was divined by the presentiment of somebody, before it was actually verified.”

“Is this government of Britain's Isle, and this the royalty of Albion's King?”

“What a benefit would the American government, not yet relieved of its extreme need, render to itself, and to every city, village and hamlet in the States, if it would tax whiskey and rum almost to the point of prohibition! Was it Bonaparte who said that he found vices very good patriots? "He got five millions from the love of brandy, and he should be glad to know which of the virtues would pay him as much." Tobacco and opium have broad backs, and will cheerfully carry the load of armies, if you choose to make them pay high for such joy as they give and such harm as they do.”

“The State is a poor, good beast who means the best: it means friendly.”

“The machine unmakes the man. Now that the machine is so perfect, the engineer is nobody.”

“Railroad iron is a magician's rod, in its power to evoke the sleeping energies of land and water.”

“Man moves in all modes, by legs of horses, by wings of winds, by steam, by gas of balloon, by electricity, and stands on tiptoe threatening to hunt the eagle in his own element.”