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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

...What I depend on is a vigorous audience that can discover sweetness and light, beauty and truth, beyond the ability of the artist, on his own, to create them.

If I am worth anything later, I am worth something now. For wheat is wheat, even if people think it is a grass in the beginning.

Jefferson and Washington had no idea these idiots would exist, otherwise they would not have made killing illegal.

Few are there that will leave the secure seclusion of the scholar's life, the peaceful walks of literature and learning, to stand out a target for the criticism of unkind and hostile minds.

Love begets courage, moderation creates abundance and humility generates power

You watch the news these days? It's unbelievable. You think you just walk out your door, you're immediately gonna be raped by some crack-addicted, AIDS-infected pitbull.

Alas! for love, if thou art all, And nought beyond, O earth.

I'm in shape. Round is a shape.

My acting stopped being about disguise and became about truth which suits the camera, so my film career took off when I came out.

The people who have more money and goods than any people in the history of the world spend most of their time worrying about not having enough.