Robert Henry Thurston

"Great inventions are never, and great discoveries are seldom, the work of any one mind. Every great invention is really an aggregation of minor inventions, or the final step of a progression. It is not usually a creation, but a growth, as truly so as is the growth of the trees in the forest."

"The wonderful progress of the present century is, in very great degree, due to the invention and improvement of the steam-engine."