The United States as we know it today is largely the result of mechanical inventions, and in particular of agricultural machinery and the railroad.

The nation did not begin to realize the extraordinary possibilities of the vast Western territory until its attention was thus suddenly and definitely concentrated on the Pacific by the annual addition of over fifty million dollars to the circulating medium.

In the decade before the Civil War various north and south lines of railway were projected and some of these were assisted by grants of land from the Federal Government.

Great men are usually the products of their times and one of the men developed by these times takes rank with the greatest railroad leaders in history.

With the reorganization of 1898 finished, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad entered a new period in its history.

Farmers, merchants, manufacturers, and the traveling public have all had their troubles with the transportation lines, and the difficulties to which these struggles have given rise have produced that problem which is even now apparently far from solution.

When the scheme for the construction of a railroad from Baltimore to the waters of the Ohio River first began to take form, the United States had barely emerged from the Revolutionary period.

The construction of extensive railways, however, and particularly the consolidation of small, experimental lines into large systems, dates from the days of the discovery of gold in California.

The United States as we know it today is largely the result of mechanical inventions, and in particular of agricultural machinery and the railroad.

Horses and mules, and even sail cars, made more rapid progress than did the earliest locomotive.

Many of the railroad evils were inherent in the situation; they were explained by the fact that both managers and public were dealing with a new agency whose laws they did not completely understand.

Yet, in 1850 nearly all the railroads in the United States lay east of the Mississippi River, and all of them, even when they were physically mere extensions of one another, were separately owned and separately managed.

People began to understand that with the acquisition of California the nation had obtained practically half a continent, of which the future possibilities were almost unlimited, so far as the development of natural resources and the genera production of wealth were concerned.

The close relationship between railroad expansion and the genera development and prosperity of the country is nowhere brought more distinctly into relief than in connection with the construction of the Pacific railroads.

The public conviction that a railroad linking the West and the East was an absolute necessity became so pronounced after the gold discoveries of '49 that Congress passed an act in 1853 providing for a survey of several lines from the Mississippi to the Pacific.

As the contest proceeded, public interest increased and the entire country watched to see which company would win the big government subsidies through the mountains.

Consequently many large railroad systems of heavy capitalization bid fair to run into difficulties on the first serious falling off in general business.

The States which form the northern border of the United States westward from the Great Lakes to the Pacific coast include an area several times larger than France and could contain ten Englands and still have room to spare.

The railroad originally was as completely dissociated from steam propulsion as was the ship.

While no one railroad can completely duplicate another line, two or more may compete at particular points.

In the United States three new methods of transportation made their appearance at almost the same time - the steamboat, the canal boat, and the rail car.

The history of the Erie Railroad ever since 1901 has been a record of progress.

The financial history of the Baltimore and Ohio since the close of the nineteenth century is interesting chiefly in connection with changes in the control of the property.

The railroad is sprung from the application of two fundamental ideas one the use of a mechanical means of developing speed, the other the use of a smooth running surface to diminish friction.

This is the patent age of new inventions for killing bodies, and for saving souls. All propagated with the best intentions.

Of all of our inventions for mass communication, pictures still speak the most universally understood language.

Community colleges are one of America's great social inventions a gateway to the future for first time students looking for an affordable college education, and for mid-career students looking to get ahead in the workplace.

People never knew we were poor, but out of that poverty came the most incredible inventions - board games, recipes... we never stopped inventing.

Until democracy in effective enthusiastic action fills the vacuum created by the power of modern inventions, we may expect the fascists to increase in power after the war both in the United States and in the world.

Of all human inventions the organization, a machine constructed of people performing interdependent functions, is the most powerful.

I never did anything worth doing by accident, nor did any of my inventions come by accident; they came by work.

Most of them are doomed to rapid extinction, but a few may make evolutionary inventions, such as physiological, ecological, or behavioral innovations that give these species improved competitive potential.

I'm afraid for all those who'll have the bread snatched from their mouths by these machines. What business has science and capitalism got, bringing all these new inventions into the works, before society has produced a generation educated up to using them!

But what has America to boast? What are the graces or the virtues which distinguish its inhabitants? What are their triumphs in war, or their inventions in peace?

Order, unity, and continuity are human inventions, just as truly as catalogues and encyclopedias.

Men of genius sometimes accomplish most when they work the least, for they are thinking out inventions and forming in their minds the perfect idea that they subsequently express with their hands.

Human subtlety will never devise an invention more beautiful, more simple or more direct than does nature because in her inventions nothing is lacking, and nothing is superfluous.

The art of an artist must be his own art. It is... always a continuous chain of little inventions, little technical discoveries of one's own, in one's relation to the tool, the material and the colors.

The inventions and the great discoveries have opened up whole continents to reciprocal communication and interchange, provided we are willing.

All of the biggest technological inventions created by man - the airplane, the automobile, the computer - says little about his intelligence, but speaks volumes about his laziness.

Life is composed of different inventions.

I never did anything by accident, nor did any of my inventions come by accident; they came by work.

In reading the scriptures of truth, we often put wrong constructions upon them, and apply them improperly; and I apprehend it has often been the case in relation to this portion, particularly that part in relation to man's seeking out many inventions.

All one's inventions are true, you can be sure of that. Poetry is as exact a science as geometry.

A major one which no one can overlook is technological and based on inventions and discoveries which have altered the whole basis of production and deeply affected social relations.

Our inventions mirror our secret wishes.

Homo sapiens is the species that invents symbols in which to invest passion and authority, then forgets that symbols are inventions.

Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end.

We daily witness the beneficial effect produced to the community by the institution of premiums, held out to encourage the inventions of ingenious mechanics.