If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance.

I have offended God and mankind because my work didn't reach the quality it should have.

I invented nothing new. I simply assembled the discoveries of other men behind whom were centuries of work. Had I worked fifty or ten or even five years before, I would have failed. So it is with every new thing. Progress happens when all the factors that make for it are ready, and then it is inevitable. To teach that a comparatively few men are responsible for the greatest forward steps of mankind is the worst sort of nonsense.

The desire to provide security for oneself and one's family is natural and wholesome, but it is adequately served by a reasonable inheritance.

I love playing and chatting with children...feeding and putting them to bed with a little story, and being away from the family has troubled me throughout my...life. I like relaxing at the house, reading quietly, taking in the sweet smell that comes from the pots, sitting around a table with the family and taking out my wife and children. When you can no longer enjoy these simple pleasures something valuable is taken away from your life and you feel it in your daily work.

There is a universal respect and even admiration for those who are humble and simple by nature, and who have absolute confidence in all human beings irrespective of their social status.